It was 1989 and the most sweltering summer on record, and I’d already fallen in love with hip-hop. Through cheap foam headphones I had taped together, I listened incessantly to MC Lyte, De La Soul, Jungle Brothers, KRS-One, 3rd Bass, Salt-N-Pepa, Eric B. & Rakim, repeatedly auto-reversing the cassettes in my Sony Walkman until I knew the buttons by feel and didn’t have to look to rewind or fast forward.