It doesn't seem like it's been 20 years since Little Brother shook up Hip-Hop with their acclaimed debut, The Listening. The North Carolina-based group swept in seemingly out of nowhere, delivering an album that felt refreshingly breezy, but ripe with layers you could peel back upon subsequent listens.

It sounds hyperbolic but The Listening's quiet influence was game-changing. There's the album's direct influence on early Kanye West, who too grappled with everyday woes over soulful samples, with clear-eyed enthusiasm and perspective on his major debut. And of course, there's Drake, who rightfully shouted out Phonte during his acceptance speech for the BMI Songwriter of the Year Award in 2011. Listen to a song like "Thank Me Now," and hear Phonte's cadence, or listen to Drake's penchant for merging rhymes with singing throughout his early work, and you can clearly see Phonte's influence.

"I don’t care if people saw me as backpack or underground or conscious,” Phonte told Rolling Stone. “First and foremost, I just wanted them to see me as a dope MC. I’ll rap your fucking ass under the table. That was the bottom line for me.”

Little Brother as a group re-paved the road for authentic self-expression in Hip-Hop, a lane initially embraced by acts like De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and the rest of the Native Tongues camp.

“The biggest thing for me is how we saw the Native Tongues and groups being true to themselves, and it worked,” Big Pooh told Rolling Stone. “That showed artists coming behind us that they can do the same thing. And that’s how we have the J. Coles and the Kendricks and the Wales being them, not a souped-up version of them, or a souped-up version or what a Black person’s ‘supposed’ to be.”

On the production side, The Listening was the launching ground for 9th Wonder's soulful, warm production, which would later capture the ears of everyone from Jay-Z and Beyoncé to De La Soul. Kendrick Lamar also enlisted 9th for one of the standout productions from Damn — "DUCKWORTH." Kendrick also collaborated with Pooh on 2009's "Thanksgiving," and his work showcases he obviously drew from Phonte and Pooh's school of thought — namely the idea that you can talk about anything, even regular life happenings, if you do it with honesty and integrity, and a trace of self-deprecating humor.

A jewel in Hip-Hop's long history, here are three of our favorite moments from The Listening.

Whenever Phonte and Pooh rapped about life.

The thing that immediately separated Little Brother from other rap acts at the time was maybe the simplest — their honesty. Listening to this album felt like hanging out in your boys' dorm room, eating chicken wings and playing video games while you talked about relationships and world events. That's the energy that embodies The Listening, a homie-next-door spirit that was perfected by Phonte and Pooh with their subsequent releases, both as a group and as solo artists. The smart, perceptive rhymes were balanced by their humorous observations, which made them all the more relatable. Case in point? Phonte's infamous verse on "The Yo-Yo": "I'm about to get hyped with this, shed some light to this/So-called black righteousness/Even though y'all niggas might not cuss like me/End of the night y'all just trying to fuck like me/So what's the reason for the hating, niggas with dreads/Calling they self gods with white girls named Caitlin/And I'm cool with interracial dating, but I ain't about/To hear no fucking speeches cause I wanna have some bacon."

9th Wonder's Production.

9th's production prowess on this record is truly a moment in Hip-Hop history. It was warm, mellow, moody, and familiar without sounding dated. It was the perfect pillow for Phonte and Pooh's ideas about women, life, and working man's woes, and led the acclaimed producer to rack up a resume that includes everyone from KRS-One to Black Thought.

Phonte's verse on "Whatever You Say"

At this point, it's almost redundant to talk about this verse. Thing is, there are great verses and verses that'll be talked about as long as Hip-Hop is around. Phonte's showing on "Whatever You Say" falls into the latter category. Is it his best verse ever? No. Phonte is easily one of the most purely talented writers in rap history — but this verse is a showstopper, one that demanded to be run back at least once by anyone who's ever listened to it, including an enthusiastic Doja Cat, who called it one of her "favorite verses in the entire fuckin’ history of rap, ever.”