Eric B Rakim Paid in Full

Eric B & Rakim, with their 1987 song ‘I Know You Got Soul,’ literally helped to open up a new course for modern music. It featured a sample of Bobby Byrd’s 1971 track of the same name, which Byrd had recorded with James Brown’s band The JB’s, and it would ultimately prove to be wildly influential. The song even left a distinct mark on Eric and Ra’s peers and competitors, Public Enemy.

It’s been said that, around this period in 1987, Chuck D was already beginning to worry that Public Enemy was running the risk of going stale. He desperately didn’t want his group to produce music that sounded dated, and that concern was made all the more urgent when he first heard Eric B & Rakim’s ‘I Know You Got Soul.’ There had never been anything like this before, and Chuck immediately recognised that.

Chuck became quite blue about Eric and Ra’s achievement, worried that he wouldn’t ever be able to match it. But, eventually, he pulled himself together. Rather than surrender to the fact that his peers and competitors had created something novel, Chuck, instead, used their achievement to drive his own creativity. He wanted to do something as impressive as they managed, and he turned to the very same source to help him do it.

Public Enemy were soon sampling from the same Bobby Byrd track that Eric and Ra had used for their song, and, in doing so, they created their own masterpiece. Byrd’s ‘I Know You Got Soul’ is one of several samples that make up the classic Public Enemy track ‘Fight the Power,’ released in 1989.

In conversation with Rolling Stone in 2018, Eric and Rakim were asked about Public Enemy’s reaction to ‘I Know You Got Soul.’ It turns out that, not only were they aware Chuck had been deeply affected by the song, but Eric had even felt moved to talk a disgruntled Chuck out of leaving the business. “Chuck talking about he was gonna quit,” Eric told the magazine. “I said, ‘Chuck, stop.’”

Chuck obviously didn’t quit, and, instead, he used the song as a source of inspiration, something to work towards. “Chuck said he heard it and then he kind of had to go back to the drawing board,” Rakim explained. “You know how sometimes you hear something new, it inspires you to go to the studio or go make a new song, I think that’s what it was.” The experience, Eric added, pushed Chuck “to another level.”

Eric and Ra had never intended for Chuck to react this way—they were just young men trying to create interesting art. “We was just trying to do good music,” noted Rakim. “We was hoping that it resonated with people. We had no idea of how people would receive it.”

Eric B and Rakim didn’t set out to undermine Chuck D, nor even to inspire him. They were just making music during an exciting period, and, inadvertently, their creativity rubbed off on him. Whether it was in the spirit of pure artistic creation, a little bit of competitiveness, or, in all likelihood, a bit of both, these musicians drove each other on and they all, in the end, made music history.