The Balogun's 10 Greatest Rappers of All Time: The G.O.A.T. Oct 01 '06 (Updated Dec 01 '06)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in Music The Dirtchamber Sessions, Vol. 1 by The Prodigy From $11 Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast From $8 The Bottom Line Follow the leader - Rakim Allah is the G.O.A.T. RAKIM Highest bid for the “G.O.A.T.” title: You better take a deep breath and keep following the leader! - “Follow the Leader,” Follow the Leader (1988) To quite a lot of hip-hop heads reading this, my selection for the “G.O.A.T.” title is a no-brainer. But to others that even consider themselves rap aficionados, let alone those less familiar with the hip-hop world, this one might be a head scratcher. I can never forget when I was discussing this project with a co-worker of mine not long ago. I began to mention my picks for Top 10, and you guys should have seen his face drop when Jay-Z came up at #6. Right there and then he stopped me to ask who, according to me, the G.O.A.T. is. If it isn’t Jigga for goodness sake, who is it, then? Even though I was still struggling with it at the time, I mentioned William Griffin’s moniker to test him, to see his reaction. To this day, I chuckle to myself and shake my head remembering him pierce me with the dolefulness of his blue eyes as he managed to splutter, “Ra-who?” Wow. So, do I blame Rakim Allah for debuting about twenty years ago, and the fact that his albums have been so few and far in between for the last fifteen? Or that he never had a mainstream hit, and that he never hit platinum (his second, third and fifth went gold) except for his 1987 debut, Paid in Full, which actually took eight years to do so? Is that really his fault, or is it the fault of hip-hop heads who are so infatuated with the present they are oblivious of the past? I think it’s the fault of the latter. If there is only one legitimate strike I could possibly have against Rakim, is that, yes, dude could be more prolific. When he started out as a duo with DJ Eric B. in 1987, he put out four albums in the next five years. But ever since they split up in 1993, he’s only had two albums out – 1997’s The 18th Letter: The Book of Life and 1999’s The Master. And Oh My God, which could have well been the most anticipated rap album in history due to the collaboration between a lyrical great and a production great (Dr. Dre), sadly never materialized. But even that, in itself, is rather a minor demerit. Who knows, Dre could have turned Ra into a pistol-packing gangsta, which is totally against his understated spirituality. He would rather keep his integrity than sell his soul, it seems, and that’s beyond commendable. So why is Rakim, according to yours truly - as well as many others, I bet - numero uno, the top gun, the head honcho, the God Emcee, the Greatest of All Time? How am I going to justify this? Alright, here goes: For starters, this guy’s yet to drop a dud. He’s lyrically responsible for four outstanding albums – 1987’s Paid in Full, 1988’s Follow the Leader, 1990’s Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em and 1992’s Don’t Sweat the Technique. At the very least, two of those – the first two - are considered classics. And even if his last two – without his DJ – cannot compare to his earlier works, both The 18th Letter and The Master are solid albums in their own right. Hey, I’d favor a rapper who drops six tight joints in twenty years over a rapper who has, say, six crappy ones out of twelve in as many years. Prolificacy can be relative, you know. And what was so great about his body of work, most particularly that of the late-'80s and early-'90s? Well, let me start with his lyrical content – I do not agree with the fairly common perception of Rakim being one-dimensional topically. For those hip-hop heads who believe that, I suggest you go give his albums a few more listens. I believe, more than anything else, it is the songs that have shown his pure lyrical prowess – like the classics and boasting benchmarks “I Ain’t No Joke,” “Follow the Leader” and “Microphone Fiend” – that get the most attention. And unfortunately, they get to overshadow the other noteworthy entries in his catalog. Rakim was never a one-trick pony. Want proof? Here - he covers romance (e.g. “Mahogany” and “What’s On Your Mind?”); gets autobiographical (e.g. “The Saga Begins”); tells stories of the past (e.g. “Remember That”); dabbles in spirituality and religion (e.g. “In the Ghetto”); touches on social issues (e.g. “In the Ghetto” and “Teach the Children”) and has time to just have plain fun entertaining the crowd (e.g. “Move the Crowd,” and “Eric B. Is President”). And who can forget arguably the first ode to getting paid by making rap music – “Paid in Full”? Rakim just might be the most balanced rapper of them all. Interestingly enough, he is comparable to Michael Jordan, in that he rarely pops up as the best in every category of assessment - it is a matter of the sum of the parts, that is, a holistic approach. He’s not as emotionally inspiring as ‘Pac. He’s not as cocky as Jay-Z. He’s not quite the ladies’ man as LL Cool J. His narratives are not as gripping as Biggie’s, Nas’ or Ice Cube’s. He’s not as overtly political as KRS-One, or as Afrocentric as Big Daddy Kane. And he’s certainly not as sensationalist as Eminem, not even close. But while most of his Top 10 brethren have excelled in certain attributes while faltering in others, Rakim maintains a level plane, a comparative case of consistency triumphing over imbalance. But you want to know one category – if it ever was – that he would definitely be on tops in? It’s one word: Innovation. I’m only scratching the surface here, but before I delve further into my main reason for saying that, let me deal with something else first – the voice. He is the master of the monotone delivery, period. The thing is that he is so smooth, so so smooth, that the general lack of intonation does not even become an afterthought – it is like it never existed or is totally insignificant. Only Kane rivals him in the smoothness department, and his unique voice has yet to be replicated since. Monotone rappers that followed afterwards, like Guru and Fabolous, have fallen short and sound relatively boring as a result. And his calmness has been copied by future wordsmiths like Slick Rick, Snoop Dogg and Biggie, thus becoming the originator of the soft-spitting style. And even at that, no one since has managed to be velvet smooth, yet that powerful at the same time. What could have appeared to be an anathema instead became a trait of veneration by subsequent generations of rappers. Now, here goes… You see, there was a time - before Rakim stepped into the scene - that rappers spat in such a regular meter and rhyme scheme, one would almost think they were reciting Dr. Seuss poems. Moreover, the lyrics were so simple in content and structure, usually comprising commonly used words and the bars having little in common with each other. No wonder this form of rapping came to be known later as “A-B-C rhyming.” Rakim, however, changed all that. A little-mentioned fact about him is that he was a saxophonist, and he was a pretty good one, too. With time, as he started rhyming, he began to model the sound of his instrument as he heard it in jazz songs. Rather than confine his flow in a meter, he decided to go beyond it, couplets pouring over from one bar to the next (e.g. “I Ain’t No Joke”: “When I'm gone, no one gets on, cause I won't let/Nobody press up, and mess up, the scene I set”). And instead of having just one syllable rhyme within couplet endings, he increased it to two or three, thus inventing the art of multi-syllabic rhyming (e.g. “I Ain’t No Joke”: “I like to stand in the crowd, and watch the people won-der-‘Damn!’/But think about it, then you'll un-der-stand”). Thus not only was he the inventor of the flow, as we call and know it today in hip-hop; he was also the founder of multi-syllabic rhyming. But no, he didn’t stop there. He now began to rhyme within couplets, too (e.g. “Microphone Fiend”: “The prescription is a hy-per-tone that's thorough when/I fiend for a mi-cro-phone like heroin!”), thus becoming the inventor of internal rhyming. And he began to speed up his rhyming in a machine gun-like style, setting the precedent for the Rap Golden Age when rappers from that era spat relatively faster than any period before and after (save for a few exceptions, of course, like Bone Thugs ‘n’ Harmony). And whereas his predecessors or his peers rarely, if ever, did so, he began to mess with figures of speech extensively, sharing credit with Kane as a pioneer of the trend. His use of metaphors, similes, puns, alliteration and personification is now legendary – in fact, he still remains the best-rounded rapper ever in this regard. So with all these innovations that he introduced to the rap game, what happens when they are combined? Simple – the results are deadly: In this journey, you're the journal, I'm the journalist Am I Eternal? Or an eternalist? - “Follow the Leader” Listening to this guy rap is…I can’t even think of the word to describe it. Jazz-smooth and effortless in delivery, highly articulate and aurally spiritual, Rakim is the all-time standard bearer of the rap game. His contributions to the art of rapping were not evolutionary; they were revolutionary. With 1987’s Paid in Full, he did not improve on the system; he got rid of it and established his, and no one has dared topple it since. Almost overnight, rap acts like Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow and even Run-D.M.C. became “old school,” sounding so primitive next to the then-twenty one-year old rhyme innovator. Rakim’s subsequent albums solidified his regime as the emcee to follow as far as lyric construction is concerned, the most basic standard being the flow and the bi-syllable. Rakim’s template is still the one that all emcees afterward - including the ones during his time – have built upon. Some decided to concentrate on certain aspects. Kool G. Rap, and later Big Pun, improved on the internal rhyming. Busta Rhymes, Twista and Bone Thugs sped up rapping even further. Eminem focused more on assonance. Artists like Big L used the figures of speech to become punchline kings. In general, every rapper post-Paid in Full – and yes, that includes the rest of the guys in my Top 10 list - has followed Ra’s blueprint. For all you doubters out there, do you now know why he is referred to as the “God Emcee”? That is why, in comparison to the work of rappers prior to – or even during – the time of his debut, Rakim’s Golden Age albums never sound dated from a lyrical standpoint – not at all. They still sound fresh several years after they were released. And that’s why, even at the “advanced” age of 38, he can still hang with the young’uns or the more recent emcees on the lyrical tip and wax their a*sses. Listen to “The Watcher 2,” for example, where Rakim totally outguns Jay-Z. In fact, I am yet to hear a song in which Rakim guest raps that he does not outshine the main event. Yep, this guy is the true definition of timeless. Peep mcheadcase’s account of a recent concert he did in North Carolina as further proof of people’s veneration of him. I’m constantly wringing my hands in anticipation of his seventh album – the aptly-titled The Seventh Seal – which should be out hopefully by next year. But ultimately I really think it matters little at this point if he releases another album or not. His legacy is set in stone; his mark on hip-hop history is indelible. What more people – most especially these MTV-worshipping cats - need to do is to either get schooled, or school themselves, on his legend and discover what the fuss is all about concerning this guy. And I hope my essay – indeed, this entire series – becomes an incentive to do so. Funny enough, Rakim has never overtly boasted of his status. But then again, he once quietly said in Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em’s “Set ‘Em Straight”: “There's one thing I don't like - it's the spotlight…’cause I already got light.” True dat – twenty years after he entered the game, everyone is still, as he would put it, following the leader. So, ladies and gents, do the knowledge. Rakim – not Eminem, or Biggie, or ‘Pac, or LL, or Jay-Z, or Nas, or Kane, or Cube, or KRS-One, or anyone else for that matter - is the one deserving of being crowned as the Greatest Of All Time – he is, truly, the G.O.A.T. NEXT TIME: Uh-uh-uh! I ain’t done yet! Think I’m going to yet y’all go before I impart upon thee my final thoughts about this entire exercise? Get back to your seats! The afterword is coming up next to wrap things up. Stay tuned… THE BALOGUN’S 10 GREATEST RAPPERS OF ALL TIME SERIES: Foreword #10 #9 #8 #7 #6 #5 #4 #3 #2 The G.O.A.T. Afterword

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