Throughout the years independent record labels have continued to evolve. Today independent is a term used to define any record label not owned or operated by any of the four major record companies (Sony, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI). And while the independent game is thriving in 2010, it isn’t exactly a new concept for rap artists.

In the 1980’s Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin established Def Jam Records from their NYU dorm room, before signing to CBS in 1985 for $2 million dollars. Pioneers like Luther Campbell (Skyywalker Records), J. Prince (Rap-A-Lot Records) and Tony Draper (Suave House) continued the trend and defined their independence outside of New York. In more recent memory, labels like Master P’s No Limit and Bryan “Birdman” Willams’ Cash Money Records went from local indie labels to multi-million dollar rap powerhouses. Today we have notable rap indies like Strange Music, Duck Down Records, Rhymesayers and Stones Throw.

Whether platinum selling titles or critically acclaimed works, hip-hop has a rich collection of independent releases. Today, to celebrate America’s independence, XXLMag makes a list of 25 essential indie hip-hop albums that every fan should be familiar with. All we see is fireworks.

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BDP Criminal Minded; B-Boy Records, 1987
It was his battle with the Juice Crew’s MC Shan that put KRS-One in the game, but it was his Boogie Down Productions group album Criminal Minded that cemented the Blastmaster’s place in hip-hop. Thanks to tracks like “Poetry” and the title track “Criminal Minded,” this album stands as one of rap’s defining works.

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Eric B. & Rakim Paid In Full; 4th and B’way, 1987
While rap was still in its formative years and the rhyme schemes were still simplistic, Long Island MC Rakim offered higher vocabulary and complex bars. His first album with DJ Eric B. featured classic songs like “I Know You Got Soul” and “I Ain’t No Joke.”

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N.W.A Straight Outta Compton; Ruthless/Priority, 1988
In 1988 N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton dropped like a bomb. Not only did the platinum-selling album establish West Coast rap dominance; its socio-political message drew attention from the F.B.I. who tried to shut the group down. Regardless songs like “Straight Outta Compton,” “Dopeman (remix)” and “Fuck tha Police” went on to influence gangsta rappers for years to come.

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EPMD Strictly Business; Fresh Records/Sleeping Bag Records, 1988
Without major label backing Erick and Parrish made dollars on their late-’80s debut. Joints like “You Gots to Chill” and “I’m Housin’” helped the brothers from Brentwood, Long Island established a healthy fan base. Sure some haters claimed that EPMD sounded like Rakim and that their music was wack, it didn’t matter because 30 days after its release the LP went gold.

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2 Live Crew As Nasty As They Wanna Be; Skyywalker Records, 1989
With one of the more fitting album titles in hip-hop history, Luther Campbell and his merry band of perverted MCs packaged sex and sold it a million times over with this LP. Featuring a thong clad cover and raunchy records to boot; As Nasty As They Wanna Be became the soundtrack for strip clubs across the world.

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Geto Boys We Can’t Be Stopped; Rap-A-Lot, 1991
Years before Diddy told you that he won’t stop, Houston, Texas’ Geto Boys were already establishing their movement. Fueled by the classic rap single, “Mind Playing tricks on Me,” Willie D., Bushwick Bill and Scarface took CEO J. Prince’s local Rap-A-Lot to the national spotlight. ’Nuff respect due.

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Mac Dre Young Black Brotha: The Album; Strictly Business, 1993
The Bay has always stood as the epitome of independent hip-hop hustle; enter Mac Dre. As a pioneer to the hyphy movement, Dre put a number of local Bay area artists on after he established his Thizz Music record label. His 1993 album Young Black Brotha: The Album is the one that started it all.

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Eightball & MJG Comin’ Out Hard; Suave House, 1993
What do you do if the major labels aren’t sending A&Rs and talent scouts to your hometown, well if you’re Memphis, Tennessee representatives Eightball & MJG, then you hook up with Tony Draper’s Suave House Records. With their debut album Comin’ Out Hard Ball and ’G proved that you didn’t have to come out on a major to drop a classic album.

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Blackmoon Enta Da Stage; Nervous, 1993
In the mid-1990’s groups like Wu-Tang Clan, Oynx and Brooklyn’s Blackmoon owned the New York rap scene. But while major labels backed the Wu and those crazy baldheads, Blackmoon put their debut out on an indie dance label by the name of Nervous Records. Led by MC Buckshot, Enta Da Stage became a welcomed addition to NY’s boom-bap legacy and helped lay the foundation for his and Dru Ha’s Duck Down Records.

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Bone Thugs-N-Harmony E. 1999 Eternal; Ruthless/Relativity, 1995
Hard to believe that this multi-platinum album was initially released independently, but before they were absorbed into the Sony system, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony dropped their first album on Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records, through Relativity. Thanks to songs like the Grammy-award winning single “Tha Crossroads,” E. 1999 Eternal is one of the brightest moments in the history of hip-hop independence.

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B.G. Chopper City; Cash Money, 1996
Before signing with Universal, Bryan “Birdman” Williams’ Cash Money Records was all the rage in New Orleans. One of the reasons? B.G.’s Chopper City. The Southern classic featured Juvenile and Bun B and was produced by Mannie Fresh.

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Jay-Z Reasonable Doubt, Roc-A-Fella/Priority; 1996
Hard to image any label turning down Jay-Z, but after Hov and company got shut down by major label suitors in the mid-1990s Rioc-A-Fella then took the independent route. Though the album was later re-released on Def Jam years later, initially Reasonable Doubt was dropped through then-independent distributor Priority Records. In the end, “Priority’s work wasn’t right” so Jigga switched factories. In a major way.

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Master P Ice Cream Man; No Limit Records/Priority, 1996
When Master P released his first platinum album Ice Cream Man in 1996 on No Limit through Priority Records, he caught hip-hop fans off guard. Most had never heard of the local New Orleans label or its flossy CEO. Things quickly changed when P took his independent hustle and used it to build one of rap’s most storied empires. Uhhhh!

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Company Flow Funcrusher Plus; Rawkus, 1997
Any mid-’90s NY rapper worth his weight in backpacks put something out on Rawkus Records at one time or another. The Queens trio known as Company Flow, first released their vinyl eight-song Funcrusher EP on Official Recordings in 1996. The following year they hooked up with Rawkus, added another 11 songs and dropped Funcrusher Plus to the delight of backpackers everywhere.

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Hieroglyphics 3rd Eye Vision; Hiero Imperium, 1998
Before Hiero, California was largely seen as a gangsta’s paradise. However, thanks to the airtight 3rd Eye Vision, that perception was flipped. The Oakland-based collective—including veterans Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Casual, Domino and Souls of Mischief—utilized a Wu-Tang-like chemistry to show that the West Coast underground world was not only thriving, but creating some of rap’s freshest material.

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Slum Village Fantastic Vol.2; GoodVibe, 2000
Beneath hip-hop’s surface, Fantastic Vol.2 changed the game. Wholly produced by then-SV-member J Dilla, it’s the precursor to the nostalgia-drenched grooves of groups such as Little Brother and Tanya Morgan. Though Dilla’s impeccable production has garnered the loudest acclaim, the verses on Fantastic Vol.2, voiced by villagers T3 and the Baatin, shine off their casualness and penchant for the most basic of content (skirt-chasing, money-wanting and the hunger for lyric-derived respect). It’s as easily enjoyable a listen now as it was a decade ago.

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Atmosphere God Loves Ugly; Rhymesayers, 2002
Nowadays, the term “emo-rap” is used more as a diss than a big-up; yet, there’s no better way to describe Minneapolis duo Atmosphere’s God Loves Ugly. Fortunately, the record is incredibly dense and expertly made. Slug, Atmosphere’s rhyming half, pours his heart out over 18 melancholy instrumentals courtesy of beatmaker Ant. The mood is consistently dour; even the album’s sole he-gets-the-girl moment, “Hair,” ends in a deadly car accident. Remember, though, that some of the best art comes from pain.

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Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz Kings of Crunk; TVT, 2002
Kings of Crunk may have come out on an indie, but Lil Jon and the Eastside Boyz’s forth album made a major impact. Mostly off the back of 2002’s inescapable single “Get Low,” featuring the Ying Yang Twins, Lil Jon and his boys slung over 2 million copies of the album. YEEEEAH!

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Little Brother The Listening; ABB Records, 2003
First, ?uestlove sang its praises; then, Pete Rock. Before the culture knew it, a trio of everyman purists from North Carolina (producer 9th Wonder rappers Phonte and Big Pooh) revitalized the old Native Tongues sound with this soulful, feelgood debut. From the breezy romance of “Nobody But You” to “Speed,” a vulnerable lamentation on life’s many stress factors, The Listening brought heads back to simpler times.

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Madvillian Madvillainy; Stones Throw, 2004
Everything about Madvillainy is unconventional. It’s a meeting of two eccentric minds, producer Madlib and off-kilter spitter MF Doom, which plays by no rules other than its own. Twelve of the record’s 22 tracks clock in under two minutes; Madlib layers the beats with unidentifiable, and hypnotic, samples; and Doom dares listeners to decipher his lyrics (from “Meat Grinder”: “Grind the cinnamon, Manhattan warmongers/You can find the Villain in satin congas”…huh?). Six years later, we’re still mesmerized.

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Cage Hell’s Winter; Def Jux, 2005
Prior to ’05, Chris “Cage” Palko’s music had been a disturbed blend of brutal metaphors and nightmarish concepts. Here, on his second solo effort, the once-troubled MC, clean off drugs and in a more analytical mindframe, shows off his complex songwriting skills. Cage’s takes on mind-bending horror (“Lord Have Mercy”), political lash-outs (“Grand Ol’ Party Crash”) and domestic tragedy (“Subtle Art of the Break-Up Song”) give Hell’s Winter an undeniable darkness, but his steady craftsmanship turns even the craziest of subject matter into must-hear hip-hop.

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J Dilla Donuts; Stones Throw, 2006
Donuts is the quintessential “passion project.” Recorded while Dilla was home-stricken due to the blood disease TTP, this 31-track instrumental opus runs the gamut from haunting chamber music (“One for Ghost”) to emotive soul (“Time: The Donut of the Heart”), never abandoning the iconic producer’s knack for airtight sample-flips. Dilla passed away on February 10, 2006; Donuts, released three days before his final breathes, is the Detroit legend’s last official contribution to music. Needless to say, Dilla left this world at the peak of his artistry.

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Killer Mike I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind; Grind Time Official, 2006
After his falling out with OutKast’s Big Boi (Mike was once signed to the ATLien), Killer Mike started his own Grind Time Official record label. The label’s first release, the double-disc I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind was a sonic blueprint to hip-hop independence and a critical success.

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Blu & Exile Below the Heavens; Sound In Color, 2007
Talk about an unexpected knockout punch. With little fanfare, Inglewood, California rapper Blu’s debut, produced entirely by fellow left-coaster Exile, floored all those who caught wind of it back in ’07. Blu’s insightful views and nimble wordplay combined with Exile’s rugged soul (think a DJ Premier/J Dilla hybrid) for one of the most cohesive and fully-realized albums in years, which remains the case three years after the fact.

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Tech N9ne Killer; Strange Music, 2008
Dynamic by nature, Tech N9ne pushed his singular approach to hip-hop to a massive level with this 32-cut double LP, a high-octane whirlwind of bombastic production, intricate lyricism and accessible debauchery. And to think, this tour-de-force came from the inconspicuous Kansas City, Missouri underground scene. Killer is also notable for being the release that put Tech’s career sales mark over the one million hump, not to mention its brilliant cover artwork.

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