Underground-ish artists

But that's not all, I wanted to mention a group called The Outsidaz. According to Wikipedia, The Outsidaz were a hip-hop group, most recognized for its connections to D12 and the Fugees. Associated with the Refugee Camp, The Outsidaz debuted in a commercial setting as special guests on the song "Cowboys" of the Fugees' triple platinum second album The Score. The hit song "Killing Me Softly" ended up with them being yelled at. They also worked on different projects as a collab group with D12. Eminem, the lead singer of D12, gives a shout-out to the Outsidaz in a bunch of his songs, including "As the World Turns," "I'm Shady," and the end of "Just Don't Give a F*ck." These songs are all from The Slim Shady LP. "Fine Line" was one of the tracks on the compilation album Shady XV, which was released by Eminem's Shady Records label. He raps a verse in the song showing how he appreciates the group. In a song that was originally supposed to be on the album called "Until Hell Freezes Over," he also appreciates them as well. When Young Zee and Pace Won recorded raps with Bizarre for the song "Amityville" on Eminem's album The Marshall Mathers LP, a friendship (kinda) between Eminem and Tha Outsidaz were made. Pace Won and Young Zee's verses were taken out of the song when Dr. Dre had a complaint about Eminem having too many guests on the record.

Not to mention, MF DOOM is an artist I also really wanted to bring up. With some of his top-charting hits, like "Doomsday," released in the early 2000s, he kinda became a mainstream-ish artist. He's underground for the most part, but he's underground for reallll. For example, Madvillainy got a bunch of positive reviews and peaked at 179 on the US Billboard 200. For a 2004 underground hip-hop album, it was pretty good. According to the article "3 Ways MF DOOM Changed Hip-hop" by BET, MF DOOM's music and character included qualities of artistic integrity, uniqueness, and sincerity that went beyond him and into the culture. He was a mysterious rapper who blended pop samples from the 1970s and 1980s with comic book visuals, ending up in his works influencing many rappers who came after him. To add to the plots he would put into his songs, he would even record albums under various identities he invented. In particular, he collaborated with Madlib on Madvillainy.