I think a lot of people fail to realize the emotional and historic side of music. We cling to a certain era because it represented a certain time in our life that we sometimes romanticize. So and so was the rapper we listened to in high school or college, etc. I think this causes us sometimes to have a certain subjective bias in terms of quality.
I can't say anyone today gives me the same feeling of when Nas, Tribe, or Wu first dropped, but there are some very respectable artists today that are carrying on that tradition.
Plus, no one ever seems to remember that there was always BS, pop driven artists who lack any type of substance. Don't forget Vanilla Ice, Hammer, and not every rapper with the WU, No Limit, or Cash Money was a good rapper. But y'all act like every artists who released an album pre-2000 was dope or everything on the radio was real.
Your mind is playing tricks on you: