On Nov. 1, 1988, Slick Rick dropped his immensely influential album, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. The album cemented Rick as a star on Def Jam but as one of the most interesting, charismatic artists in Hip-Hop.

The platinum-selling album boasted a string of classics, including "The Ruler's Back," "Children's Story," "The Moment I Feared," and "Mona Lisa," and introduced the Hip-Hop legend as one of the most gifted storytellers the genre has ever birthed. Its influence is still felt over three decades after its release.

"It was a time of breakthroughs," Rick told Wax Poetics about the album in a 2018 interview. "I mean, I was a mail clerk making five hundred and sixty bucks a month. I had a girl and the whole shebang, so I had to be budgeting shit all the time. But I was basically still doing okay for myself. While you’re just making ends meet, you don’t realize how hard you struggle ’cause you just wanna work and have your own place. And from bugging Doug E. [Fresh] all the time, he gave me three hundred dollars for a show. I know it may sound petty now, but you could imagine going from a five-hundred-dollar budget, paying three-fifty for rent, plus you gotta buy food and tokens to get to work? It was hard. Then all of a sudden, I was making three hundred bucks a night! In two nights, I could make what I made in a month! The difference in money was a big jump. Getting paid to do a hobby, something that’s fun and exciting, and you’re getting paid for it? It blew my mind. That’s what I remember bout that era."

Colorful, raw, energetic and infectious, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick stands as one of the greatest and most important Hip-Hop albums ever made.