Rakim

William Michael Griffin Jr born January 28 1968 better known by his stage name Rakim rɑːˈkɪm is an American rapper He is one half of golden age hiphop duo Eric B Rakim with whom he released four albums Paid in Full 1987 Follow the Leader 1988 Let the Rhythm Hit Em 1990 and Dont Sweat the Technique 1992 He also released four solo albums The 18th Letter 1997 The Master 1999 The Seventh Seal 2009 and GODs Network Reb7rth 2024 Rakim is considered a transformative figure in hip hop He helped to pioneer the use of internal rhymes and multisyllabic rhymes and 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 also credited with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows Rapper Kool Moe Dee explained Rakim is basically the inventor of flow We were not even using the word flow until Rakim came along It was called rhyming it was called cadence but it wasnt called flow Rakim created flow Paid in Full was named the greatest hip hop album of all time by MTV in 2006 while Rakim himself was ranked No 4 on MTVs list of the Greatest MCs of All Time Steve Huey of AllMusic stated that Rakim is nearuniversally acknowledged as one of the greatest MCs perhaps the greatest of all time within the hiphop community The editors of Aboutcom ranked him No 2 on their list of the Top 50 MCs of Our Time 19872007 In 2012 The Source ranked him No 1 on their list of the Top 50 Lyricists of All Time Description above from the Wikipedia article Rakim licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia