Salt-N-Pepa entered hip-hop responding to Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s runaway hit (“The Showstopper” answered “The Show”) and initially carried themselves like a female Run-DMC. The girls promoted their sophomore album, A Salt with a Deadly Pepa, rocking ripped stonewashed jeans, baggy T-shirts and cable-thick gold chains with doorknocker earrings—a tomboy style that echoed their audience’s. Their rap reworking of the Isley Brothers’ “Shake Your Thing” flaunted sass with hints of sexuality, like most of this Hurby Luv Bug-produced album. With Kid ’N Play, Heavy D and Salt-N-Pepa, the culture started carving out room for more middle-class images in hip-hop.

– Miles Marshall Lewis