If hip-hop nostalgia seems a bit premature, consider how the early rock & roll records sounded to the Woodstock Nation. It has been a dozen years since rap first appeared on record, and the genre has wound through at least as many styles, trends and tangents as occurred between Elvis and Hendrix. Several one-shot anthologies of rap's "old school" have sneaked out over the last few years, but Rhino's series Street Jams is the most ambitious archival project to date: four hour-long volumes – each available separately, but thematically organized as two 2-disc overviews – that document the first five years of recorded hip-hop.

The two discs of the set titled Hip-Hop From the Top cover relatively familiar turf. This half of Street Jams collects a wide variety of old-school greatest hits, tracing the years from the Sugarhill Gang's breakthrough 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight" to the stripped-down 1985 slam of the Boogie Boys' "Fly Girl." The discs sometimes seem haphazardly arranged, but they do return to circulation such lost treasures as Rockmaster Scott and the Dynamic Three's "Request Line" and Divine Sounds' uncanny Run-D.M.C. knockoff "What People Do for Money."

The two discs of Electric Funk on Street Jams are a more academic yet ultimately more fascinating project. They focus on the techno-funk – all burbling keyboards, electronically altered vocal chants and DJ scratching – that served as the primary soundtrack for the 1982-1985 breakdance era. The first disc captures the style's formative days in New York, when visionary producers Arthur Baker and John Robie set the pace with such records as the 1982 Afrika Bambaataa masterwork "Planet Rock." Part 2 illustrates the sound's spread across the country, finally cracking pop radio and altering dance music forever with Shannon's smash "Let the Music Play."

Listening to an uninterrupted hour of the Electric Funk discs can leave you feeling like you're trapped inside a video arcade, but it's worth the effort. Seven-Up commercials and breaksploitation flicks like Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo may have ruined this subgenre forever, but Grand-mixer D.ST's breathtaking scratching on Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" still sounds crazy after all these years. (RS 626)

ALAN LIGHT