If No More Mr. Nice Guy was a debut by an MC/producer duo in top-prospect form, Step in the Arena revealed Gang Starr to be worldbeaters. Guru had quickly advanced from manifesting words to mastering them, DJ Premier’s deep concentration was beginning to sound like instinctive genius, and they channneled that inspiration into a sophomore album that set them off on a dozen-year, five-album streak that made them one of the most revered groups in all of hip-hop. The cool-yet-precise intensity in Guru’s delivery might’ve recalled early EPMD if you half-listened, but there’s no half-listening with him here — few MCs have sounded more symbiotic with their producer’s moves, a voice that feels perfectly rhythmically attuned without sounding all that percussive or strident, just intensely disciplined. And though his thematic breadth might not have hit full Rakim-caliber standards until the following year’s masterpiece Daily Operation, his perception’s still crucial even when his main obsession is rap as a form of verbal combat. The title cut’s the ne plus ultra here, and “Check the Technique” every bit its equal, but he’s a wise-beyond-his-years presence on the tracks where he shifts from hardened battler to philosophical epiphany provider (“Beyond Comprehension” and “Form of Intellect”). On top of that, he’d already figured out how to craft a breakup song that was vulnerable without sounding pitiful or bitter (“Lovesick”), a jaundiced look at street crime that put some real tragic empathy behind its cautionary moralizing (“Just to Get a Rep”), and a warning of all the things that could happen if an MC wasn’t as diligent as he was about prioritizing craft over fame (“Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”). As for the beats: it’s Preemo, which is probably good enough for a ‘nuff said, but it’s still worth pointing out that he was quick to find the depth in his crates: turning cheery first-gen Moog kitsch into seething funk on “Just to Get A Rep,” isolating and slowing down The Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek” just enough to make it skank like ’60s rocksteady on “Beyond Comprehension,” and turning the upscale psychedelic string-soaked warmth of Marlena Shaw’s “California Soul” into the stuff of raw, cold-weather pugilism.