The word underrated gets tossed around a little too comfortably in hip hop. In these days when dozens of blogs make comprehensive lists about any and every bit of hip hop minutiae and Germans are YouTube cataloging thousands of uber-obscure regional rap songs that only a dozen people heard in the first place, it's hard to imagine a would-be major artist going unnoticed. Generally the word is just applied in the case of the rapper I like who doesn't make anything close to populist music and for some reason isn't a major pop star. Atlanta's T-Rock is the rare exception, the genuinely underrated rapper. The onetime Three 6 Mafia understudy has long been one of the most vicious fast rappers alive. As far as skills go, he could sit comfortably in the ranks of double time legends like Twista or Tech N9ne but, for whatever reason, remains virtually unknown outside of a handful of die hards. And here he teams with similarly underrated Alabama talent Big Pimp of Dirty. T-Rock's I Grind, I Hustle double disc is out now.
Download: T-Rock f. Big Pimp of Dirty, "I Don't Love You" (via TNT)