According to the Kool Herc's 2005 tome, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, the crackalackin' urban genre has been around since way back in the 1970s, when street hustlers like Kool Keith and Grandmaster Flash started spitting out songs on NYC street corners. You wouldn't know it by listening to some of the other hip-hop stations in the Valley, which tend to ignore old-school hip-hop in favor of spinning up "today's hits" ad nauseam. Not so at The Beat, where DJs such as Big Boy, Ruben S., and Tyler Martinez mix classic cuts like Whodini's "Friends" and Digital Underground's "Freaks of the Industry" into regular rotation along with some New Jack Swing-style hits from Bel Biv Devoe, or maybe even a little alt-rap by A Tribe Called Quest. While the signal coming from The Beat's broadcast antennas scattered around the Valley causes listeners to flip among one of the station's three frequencies, it's totally worth the hassle, especially if it means getting to hear some dope gangsta shit from Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls.