Backspin: Special Ed – Youngest In Charge (1989) Hip-hop’s adolescent boss captivated a culture coming of age. (82/100) Despite wearing his youth on his album sleeve, Special Ed was an old soul. The precocious Brooklyn wordsmith was hardly the first MC to ascend to hip-hop’s top tier before celebrating his 18th birthday. But while previous prodigies like LL Cool J and MC Lyte kicked in the doo…

Backspin: A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders (1993) “Seven times out of ten, we listen to our music at night,” informs the “tour guide” that shepherds us through A Tribe Called Quest’s transcendent third album. I don’t know where the statistic comes from or if it’s mathematically true. It feels right. In the daylight hours we play music. It’s on as we navigate the gauntlet of life. In traffic. In…