It's May 21, 2024, 07:32:28 AM
ThaFormula.com - So you wrote the rhymes to "Paid in Full" when you were in high school?Rakim - Oh no the rhymes for "My Melody" was written about 3 years before it came out. A lot of them rhymes was just rhymes I had on tapes. Those rhymes I used to say at the park and things like that. But everything else came after I signed and started making records.
ThaFormula.com - So can you say Rakim that throughout your whole career you never lost a battle comin' up ?Rakim - Yeah, I would say that man. Nobody never got the best of me man.
ThaFormula.com - Now production wise Rah, how come other then the first LP you guys never did any work with other producers until you decided to go solo?Rakim - I don't know man. I think back then like me and Marley we did a couple of joints on the solo albums I was working on, but for one reason or another the joints never came out. Like one time we did a couple of joints and the label changed they staff and the 6 or 7 or 8 records that I had got leaked into the streets. That was the New York to Cali joints and a bunch of joints. They even put one on the battle of the beats on the radio and it was just a tape. But for one reason or another some of the joints got leaked out and me and Marley didn't get a chance to hook up again. We were supposed to or would have liked to. I always liked Marley's beats. He bring's the hood out the wax. But back then me and Eric B. was so involved with what we was doing and myself I had a little formula I liked sticking to. A lot of people don't know most of the tracks on the first, second and third album I did.
ThaFormula.com - Yeah I always wondered, was Eric B the producer and Rakim the MC?Rakim - Nah, I did most of the tracks. It was just so much that I wanted to bring to the table as far as some of the beats I used to rhyme to in the park and just so many ideas, so we didn't really have to go outside the table. But back then a lot of people wasn't doing it. Everybody was kind of sticking to they own camp.