mos def and kweli never get mentioned as "the best lyricist" its always ras kass, nas and rakim...... these two, and common as well really do not get there due for their lyrical skills..... and lets not forget about miss lauren hill, who will smoke any female on the charts....
Canibus is pretty underated for his level of talent and I agree that AZ is pretty underated. But there are 100's on the underground. But I'm not gonna really go into all of that (eg. Apathy, Cunninlynguists, etc). However, anyone outside of the USA is underated...
LABTEKWON...he has performed with KRSONE among others and has made a pile of dope releases. Even today he still makes dope music. He drops mad knowledge and his flo is so tight and hed crush nearly everyone in a battle (Check "King of Kings")
there are so many underrated rappers but LABTEKWON comes to mind because he is SO DOPE and doesnt even get a SINGLE mention.
Talib Kweli , I believe, is one of the sickest rappers of alltime. Unfortunately, people these days only know about, JUST TO GET BUY, which is unfortunate because his songs are sick. Verbl Murder was inspiring for me.
Brainstream