Any of the early Wu Tang albums.
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993)
Wu-Tang Forever (1997)
The W (2000)
or Iron Flag
I can't remember which one was the one with two discs (lost my cd's), but that was dope.
Ol' Dirty Bastard's solo album was nuts.
Too Short was a big influence on my teen years, as well as many others.
Kid Cudi, with his simplicity, gradually influenced me, in the last 3-4 years.
As far as new young talents out there, I had some links saved on a facebook message conv, but dude blocked me for some reason. I know of some local talents in LV, but I'll only post stuff about that if you PM me or ask here & tag me.
As far as genres that are not hiphop... I could go off and write a book about it.
as far as best band ever: