Nineties hip-hop would have been very different without Pete Rock; his funk- and soul-sampling boom-bap productions for acts like Heavy D & The Boyz and EPMD defined the sound of the decade. In this 2013 Boiler Room set from his native New York, Rock shows that his touch on the decks is just as silky as behind the boards. Feel-good vibes abound: The set’s first half is heavy on funk and soul gems from Bill Withers, Al Green, Rick James and Stevie Wonder, while the second half leans towards rap classics from friends and peers like The Diplomats’ Jim Jones and Cam’ron. (Not everything he plays is old-school; he makes room for Frank Ocean’s “Novacane”, then relatively new, at a crucial juncture in the mix.) Always smooth, never flashy, Rock keeps his grooves deep in the pocket, and he loves to drop the occasional Easter egg—segueing Bobby Byrd’s “I Know You Got Soul” into the Eric B. & Rakim song that samples it, or stringing together a mini-megamix of three Busta Rhymes cuts in a row. Of course, he ends it the only way conceivable—with Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth’s “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)”, a timeless slice of early-’90s jazz rap that stands as one of his greatest achievements.