There's still a case to be made for him, because one can easily argue that all of the great lyricists who followed him would never have reached the same heights were it not for Ra's influence. Without Rakim, there is no Nas, no Biggie, no Jay-Z. And that means a lot.
But it means almost as much that the former undisputed champion of hip-hop has been dormant for much of the past 20 years. Spend that much time on the sideline, and you're bound to get passed up sooner or later.
It took a long fucking time for anyone to catch up, though — because Rakim was a game-changer in every sense of the word.
When hip-hop was still in its infancy in the early- to mid-1980s, rhymes were generally simplistic and centered around either rocking a party or bragging about how cool you were (one might say we've come full circle). Just about every rapper out there had done at least one verse starting with:
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| Take a deep breath and keep following... |
But Rakim changed all of that when he joined up with DJ Eric B. in 1986. The duo released their debut LP, Paid In Full, the following summer and immediately knocked the music world on its ass. Classic tracks like "Eric B. Is President" and "I Ain't No Joke" remain relevant a quarter of a century later — they've been sampled almost as widely as Eric B. sampled James Brown for it, with Marrs building an entire mainstream hit ("Pump Up The Volume") off a single line from "I Know You Got Soul."
The group's next two albums, 1988's Follow The Leader and 1990's Let The Rhythm Hit 'Em further cemented Rakim's place at the top of hip-hop. He continued to broaden his horizons lyrically, getting a bit more topical ("The Ghetto") and offering up a smoother side for the ladies ("Mahogany").
Eric B. & Rakim would part ways in the mid-1990s, but not before delivering a solid swan song in 1992 with Don't Sweat The Technique. Rakim was at his razor-sharp best on "Know The Ledge" (which first appeared on the Juice soundtrack) and "Casualties Of War," on which he delivers both a scathing commentary on the first Iraq scrimmage...and an eerily accurate prediction of the 9/11 attacks that would take place nearly a decade later:
So I wait for terrorists to attack/every time a truck backfires, I fire back
I look for shelter when a plane is over me/remember Pearl Harbor? New York will be over, G...
Following his split with Eric B., Rakim took a five-year leave of absence, coming out of hiding for just a handful of guest appearances before returning in late 1997 with The 18th Letter. In a shrewd bit of marketing, the record was released as a double, with the second tape a collection of his greatest hits. This exposed his prior greatness to a younger audience — a particularly important move given that the new material didn't quite measure up to his work with Eric B. Both of the first two singles, "Guess Who's Back" and "It's Been A Long Time," did little more than pay homage to his earlier music.
After another middling solo release, The Master, Rakim again went underground again before signing with Aftermath in 2000. The idea of the best (or second-best) producer in hip-hop history teaming up with its greatest emcee was enough to make hip-hop fans achieve orgasm — but the climax was never reached. Citing creative differences with Dr. Dre, Rakim scrapped the much-awaited project and left the label in 2003.
He resurfaced with another album, The Seventh Seal, in 2009, but it fizzled both critically and commercially — Rakim's own Michael-Jordan-with-the-Wizards moment.
Despite the gaping holes in his résumé over the last two decades, Rakim remains the standard by which many older hip-hop fans judge everyone else. His lyrics and rhyme patterns paved the way for nearly every great emcee that followed him — shit, even with his blueprint to follow, most rappers still haven't been able to match the lines Rakim spit a quarter of a century ago.
He may have lost his throne, but Rakim will always be hip-hop royalty.
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