Every once in a while the old school hip station on SiriusXM will play a REALLY early rap track, and while some of these cuts I haven't heard since 9th grade...I remember every damn word.
Growing up in Atlanta, in the 80's, we really only got the really mainstream rap records. The dominant music of my high school years was primarily funk and new wave with a sprinkling of hip-hop.
My little crew of proto-hip hop heads had to truly DIG to get authentic hip-hop. This was all pre-internet so I mean we had to DIG.
One of my buddies was a Philly transplant, who would get his old friends to mail him battle tapes, and we found a little mom & pop record store that would order the latest 12 inch singles from NYC.