“4/4 time was nothing to me”
by Jay Savage
He is not the greatest interview subject but Rakim, who “melted microphones just like cones of ice cream” appeared on The Tight Rope with Cornel West and Tricia Rose in the past month. It’s a sort of conundrum.
Rakim once claimed “the science I drop is real heavy”. That’s not bold or boastful . It’s a fair declaration - he's peerless in the form - and when he talks about Coltrane and says “4/4 time was nothing to me”, there are few whose work steps up to that supreme discipline or giant standard; Rakim approached Trane in his excavation, examination and exploration of time, space, phraseology, grace, breath, breadth and singularity.
His role on a record, he describes as that “of an instrument”. Coltrane had the benefit of being amongst creative peers and steadfast company but Rakim only rarely had the musical companionship to match and underwrite his virtuosity. Coltrane had Miles and Duke and Monk and Elvin and Mr PC and the many other titans to play amongst and against and with and off, to have his back when he went where no others had dared. It was a different moment but Rakim found only a few collaborators of distinction while he pushed meter and dimension and clarity and pressed the walls of thought and sound and reflection further and deeper than his contemporaries ... when Cornel puts him in the league of Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X it is not hyperbole or exaggerated reference - Rakim is the shit - Bebop, hard bop, rhythm rhyme, black and blue and delirious in flow and invention, technique and style and consciousness, dedication and expansive creativity …
On the title track of the second and greatest Eric B and. Rakim album Follow the Leader there is one moment (among many) of transcendent informational clarity - where form and content topple giddily into each other: “Let’s quote”, the rapper exhorts, “a rhyme from a record I wrote...” and the recorded snippet retorts “Follow the Leader!” before the R, seeming to pause to consider the abbreviated sample (you can almost picture him hand on chin) remarks laconically, “Yeah, dope...”
Find a playlist here or stream these:
“Follow the Leader”
“Microphone Fiend”
“Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em” (the Upso remix)
“I Know You Got Soul”
“Casualties of War”
“Lyrics of Fury”
“Run For Cover”
© Jay Savage