It was still alive and well in the late 90s and early 2000s with the de la souls, mos defs, kwelis, pharoah monche's, the roots, and common sense's of the world. Matter of fact they were the go to rappers for your average "hotep nikka" like myself.
And on top of that you had jill scott, badu, floetry, and ton of others making noise in the neo soul scene and it was a great time to be a black college kid
Then two things happened. First alot of cac rappers started emulating the rappers I previously mentioned but they left out the message of black empowerment. Because of that they (mos, common, etc...) got seen as rappers with cac fanbases (which was kinda unfair imo)
secondly, they then they got drowned out by the god awful 2000s rap scene and just didn't fit in with the new wave of the crunk snap era.
@Art Barr
What's your take