Honestly I'd be lying if I said anything other than the 2010s. Ik lots of people have nostalgia for the bling era but I never EVER fucked with a lot of that shit, so going from that being the primary sound of hip-hop to the emergence of trap, cloud rap, and the alternative hip-hop explosion was such a breath of fresh air. The proliferation of social media and music hosting sites like Soundcloud, as well as easier access to music production tools, led to imo some of the best music of the past 25 or so years.
Growing up I deadass just didn't think I liked hip-hop unless I was listening to the big east coast names from the 90s and early 00s like Biggie or Nas. Obviously there is always good music around, esp hip-hop (my current favorite hip-hop album and 6th favorite album of all time, Madvillainy, released in 2004), but I think the 2010s were such a landmark decade due to that perfect confluence of technology, sociality, and hip-hop being about half a century old at that point.
God that's so fucking real. Honestly especially as someone who is biracial and grew up in a pretty white part of Florida, it was one of my few outlets for exploring my blackness before I started making friends with other black people and got more political. The 2000s were one of the most socially regressive decades to be raised in, and I heard some of the most racist shit said about hip-hop and black people generally TO MY FACE. Finding music I could connect to, artists I actually followed and was passionate about, K-Dot and RTJ charting while being unapologetically straightforward and political with their music, fucking Death Grips... the 2010s were when people started finally fucking letting black kids be weird! By force sure, but still!
I'm still excited to see what this decade brings for hip-hop, especially with how much the game is being fucking DOMINATED by queer and female rappers. It's incredible.

