Recently I came across Nujabes – japanese hip-hop musician and producer. Propably for many hip-hop fans he is well known, but for me it is a great discovery. You defineitely should take a look on his works full of deep, slow beat, great samples and a proper flow. Lots of jazz inluences are also there.
Unfortunetely he died last year in a car accident in Tokyo. DJ Premiere was his fan. This means something ;-)

Here are his MySpace profile, Last.fm profile and label links.

Below great “Imaginary Folklore”