26 Facts About Rakim

Rakim is considered a transformational figure in hip hop for raising the bar for MC technique higher than it had ever been.

Rakim helped to pioneer the use of internal rhymes and multisyllabic rhymes, and he was among the first to demonstrate the possibilities of sitting down to write intricately crafted lyrics packed with clever word choices and metaphors rather than the more improvisational styles and simpler rhyme patterns that predominated before him.

Rakim is credited with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows.

Rakim has released three solo albums: The 18th Letter, The Master and The Seventh Seal.

Rakim grew up in Wyandanch, New York on Long Island.

Rakim wrote his first rhyme at seven years old, about the cartoon character Mickey Mouse.

Rakim was a quarterback on his high school football team.

Rakim was initially introduced to the Nation of Islam in 1986; he later joined The Nation of Gods and Earths and adopted the Arabic name Rakim Allah.

In June 1999, Rakim appeared on three tracks of "The Seduction of Claude Debussy" by Art of Noise.

In November 1999, Rakim released The Master, which received good reviews but sold poorly.

Rakim was signed to Dr Dre's Aftermath Entertainment record label in 2000, for work on an album tentatively titled Oh, My God.

However, Rakim left the label in 2003 and Oh, My God was indefinitely shelved.

Rakim retreated to his Connecticut estate to work leisurely on music.

Rakim was able to retain the tracks he had made with Dr Dre and, in 2006, announced that he would release a new studio album, The Seventh Seal.

In 2011, Rakim performed Paid in Full in its entirety at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City, in honor of the album's 25th anniversary.

In 2014, Rakim is featured on the collaborative single with American rock band Linkin Park, titled "Guilty All the Same".

Rakim contributed his rhymes during the bridge for the main version of the song; however, he is not featured on the radio edit of the song.

Rakim performed the song for the first time on NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts series along with former A Tribe Called Quest member Ali Shaheed Muhammad and producer Adrian Younge.

On October 20,2016, it was announced via Twitter that Rakim had reunited with Eric B after 23 years.

Rakim's rhyming deviated from the simple rhyme patterns of early 1980s hip hop.

The New York Times Ben Ratliff wrote that Rakim's "unblustery rapping developed the form beyond the flat-footed rhythms of schoolyard rhymes".

Rakim had a slow flow, and every line was blunt, mesmeric.

Artists and critics often credit Rakim with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows.

Rakim's rapping set a blueprint for future rappers and helped secure East Coast hip hop's reputation for innovative lyrical technique.

William Jelani Cobb stated in his book To the Break of Dawn that his rapping had "stepped outside" of the preceding era of old school hip hop and that while the vocabulary and lyrical dexterity of newer rappers had improved, it was "nowhere near what Rakim introduced to the genre".

Pitchfork placed Paid in Full at number fifty-two in its "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s"; editor Sam Chennault wrote that Rakim inspired a generation of MCs and "defined what it meant to be a hip-hop lyricist".