Pete Rock & CL Smooth:They only recorded together for four years, but Mount Vernon, New Yorks Pete Rock & CL Smooth left an indelible imprint on 90s hip-hop. Rocks mix of tight drums and inspired funk, R&B and jazz crate-digging made his production style one of the standard-bearers for East Coast rap. That combined with CLs dexterous, commanding and soulful flows made sets like breakout 1991 EP All Souled Out and all-killer 1992 debut LP Mecca and Soul Brother among the most essential listens of their era. The duos signature song remains an absolute all-timer: They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.), an impossibly poignant, smiling-through-the-tears elegy for late Heavy D & The Boyz dancer Trouble T. Roy Dixon raised to the heavens by the greatest sax loop in rap history