Turn on one of Rakim's tracks, then your mind will have a hard time processing so much genius at one time.
Rakim, with his mix of cadence, flow, content, stage sight, rhyme structure, and overall melodic interface, changed the art of rap, but most significantly, the function of an emcee.
William Michael Griffin Jr who's well known by his stage name Rakim Allah or simply Rakim is an American artist and record producer.
He is widely considered one of the real paradigm transformations in the culture of Hip-Hop of all time.
Rakim is an Arabic language name, that is regularly given to African American males. It may be influenced by Rahim: To show mercy or to be kind.
Eric B. & Rakim
One day Rakim drove to DJ Maniak’s house and made a beat and rhymed over it for 60 minutes, he even loaded up both sides of a Memorex tape. The goal was to play the tape when he got to college to let everyone know his ability and skills as an MC.
A few days after, Alvin Toney hit on the door with a man behind him. Alvin said “This man knows Marley Marl and Mr. Magic. He likes to make a record. His name is Eric.” Marley Marl and Mr. Magic were two of the largest names in hip-hop at that time.
Eric was thinking about creating a DJ album where he presented a group of MCs, like all the good MCs he’d encountered while traveling. So he was asking in every town he arrived to about the best MC around, When he asked that question in Wyandanch, they took him to Rakim.
Rakim put on the tape he did before and after five minutes Eric said, “Yo, we can drive to Marley Marl’s crib and have a record right now.”
That's how the two legends met, and after this initial appointment, they quickly recorded their legendary debut record called ''Paid In Full''. They went on to record 4 albums in the 6 years that they worked together. They also dropped 15 singles.
Solo Career
Rakim split with Eric B. in early 1993, in that time he was working on some legal troubles he was in, but he made a deal with Universal Records and began registering his solo debut album. In November 1997, the album The 18th Letter was dropped, the album debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 and reached certification Gold by the RIAA.
In November 2009 Rakim released The Seventh Seal. When questioned about the album title he replied: '' The number 7 has a lot of importance. The seventh letter of the alphabet is G—which represents God. There are seven seas and seven continents. The Seventh Seal deals with that and also some disclosures in the Bible. By calling my album that, I'm using it metaphorically in hip-hop. I'm expecting to kill the old state of hip hop and start a new one.''
And yes he does it, Rakim is the best rapper in the globe. he changed the hip-hop game. no one was rhyming on that level before him and no one did after him, everyone after him is an offspring of his style.
An Example to follow
For a lot of hip-hop fans, Rakim wasn't just a good MC to them, they saw him as an example(great enough to be emulated). They desired to look like, dress like, sound like, and be just like him.
He was a great example of how to be serious, how to be strong, and how to be hard while being a good model at the same time.