Talib Kweli, "The Proud"
Black Star underwent a slow disintegration after their one and only record, one of the best hip-hop records ever. Mos Def pursued a solo career, leaving Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek to make a record together. Then, Kweli broke from Hi-Tek and made his first solo record without any of his Black Star collaborators, Quality. It's my favorite of his pure solo records, although it doesn't rise up to Black Star. Kweli has made a lot of records of a relatively consistent level of success, but I really only consider the records he's done with Hi-Tek to be essential.
J Church, "Racked"
J Church just cranked out songs and released them willy-nilly on albums, EPs, singles, splits, comps, whatever outlet they had available. They would at least periodically gather all that stuff together on their own comps, and those are often the best value from them, just due to the quantity of tunes they pack onto these things. This is a track from one of those comps, Altamont '99, which is a solid record.
Front 242, "No Shuffle"
No shuffle? THEM'S FIGHTIN' WORDS AROUND HERE, FRONT 242
Buford O'Sullivan, "When the Snake Gets His Way"
Buford O'Sullivan is a member of the Scofflaws (along with several other NYC ska bands), playing trombone, singing, and writing some of their songs. He put out a solo record of just his own tunes, with mostly the same guys playing on the album. The NYC ska bands all kind of remixed themselves all the time. As a result, this really just kind of sounds like a Scofflaws record. But because I like O'Sullivan's songs with the Scofflaws, I like this record too. I think this song will tell you if this is for you or not.
Ulcerate, "Odium"
HELL YEAH BUDDY ULCERATE
This is the first track of Vermis, so it's more of an intro, but this record kicks so much ass. It's so good. How's that for criticism?