Peace!!! Getting ready to go see Rakim for what I think is the third time in my life tonight. This time is special though as I will be going with my 15 year old son thanks to friends from the School of Hip Hop Phoenix.
(reflection below was added after the show)
With that being said, I wanted to share a build I wrote years ago as to why Rakim is credited as being one of if not the greatest mcs in hip hop ourstory. It’s between him and LL for me and as a matter of fact if Radio didn’t come out before Paid in Full I might side with Ra. Paid in Full had cuts that were eerily familiar because they sounded like tracks on Radio, that’s just my opinion (listen to I Need A Beat and then listen to My Melody)
But many new heads getting into hip hop culture do not understand why Rakim is so great because they do not research and understand how he changed the game and raised the bar, do the knowledge…
LEGACY
Many hip hop/rap artists (both underground and mainstream) acknowledge a huge debt to Rakim’s innovative style; one of his more prominent fans is Nas, who dedicated a song to the 18th Letter, U.B.R. (Unauthorized Biography of Rakim), on his album, Street’s Disciple. Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan also dedicated a tribute to Rakim entitled Rakim Tribute which was released on the The DaVinci Code: The Vatican Mixtape Vol. II in 2006.
Rakim also made cameos in the Juelz Santana video Mic Check, the Timbaland & Magoo video Cop That Disc and the Busta Rhymes video New York sh*t. Eric B. and Rakim’s classic album Paid In Full was named the greatest hip hop album of all time by MTV. (It would mean something to yall if it was your fav mc)
Tupac Shakur also pays tribute to Rakim in a song called Old School as well as many other legends which is a great song for cats to do research on.
TECHNIQUE
The five techniques, among others, that Rakim used to revolutionize hip hop and propel himself to never-before-seen heights in lyricism were multi-syllabic rhymes, unconventional rhymes, internal rhymes, cliff-hangers and catch phrases.
- Multi-syllabic rhymes
Before Rakim, hip hop rhyming generally consisted of one or two syllable rhymes like “cat” and “hat”, or “city” and “pretty”. Rakim created a unique style with more complex multi-syllabic rhymes like “residence” and “presidents”. He sorta explained his style and gave away some of his secrets in his video that played during the segment that honored him at the VH1 Hip Hop Honors years ago. - Unconventional rhymes
He also used unconventional rhymes never before heard, or even thought of it seems. Prior to Rakim, conventional rhymes of words like “Mary” and “Harry” were universal. He was the first to introduce an unconventional rhyming technique. “I write a rhyme in graffiti ‘n’ every show you see me in, deep concentration ’cause I’m no comedian”, is a perfect example of his rhyming of unconventional words and combinations of words. - Internal rhymes
Rakim also performed verses loaded with internal rhymes. Pre-Rakim, hip hop rhymes almost always came one at the end of each verse. But Rakim stuffed rhyme after rhyme into his verses and raised the bar for emceeing to a mind boggling level. “When I’m gone no one gets on ’cause I won’t let nobody press up and mess up the scene I set”, is a typical example of the way Rakim delivered rhyme overload in his verses.It is important to recognize that while Rakim may have been the first to use multi-syllabic and internal rhymes in rap, poets had been using them long before. For example, in King Lear, Shakespeare writes…Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind,
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.
This is an example of what is sometimes called compound rhyme (wear-rags and bear-bags). - Cliff-hangers
His introduction of the cliff-hanger is another technique that helped him single-handedly take rapping into the twenty-first century and beyond. Every verse used to conclude a complete thought, but Rakim was the first to create the incomplete thought that forced the listener to wait for the next verse for fulfillment.“But now I learned to earn ’cause I’m righteous, I feel great so maybe I might just…” is an example. This verse does not end in a complete thought. It ends in a cliff hanger that forces the audience to wait for the next verse to find out what he might just do, which is “…search for a nine to five”. The movie-like suspense embedded in the rhyme heightened the already high sense of drama inherent in hip hop rhyming. - Catch phrases
Not to be outdone is Rakim’s popularization of catch phrases. He rapped, “I can take a phrase that’s rarely heard, flip it now it’s a daily word”. “Master plan”, “dead presidents”, “pump up the volume”, “puffin’ up my coat, clearin’ my throat”, and “it ain’t where you from it’s where you at”, are but a tiny handful of the many catch phrases that Rakim popularized. The phrase “dead presidents” alone has spawned at least two movies (Dead Presidents, All About the Benjamins) a rap group (dead prez) and too many songs to count, including All About the Benjamins by Junior M.A.F.I.A. and Dead Presidents I and II by Jay-Z. In addition, the Nas line “I’m out for dead presidents to represent me” in The World is Yours, and Eminem’s “We Are Americans” “I don’t rap for dead presidents; I’d rather see the President dead It’s never been said, but I set precedents” utilizes the popular phrase as well. The phrase refers to money, in the fact that most dollars display images of dead presidents.
Last but not least Rakim is sort of a hip hop hero. When it was learned that Rakim signed to Dr. Dre’s Aftermath records, many panicked thinking Rakim would be having an overabundance of tiresome “gun bar” tracks and radio friendly r and b tinged joints ala Truth Hurts’s Addictive. While it was revealed that that may indeed have been the case in what Dre wanted, Ra wasn’t with it and due to creative differences eventually parted ways with Aftermath. In a world where over 85% of folk will prostitute in order to do anything for fame, Rakim is celebrated as one in hip hop who stood firm on his square and stuck to his values. Should not be surprising to anyone who saw the beginning of his Guess Who’s Back video in which he states to the temptations presented by the devil manifested, “NEVER that man, I work for a higher cause!” Indeed God………indeed.
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