4. Kool DJ Red Alert
Yaaaayyaahhhhhh. Hip-hop radio pioneer Red Alert is most closely associated with the 1980s, when he broke Boogie Down Productions, battled WBLS rival Marley Marl for NYC airwave dominance at KISS-FM and oversaw the emerging Native Tongues movement as the manager of the Jungle Brothers, Queen Latifah and A Tribe Called Quest. But the Harlem-born, Antiguan-American DJ’s hip-hop stripes go all the way back to the culture’s beginnings in the Bronx of the mid 1970s.