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The term “underground” is used to describe everyone from indie rappers like MIKE to idiosyncratic stars like Ken Carson. So, what does it even mean for rap music in 2026?
March 5, 2026
BY Dylan Green
On the surface, it’s easy to tell the difference between music that’s mainstream and music that isn’t. There’s a world of difference between artists like Bad Bunny playing the Super Bowl or Kendrick Lamar and Drake passing diss tracks back and forth with massive cultural impact versus artists on the touring circuit doing it for the love. The latter is where what we’ve come to know as “the underground” starts: Industry connections and clout may vary, but these artists have got plenty of passion and drive.
Though universally understood when used in opposition to music released on the majors, the term “underground” has taken on many meanings within hip-hop over the years. For some, it’s little more than a marketing tactic, a signifier for mom and pop-style authenticity or used as shorthand for beats not including an 808. For others, it’s a countercultural ethos devoted to social consciousness and protecting the sanctity of The Culture, a whole-grain alternative to Top 40 fast food (rappers not connected to major machines are much more likely to say “Free Palestine” or “Fuck ICE,” and mean it). And like any subgenre, the underground has its own infrastructure, communities, and tier lists. They may not be household names doing six-figure album sales first-week, but rappers like MIKE, MAVI, and Xaviersobased are rockstars to their cult fanbases, and are clearly influencing the higher-ups. Seeing these pockets not just develop but thrive over the last decade has me thinking: what does it really mean to be underground in 2026?
Before we can break down what the word means, we have to understand the playing field. The fragmentation of rap music has led to subgenres of subgenres, and each has their own superstars and up-and-comers. “We’ve come to this place in hip-hop where there are two different undergrounds,” Mano Sundaresan, the Head of Editorial Content at Pitchfork and co-founder of underground rap blog No Bells, explains. “There’s the underground that’s truly independent and truly DIY that caters to very specific audiences, like the Backwoodz Studioz and the FearDorian-s and osquinn-s of the world. There’s something about that scene that feels truest to what the term meant 10 to 30 years ago, where you’re forming community in real life with people who have similar interests.” He adds, “The other part of the underground is the sort of party-adjacent artists who sprang up during the Covid era in these cordoned off bubbles on the internet. Most of it was digital at the time, but it was still underground because it was stuff regular people weren’t listening to.”
According to Sundaresan, because of the way the internet supercharges fandom and trends, the wires of classification often get crossed. “The issue we’ve come to now is that this party-adjacent music has now become really popular and people are throwing around the word ‘underground’ with, like, Ken Carson and Yeat, who are being streamed as much as more mainstream artists, if not more. I think of an event like Rolling Loud, where 90% of the lineup is what Gen Z kids who follow Hyperpop Daily would call underground, but it’s this massive festival.”
Using the same description for Ken Carson that you’d use for billy woods and the Backwoodz cohort is proof that sound and ethos play as much of a role in the public’s perception of what underground means as size of fanbase and celebrity status. It’s also worth considering that achieving the kind of monocultural celebrity that was possible even a decade ago has become all but impossible thanks to the rise of streaming and the further bifurcation of rap niches.
The deepness of those grooves varies even further between artists, audiences, and media professionals, according to Canadian music content creator Nosaputyouon. “Earl Sweatshirt has a huge stake in hip-hop, but if I went up to the first person I saw in the street and asked them ‘Do you know Earl Sweatshirt?,’ the chances of them saying yes aren’t super high. It’s not the same as asking them if they know JAY-Z. For me, being underground means to hold the integrity of your culture, whether that’s the Black community or wherever you come from. But to the average consumer, it’s more of a numbers game, which is where that grey area lies.” Nosa cites Ravyn Lenae as someone in this middle ground. The Chicago singer-songwriter has a track that peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, “Love Me Not,” which put her on a wider radar, even though she’s been releasing music since at least 2014. But even after that level of exposure, Nosa suggests the way Ravyn “expresses herself outside of the norm” of modern pop music—a pure creator mentality filtered through past and present iterations of R&B—means she remains an artist with an underground mentality.
Can you be famous and be considered underground? Queens-born vocalist and producer Kelly Moonstone finds the line similarly blurry. “Underground means independent, on the come-up, under the emerging artist umbrella. There’s still people who don’t know who I am, I’m not a household name, so I’m underground,” she explains. As an artist with nearly a decade of experience leading up to her recent debut album New Moon and cosigns from Navy Blue and Jay Electronica, she’s particularly attuned to the niches within niches: “There are some established underground artists who hold weight in a certain space; artists with cult classics and fans who’ve been around since day one.”
These figures might not be getting a Fortnite collab any time soon, but they’re successful enough to make a living off of sales and touring for a small but devoted crowd. Persistence and community building play huge roles in that kind of following. Kelly is a live show mainstay, even when she’s not on the bill, and those in-person experiences are part of what endeared her to her community of creatives as she continues to build. But that visibility cuts both ways. Posting to social media is all but required in today’s climate, forcing most underground artists to be their own marketing teams and PR firms.
“You have to show your face, you have to be present, you have to be consistent, you have to feed the algorithm. You have to, you have to, you just have to. It’s exhausting,” she says. “When I was younger, I wanted a career like early The Weeknd, where I could just be anonymous, release my music, and not think about all this. But unless you build your entire brand around being anonymous, you can’t sustain a career that way. And even then, you still have to post somewhat! There’s no escaping it. You have to feed the beast.”
That’s an ethos California rapper-producer and singer zayALLCAPS can relate to. Zay likens the underground to a “network” of artists who share similar tastes or perspectives. “Within my peer group, we’re playing the same kind of shows, on the same playlists. Any rapper that’s gonna call me on the phone randomly to chop it up, we’re a part of the same underground.”
He’s similarly active in California and has seen his profile rise off candy-colored melodies like “MTV’s Pimp My Ride,” but understands that breaking through means something different than it did in the 2010s. “Nowadays, you could have a song that blows up or go on a big national tour with someone and still be underground, whereas 10 years ago, you’d be Big Sean. You get that major co-sign, that major tour, that major single, that major deal, and you’re straight. I feel like that’s just super not the case right now.” For Zay, being underground can occasionally feel like a purgatory of deducing the right way to hijack the algorithm. What was once serviced by record stores, radio stations, label budgets, and word of mouth is now separated into endless playlist and social media strategy, and it’s difficult to make yourself distinct. “I had a note I wrote in December 2015 that was my big plan for how to get on. So different from now [laughs]. The sheer volume of people releasing music, people posting online, that’s hard to cut through. And it’s no money out here, either. Me and my homies joke all the time that labels would just give anybody money 10 years ago. I have no idea what the fucking playbook is anymore.”
Others, like fellow Californian ISSBROKIE, believe the emphasis has shifted because appetites for rap music have changed. “When I got into music, it was very rap-focused. To get out of the underground, as a child I was like ‘Oh, I just gotta rap really good.’ It’s clear that’s not what it is anymore,” she says. BROKIE occupies a slightly different section of the underground from Kelly and Zay, one where Playboi Carti and Opium are bigger influences than Earl Sweatshirt or MIKE. She also sees the term underground as a bit of a cage. When asked about what it means to her, she makes no qualms about wanting to transcend and hit the highest level of creativity possible. “Underground musicians shouldn’t be comfortable being underground,” she asserts. “That comfort instantly destroys the inspiration to get better. Being comfortable in mediocrity is why a lot of artists sound exactly the same, and it’s because they’re afraid of sounding or looking corny. Everyone’s too cool for school and nonchalant. I’m chalant as shit. You kinda need to be corny to do anything right.”
As an example, she brings up Carti, who ascended from the Awful Records crew to become one of the premiere rappers of his generation, and the creative risks he took on his now highly influential 2020 sophomore album, Whole Lotta Red, as a barometer for that sweet spot between cringe and cool. “Somebody out there that you don’t even know already thinks you’re corny. You’ve gotta find your niche and your niche isn’t being a people pleaser. That’s how you fall off.” To her, being underground means balancing gratitude for having built an audience with having a chip on your shoulder about where you’d like to end up.
Considering how difficult building an audience can be, never mind becoming a household name, that frustration is palpable. But creating interesting music and pushing the boundaries of art are equally important. Just ask New Jersey rapper Fatboi Sharif, who came up being inspired by acts from Eminem and Ghostface Killah to Company Flow and Antipop Consortium. “[Being underground] can be a good or a bad thing. You could look at it and think it’s underexposed, but when I look at it, I hear beauty. I listened to all types of hip-hop, but that was the kind that most influenced me. When you heard an MC, they’d be like a superhero with their own voice and way they would spit or write a verse, and I definitely look at myself like that. When I’m putting my art out there, I want it to be as unique—as me—as possible,” he says. Spend any amount of time listening to the music Sharif has dropped on labels like Deathbomb Arc (Let Me Out), Backwoodz (Decay), or Purple Tape Pedigree (Preaching In Havana), and his passion for craft and creative wanderlust is second to none. Every artist interviewed for this piece is wholly dedicated to vision, but unlike BROKIE, who’s actively fighting against the limitations of the underground qualifier, Sharif is finding freedom without getting too comfortable, reeling in listeners and attention in a high risk, high reward way.
“A lot of artists are spoonfeeding their music and message to people. They don’t really want their fans to think,” Sharif notes. Regardless of the type of music you make, intention and connection are two crucial aspects of standing out in a crowded underground field. As Sharif puts it, “Know what you wanna do, what you want to accomplish, and what you’re willing to do to accomplish it.”
There’s no right or wrong way to go about being underground, and that’s part of the reason why, in the modern era, these networks are so vast and so confusing. Is Vallejo rapper LaRussell, who’s created a small empire by selling music directly to fans and celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Kyrie Irving (Irving recently bought LaRussell’s latest album, Something’s In The Water, for $11K via the artist platform Even) underground in the same way that an artist like blackchai or Pz’ are? None are as big as the biggest stars, but exist at various levels of stardom within their respective silos. These strata make it difficult to tell who’s the most popular within an endless ocean of music and other competing media, but as long as there’s a mainstream to contrast against, you can bet on artists finding ways to challenge the mindless stream-til-you-drop status quo.