Boom Bap

Let's flashback to the late 1980s. An era where gold chains and scratching seemingly dominated the streets, hip-hop was still quite young and infantile. Several hip-hop artists were just recently brought to the map to deliver a fresh new style of music for fans. It's unique blend of sampling jazz and soul music, stripped down over a beat and featuring somebody rapping over it was creative, and absolutely breathtaking for music fans. At the forefront of this movement was Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, RUN-DMC, Beastie Boys, Juice Crew, and of course: Eric B. & Rakim. For a long time Rakim has been known as the "God of hip-hop" music, and a forefather in the art. Being one of the founders of modern emceeing, Rakim's hit single "Paid in Full" was one of those incredible cuts that fans absolutely wore out in their tape players. This cut came from the incredibly successful debut album from the duo: Paid in Full, released in 1987. Since then, Paid in Full has been considered a hip-hop masterpiece....

Track Listing

1) I Ain’t No Joke
2) Eric B Is On The Cut
3) My Melody
4) I Know You Got Soul
5) Move The Crowd
6) Paid In Full
7) As The Rhyme Goes On
8) Chinese Arithmetic
9) Eric B Is President
10) Extended Beat

There are only 6 real tracks on the album the other 4 being DJ cuts. So I’ll only be reviewing the actual tracks.

From the album's opener "I ain't no Joke", you can already hear the smoothness in the beat craftsmanship and the inventive lyrics that countless emcees would go on to imitate. The powerful voice of Rakim is virtually unmatched by no other as his microphone presence is ungodly, which perhaps explains why he would later be known as the "God of Hip-Hop". Eric B. might as well be the God of scratching and sampling, as he is one of the DJs who pioneered this art, moulded it, and evolved it into it's more modern-esque style. His trumpet loop and scratch effects fit nicely with a pulsating bass. People who have no idea about the skills of Rakim need to listen to this right now and expand their minds.

"My Melody" is one of those classic joints that is simply unforgettable after listening to this. Simply put, Rakim blows your head off with lyricism that is light-years ahead of it's time. Some of these new cats nowadays in hip-hop couldn't even come close to touching the "R" in their A-Game even back in the late 80s. Rakim's was one of the first emcees to truly use similes to drive his lyrics to perfection, as well as using complex ones that were pretty much a rarity in this era. The intricate flow and rhymes are accompanied beautifully by Eric B's windpipe driven beat, with skilled scratching and a pulsating powerful baseline.

"I take 7 emcee's put em in a line, and add 7 more brothas who think they can rhyme, Well, it'll take 7 more before I go for mine, And that's 21 emcee's ate up at the same time"

On "I Know You Got Soul", Rakim creates one of the most time-tested lines in music: "It's been a long time... I shouldn't have left you". This song has been sampled countless times and it's refreshing to hear the original. This joint will easily have you "pumping up the volume" not only due to the lyrical display from the God, but Eric B's classic use of hard claps mixed with a drum loop, a smooth hi-hat and some symbols. The beat is pretty stripped down, which allows the lyrics to be the focal point here:

"It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you, Without a strong rhyme to step to, Think of how many weak shows you slept through, Time's up, I'm sorry I kept you, Thinkin' of this, you keep repeating you miss, The rhymes from the microphone soloist, and you sit by the radio, hand on the dial, soon, as you hear it, pump up the volume..."

The classic that everybody remembers from this album has to be "Paid in Full", the lead-single and obvious title-track. This traditional rags-to-riches story is said to have inspired many future classic joints, and the song has been sampled more times than I've said "classic" in this review. The beat features the old school formula of the drum-loop and hi-hat mixed together, which is of course, the main focal point of the song that was sampled. The trumpets and pianos provide a much more musical twist to an already ill drum loop, and is nicely complimented by a simple baseline which makes the song THAT much better. But of course, it's Rakim's lyrics that show what legends are made of:

''Thinkin' of a master plan Cuz ain't nothing but sweat inside my hand.
So I dig into my pocket, all my money is spent, so I dig deeper but still coming up with lint. So I start my mission- leave my residence, thinkin' how could I get some dead presidents I need money, I used to be a stick-up kid, so I think of all the devious things I did. I used to roll up, this is a hold up, ain’t nothing funny stop smiling, be still, don't nothing move but the money. But now I learned to earn cos I'm righteous I feel great! so maybe I might just Search for a 9 to 5, if I strive Then maybe I'll stay alive. So I walk up the street whistlin' this feeling out of place cos, man, do I miss a pen and a paper, a stereo, a tape of Me and Eric B, and a nice big plate of fish, which is my favourite dish. But without the money it's still a wish. Cos I don't like to dream about getting paid So I dig into the books of the rhymes that I made, to now test to see if I got pull. Hit the studio, cos I'm paid in full''

Like many, many emcees did during this era, Rakim pays tribute to his DJ on the final "rap" joint on the album, aptly titled "Eric B. is President". Rakim proves once again that he is the god-father of modern emceeing, paying an honest tribute to the man who mixes his songs and compliments them. Rumour has it that Rakim produced almost all of the songs here and that Eric B. simply just scratched them together, which might be true but I can't confirm it. Regardless, Rakim feels it's the right thing to do to spit about his DJ, and he does so in classy fashion:

"I don't bug out or chill or be acting ill, No tricks in '86, it's time to build, Eric B easy on the cut, no mistakes allowed, Cuz to me, MC means move the crowd, I made it easy to dance to this, But can you detect what's coming next from the flex of the wrist, saying indeed that I precede cuz my man made a mix, if he bleed he won't need no band-aid to fix"

Paid in Full is THE album that basically set the tone for the modern-emceeing technique of multi-syllable flows, complex metaphors and similes, wordplay, braggadocio, and many of the other arts that backpackers and heads love to death. This album, along with a few others, is truly one that put hip-hop music on the map. The definitive lyrical album and certainly light-years ahead of it's time in lyrically . From beginning to end, Paid in Full is a classic , and should be owned by every single hip-hop purist in existence.

MY RATING - 5/5

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12, 2005 at 5:16 am. You can skip to the end and leave a response.