his year marks the 30th anniversary of the legendary New York City club Giant Step. To celebrate we took a look at the club’s ’90s heyday, hearing from the voices who lived it.

By now, hip-hop’s lineage with jazz, funk, and soul has a well-trodden history. From being highly sampled in golden era classics to its deep association with producers like DJ Premier and Pete Rock, jazz fueled a love affair that would forever change the path of music.

In the New York City of the early ’90s that love affair came to life at a dimly lit underground club called Giant Step. Aptly named after the seminal John Coltrane album, Giant Step was more than just a weekly club night. It was a musical mecca for a burgeoning hip-hop contingent including The Roots, Erykah Badu, A Tribe Called Quest, Massive Attack, The Fugees, De La Soul, Jamiroquai, and many more. It was the place where hip-hop stood on the shoulders of jazz, offering younger generations to see heritage artists like Roy Ayers and Gil Scott-Heron play to a room full of kids from Brooklyn and Queens who just got off the train listening to the latest hip-hop in their headphones.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the legendary club Giant Step, a space that would essentially become a think tank for music heads rooted in jazz, funk, hip-hop, and all things black music. For the occasion, we talked to a number of figures who were. They provided insight about the glory days of Giant Step.