It may seem like during the '90s, rap flows just got trickier and more complex year after year, from groups like the Pharcyde early in the decade, on through to tongue-twisting maestros like OutKast and Eminem in its later years. While this isn't wholly inaccurate, all of those artists followed a blueprint that came into existence quite suddenly thanks to ... well, basically, a couple of dudes who thought they were better than all the rest of the MCs. As it turned out, they were right.

Before 1986, rap flow was very simple rhythmically and poetically, with monosyllabic rhymes dropped on or about the final downbeat of every measure. That came to a crashing halt with the release of two records that year: "Criminal Minded," the debut album from Bronx crew Boogie Down Productions and its prodigiously gifted MC KRS-One, and the single "My Melody/Eric B. is President" by Eric B. and Rakim. Rappers and listeners alike had never heard anything quite like the rapid-fire, machine-gun flow of BDP's album opener "Poetry," nor the complex, internal and multisyllabic rhyme schemes of Rakim, which he delivered with a disarmingly relaxed flow that many critics have noted resembles a jazz saxophonist (via Complex). In the years immediately following, rappers like Juice Crew members Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane would follow their lead, in turn influencing all of those wordsmiths of the mid-to-late '90s. But, as Kane himself made clear in an interview with radio station Power 105.1, the "top three rappers" of his era were KRS, Rakim — and himself, of course. 

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