Rakim picks his best verse on ‘Paid in Full’: ”One of the illest”
Rakim is still revered as a lyricist and is known as a groundbreaking emcee who changed the course of hip-hop. Alongside Eric B, the Long Island changed how everybody rapped by providing a blueprint. That guiding light came in the form of his debut album, Paid In Full.
The Follow The Leader creator brought complex rhymes and had an undeniable presence when he touched the microphone. During the 1980s, the New York hip-hop landscape included the likes of Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One and Chuck D. However, Rakim stood out as a star.
With Rakim’s rise came the concept of flow. Before the ‘Know The Ledge’ star came to prominence, the way artists rhymed was uniform and simple. Although it was more understandable, the basic approach to rapping was no longer sufficient in the eyes of Rakim and his decision to deviate pushed the culture forward.
As a cultural figure, Rakim is said to be a lyrical pioneer, and when Paid In Full was released, it changed the course of lyricism in hip-hop. Rakim was most definitely the first MC to break the mould of the basic rhyme scheme of hip-hop. The schemes intertwined different rhymes, and the rhyming sat in the pockets of the offbeat.
Although Rakim’s run was pretty short, Paid In Full was profoundly impactful and in an interview with HH247, Rakim picked his favourite verses from the album which he believes to be the best on the album.
“One of my favourite verses from the Paid In Full album was on, I think ‘Musical Massacre’. Back then, like I was speaking on earlier, how you use different words, different forms and different rhythms like that, I think on ‘Musical Massacre’ I said, ‘Go manufacture a match, send me after a blast / Of a master that has to make Musical Massacre.’ For me, that was one of the illest two bars I wrote on that album.”
He explained why he loves those bars, detailing, “I guess when I came up with what I was tryna do and how it worked out …it’s like sometimes when you’re sculpting something, sometimes it comes out the way you want, sometimes it don’t. Sometimes, when it’s perfect, you admire it, and you remember what you went through. So, yeah, those two bars are kinda my favourite!”
However, Rakim also loves another verse from his 1987 debut, recalling a verse from the song ‘My Melody’, the emcee raped, “‘I take seven MCs, put ’em in a line / And add seven more brothers who think they can rhyme/ Well, it’ll take seven more before I go for mine / Now that’s twenty-one emcees ate up at the same time’.”
Explaining the rhymes, Rakim told HH247, “It’s funny ‘cause when I came up with that I was kinda getting into myself at that time.’ It’s funny how I came up with that I was digging into my name and I got seven letters in my first name, seven letters in my middle and seven in my last name. So I started messing wit that theory. That’s from the Paid In Full Album ‘My Melody’.