Like many people around my age who didn’t grow up in the five boroughs of New York City, rap pretty much got on my radar when I heard “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang on the radio. Some people may argue that Fatback Band’s “King Tim III (Personality Jock) was the first rap record on wax. No matter, it’s the Sugarhill Gang that sticks out pretty clearly in my memory. And while there has been a lot of shade thrown that song’s way over the years, like it or not, it is the way many of us became aware of rap.

I always like to tell people that back then in the stone age, one rap record had to make do for months before the next one came along. That wasn’t necessarily true, but it sure seemed like it was. And in those early days, you were always going to…