Hip Hop Essentials, Vol. 4 CD

On the fourth volume of Tommy Boy's 12-volume Hip Hop Essentials series, some of rap's most memorable figures counsel listeners about the dangers of drugs (Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "White Lines") and promiscuity (Kool Moe Dee's "Go See the Doctor"), detail some of the grim issues of inner city life (Kurtis Blow's "8 Million Stories"), drop some serious izzle-speak (U.T.F.O.'s "Roxanne, Roxanne," three years after Frankie Smith's "Double Dutch" and decades before the debate about whether Snoop Dogg or E-40 originated the colloquialism), and take pride in pairing strange bedfellows (Mellow Man Ace's "Mentirosa," with its combination of polar opposites Kraftwerk and Santana). Though LL Cool J's "Around the Way Girl" is a questionable inclusion and appears only two volumes after "Goin' Back to Cali," the disc makes up for it with a series of some of the rawest, most urgent tracks from the mid-to-late '80s: Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype," Ultramagnetic's "Ego Trippin'," T La Rock's "It's Yours," Big Daddy Kane's "Raw," and Run-D.M.C.'s "Sucker MCs." Parents should know that this is one of the cleanest volumes of the series. And yes, that applies to the version of 2 Live Crew's "Me So Horny," the one that exchanges a euphemism for sexual preparedness with "watching Arsenio Hall" and a euphemism for sexual fulfillment with "being a nut." ~ Andy Kellman

Audio Mixer: Hernán Santiago.

Liner Note Authors: Bill Adler; Nelson George.

Photographer: Martha Cooper.