Eric B. & Rakim – Paid In Full (7 Minutes of Madness)
Coldcut’s Paid in Full (Seven Minutes of Madness) remix: Ofra Haza sample, Eric B. & Rakim, 1987 UK club event.
Madison Square Garden 1986 – Run-D.M.C.
On 19 July 1986 Run-D.M.C. headlined Madison Square Garden on the Raising Hell tour; Adidas executive Angelo Anastasio watched My Adidas lift twenty thousand shoes.
Rage Against The Machine – Killing in the Name
Rage Against The Machine’s Killing in the Name (1992): Morello drop-D figure, Wilk/Commerford bounce, Epic debut, UK radio fight.
Black Eyed Peas – Don’t Stop The Party
Black Eyed Peas’ Don’t Stop The Party (The Beginning, 2011): DJ Ammo/will.i.am, Dutch-house festival track.
The College Dropout – Kanye West
The College Dropout arrived in 2004 with a wired jaw, sped-up soul samples and a producer stepping to the mic.
Wu-Tang Clan – Nine swords, one chamber
Wu-Tang Clan's 1993 debut Enter the Wu-Tang put nine Staten Island MCs on beats RZA built in one room.
Us3 – Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)
Blue Note's 1992 jazz-rap single built on Herbie Hancock's Cantaloupe Island, with Rahsaan Kelly's freestyle hook and Gerard Presencer's trumpet.
Lauryn Hill – The sermon and the sample
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill arrived in 1998 sounding finished: songs, sermons and samples already locked.
Beastie Boys – Three MCs who kept rewriting the break
Three New York kids started in hardcore punk rooms, then used turntables, samples, and jokes for a hip-hop career that did not stay stuck in 1986.
N.W.A. – Compton recorded without apology
Straight Outta Compton came out in August 1988 on Priority. Five men from Compton put a street report on a record that most radio stations would not play.