There was a time when hip-hop was its own musical principle, aside from sampling. Like the entire Wild Style break is instrumental. Kurtis Blow's earliest stuff was studio musicians playing. Whodini had a real clear sound, things like "five minutes of funk," stuff that you could write really beautiful, lush string and horn arrangements around, stuff that was just music.
Mos DefI dreamt that I could paint you with words, but there were no colors bright enough, black or white enough, blue or green enough...they didn't mean enough
Mos Def