For some reason I find it surprising you're not into Aesop, seems like he'd be right up your alley. Definitely check out one of his albums, None Shall Pass, Labor Days and Float are my favorite.

This is actually a pretty hard poll for me.

KRS-One or Aesop?
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

That happens with almost everyone the first couple... weeks. Haha, but seriously... My room mate said the sheer content alone was nearly giving him a sort of panic attack (or something) and now he's spent so much time with Aesop he's not overwhelmed by anything he puts out.

Aesop Rock and his kind are a great benchmark. Once you get everything they say, you're set for understanding almost every rapper. Except maybe DoseOne, mofo's tough to follow. But I think most every person has to get used to the styles, the voice, the quirks before they fully grasp even the gist of some of these tracks. Five years into listening to Aesop, I still find lines that I'm sort of hearing for the first time. It's amazing. It's like there's so much content that some of the more subtle stuff can hide in plain sight from your ears. :thumb:

And to back up voting for Aesop Rock even more, dude is a VERY good producer.
Anyone else listened to Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez?

People have a hard time understand Aesop Rock? I always thought he annunciated pretty clearly.

Yes, Kirby,

and yes, Janszoon.

I noted dj and dirty so far saying it was going over their head a bit, etc., and from personal experience I remember what it was like. If it's the case, don't give up. Find some time to give an album a couple of spins.

Not only does Aesop Rock produce well, but he works with amazing producers such as RJD2, Big Wiz, El-P, Blockhead, etc., so besides maybe Boombox... no track disappoints. And Boombox isn't that bad. Remix'd versions are better for boombox...

I will have to give those suggestions a listen over the next week or so, thank you guys

It's important to throw on Labor Days, but you can't go wrong.

Aesop recently did a song with Tobacco called Dirt, and it inspired someone to make this brilliant mashup, released for free on soundcloud I believe. It's by TheHoodInternet, I'm sure a google search would result in a free download.

It mashes 7 Aesop songs together with Tobacco beats. I believe most of them are from None Shall Pass, but We're Famous -> We're Backwoods Famous was one of the best things I've heard in a long while. Hear for yourself:

Slightly off topic, The Hood Internet (that did those mashups) have a couple other mixtapes of mashups that they put together, and they're all worth checking out.

I really like this one track off one of them...
Rick Ross vs. CSS (Push It To The Alalimit)

Yeah, The Hood Internet is good.