OLDSKOOL INTERVIEWS

 

The greatest MC who has ever done it gave an interview about his groundbreaking classic album Follow The Leader. The classic album was released 25 years ago Rakim gave an interview with Complex Music and spoke about where he was mentally when it was made. He also speaks on little know episode of beef with fellow Long Islanders EPMD

 

 

 

What was the importance of Follow The Leader to your career?

After my first album, Follow the Leader, kind of solidified that I was who I said I was, you know what I mean? It was a good thing. I remember performing out at the Apollo before it came out. I’m pretty sure Jesse Jackson was there. It was like a big thing that they had. I just remember performing that—and usually we didn’t perform records that the people didn’t know—but I went on and performed that and I got a good response from it and it kind of let me know as well that I was taking off.

 

In the end of the song, you kind of get at “fake MCs” or whatever you wanna call them, “the pretenders” or “the followers” and you dissect somebody in the rhyme. You take them apart piece-by-piece. I thought that for somebody to go into the universe and then come back and commit metaphoric violence on somebody on that level, it was quite a quantum leap. But I always heard you were kind of addressing the EPMD controversy.
Yeah it was a lot of talk going back and forth, nah mean? A couple things happened.

 

 

This was a Long Island situation?
Nah, it was just me and them, you know what I mean? We had a little problem, you know what I mean? And I kind of had to address it because my thing was, and still is, I don’t like to address a lot of things on record. I don’t even pay them no mind when I’m doing what I do. I don’t even like giving people the thought of day. But that there, there was a lot brewing and I just had to let them know, you know what I mean? We cool today, we’re really cooler now more than ever, man. I just did a show with them maybe a month ago and we kick it heavy now. That’s just that young testosterone—letting cats know can’t nobody can see me! That’s how I felt. I felt, This is my style.

 

Tell me about “Lyrics of Fury.” What was in your mind when you came up with that? Did you hear the record first or did you come up with the concept before that?
Yeah I came up with the concept. That was a George Clinton record that my brother Stevie Blast played. He used to play the keyboards on a bunch of my albums. But when I was coming up young, we would share rooms and he would play a lot of George Clinton. I came up on that as well. There was this one song he used to play, which was “No Head, No Backstage Pass.” But the sounds of it, man. I remember after I started rapping, I heard it again one time, but I didn’t have access, and I was just like, “Wow, that would be a crazy sample.” It just sounded so mean, nah mean?

 

Who came up with the catching y’all from the back on the hood of the car? What kind of car was that?
That was a Rolls Royce. It was because the artwork Dapper Dan put on the back. The “Follow the Leader” joint, it was like, “Follow us.” So, everything kind of worked out. 

 

 

For full interview

http://www.complex.com/music/2013/07/rakim-follow-the-leader-interview

 

 

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