Unless you were the type to dig through the liner notes and pay close attention, it’d be hard to know who was behind some of the best beats on the radio. That quickly started to change in the late ’80s and through the ’90s as the rappers themselves became the stars, with notable exceptions like Dr. The artists behind the boards and turntables were often given higher billing and were also the higher selling points at the time. In the early days of hip-hop, producers were king.
