“Box!” With one word, the original radiohead—17-year-old Queens rapper Ladies Love Cool James—famously stole the most memorable scene in 1985’s rap drama Krush Groove and never looked back. Radio marked the first full-length album of Def Jam Recordings, the nascent hip-hop label of manager Russell Simmons and the producer of T La Rock’s “It’s Yours” (and Radio), Rick Rubin. The musclebound, dimple-faced kid in the Kangol rhymed polysyllabically about his girls (“I Can Give You More,” “Dear Yvette,” “I Want You”), his skills (“Dangerous”) and, naturally, his radio (“I Can’t Live Without My Radio”). The idea of the solo career in rap was never the same.

– Miles Marshall Lewis