Asklemmy

There's a lot of rap and hip-hop that isn't just running along to a bassy beat. Busta Rhymes doesn't rap to a beat, and he comes up with some clever lines. I've heard that Childish Gambino is one of the most clever writers right now, with some lines in Bonfires and Sweatpants being pretty damn hard.

I really like A Tribe Called Quest as well, because they have a more jazzy sound than most. I REALLY like Digable Planets though because they're like the ultimate fusion of funk, jazz, and hip-hop.

Rock had excellent lyrics in the 60's and 70's, but lyrical poetry kind of fell off a bit after that era. In the 90's a lot of bands were experimenting with mixing rap, rock, rasta, and other genres together. Some of it works really well, and some of it doesn't, but it's all pretty unique music. Eminem did an excellent job of mixing rock and pop with rap, and he has a lot of success to show for it. So, we've seen a lot of experimentation and progress over the decades, but we don't see much of that any more, at least not from major labels. They figured out a decade and a half ago that there's a very algorithmic approach to selling lots of music, and they'd rather continually follow that formula than take a risk on originality. So now most of the music coming from major labels are songs that are written by studio song writers, following a specific formula proven to sell albums, and the artist is secondary. They'll find someone with a good stage presence, that looks good, teach them to dance, and hand them a stack of songs to perform under heavy auto-tune. Most of the popular music I've heard in the last 10 years is devoid of soul.