The birth of it, lol. I unno 97, historically speaking. The got Funcrusher Plus I guess, but I also don't see LAD as a shimmering masterpiece that a lot of fans do, same for Wu-Forever. Also just the general hip hop climate with everyone piggy backing off P Diddy made it terrible, even if it had some gud albums.
This year we got Pinata I guess, though , I haven't been listening to hip hop as much anyway recently.