I'd try and move away from the Anticon side of things and into other areas of hiphop otherwise you're missing out on so much incredible music.

As mentioned before, go to Def Jux first as an entrypoint: El-P - Fantastic Damage, Mr Lif - I Phantom, Cannibal Ox - The Cold Vein. Not on DJ but also try Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus and Edan - Beauty and the Beat. All are modern classics and have a deepseated love in hiphop. Then get Nas' Illmatic - one of the best albums ever made.

The great thing about hiphop is that it all links together - producers, guest stars, collaborations etc. You can build your own map moving outwards by seeing what you like on various records, which is much harder with other genres.

in addition to the classics ('It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back', 'Straight Outta Compton', 'The Chronic', '36 Chambers', 'Paul's Boutique', '...Endtroducing') I would highly recommend the following:

Buck 65 - Talking Honky Blues (gravel-toned country-hip-hop)
Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass (brilliant, eloquent and humourous)
Sleep - Christopher ('slacker' hiphop, laid back and musically interesting)
Hangar 18 - The Multiplatinum Debut Album (what I'd call 'classic' hiphop, just loads of sweet rhymes and thumping beats - cracking)
Sage Francis - A Healthy Distrust (agressive yet eloquent, really unique style)

and try out stuff by Saul Williams (similar to Sage in many ways) and Josh Martinez (worked with Sleep a lot, part of Oldominion).

If you like cLOUDDEAD and Why? you'd probably also like 13&God and Subtle -all that Anticon stuff really.

Oh, and DiS favs like Cadence Weapon and El-P, you'll find a load of stuff about them on this site.

And you might like more laidback groovy stuff like De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest.

Meh, just my recommendations.

RB x

/end thread