could be any year from 92-96 to me. hard to pick a specific year but 96 seems to have a lot of classics from all sorts of artists. the roots, heltah skeltah, master p, nas, ghostface, de la soul, jay-z, the fugees, kool g rap, and 2pac all dropped what i consider their best albums that year. i wanted to throw outkast in too but i always switch opinions on whether i think atliens or aquemini is their best album. either way they dropped a top notch album in 96 as well. so did redman. you also had people like company flow, artificats, jigmastas and kool keith dropping classic underground rap music before the whole 'underground' craze became an internet fad.