The song that defines Rakim, according to Rakim: “Personifies what I do”
Rakim became one of the greatest ever MCs through his work as the Eric B and Rakim duo. They released four albums between 1987 and 1992, including Paid in Full, Follow the Leader, Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em and Don’t Sweat the Technique. Then, in 1997, he released his debut solo album, The 18th Letter, earning his highest charting project yet.
The New York rapper has an impressive catalogue, but one song stands out to him in terms of lyrics. When asked what line or lyric exemplifies who he is, Rakim had a clear answer: ‘The 18th Letter (Always and Forever)’. The first song on his debut album, produced by Father Shaheed, is William Griffin Jr at his best.
In the first verse, he raps, “Just when things seemed the same, and the whole scene is lame/ I come and reign with the unexplained for the brains ’til things change/ They strain to sling slang, I’m trained to bring game/ History that I arranged been regained by King James.”
He continues, “Go to practice, with tactics, when the track hits, theatrics/ Women that look like actress the status of Cleopatra’s/ Stacks of mathematics to feed yo’ Asiatics/ As I find out, what the facts is, for geographic.”
Rakim specifically mentioned the opening bars of the song when revealing his pick. “Really, that whole song kinda personifies what I do,” he said on SportsCenter. “I kinda wrote that after being gone for a while. I kinda wanted everybody to remember what I love doing, what I do, and who I am.”
The album, which references his first initial “R” being the 18th letter of the alphabet, came after a five-year hiatus and served as his first project since Don’t Sweat the Technique. Just in case anyone had forgotten his skillset, he wanted to remind people just how much he still had in his locker, and that’s exactly what ‘Always and Forever’ showed. The project was equipped with production from heavy hitters like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and DJ Clark Kent.
Rakim’s unique style comes from listening to jazz growing up. “The best way I can explain my style is to explain where it came from—jazz,” he told The Ringer. “Listening to jazz growing up, I learned the difference between time and space. Hip-hop’s time signature is four-four. So it’s like, ‘1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-3-4-4,’ and so forth. To me, that’s simple. But jazz is very complicated because of the many different time signatures.
“98% of hip-hop is four-four. Now and then, an artist will switch it up, but rarely. When I started writing rhymes, I had an internal clock that kept interfering with the songs we were making. It was because I listened to all this different jazz and I was reading and playing music early on, so I really grasped the concept of timing.”
‘Always and Forever’ is one of Rakim’s best rapping performances, and the numbers match its quality. The song has over seven million streams on Spotify, inspiring generations of rappers after him. A$AP Rocky was named after him for good reason.