A question I’ve been forced to ask myself over the past few years is this: is Rakim overrated? My initial reaction to this question would be to shoot the half-closed eye Wu-Tang look. It’s a legit question, though. If you go lyric for lyric, line for line, is Rakim THAT much better than Kane or Kool G Rap? I can’t say for sure. Not only can I not say that he’s far superior, I can’t even necessarily always say that he’s superior. Not anymore, at least.

I came into my awe of Rakim honestly. I wasn’t one of those people who had been all hyped up on the legend before I heard him. I don’t even remember hearing people talk about him before I heard My Melody. It was a song on a dubbed tape I had jacked from a friend. I didn’t know who was on it. Just songs dude liked. But I remember that I was crossing Roosevelt Boulevard the first time I heard, “I’ll take seven MCs and put ‘em in a line…” That moment is frozen in time. It’s also a big part of the reason that I revere Rakim in a way that I never did with Kane. Rakim was somebody I listened to, not for the songs themselves, but strictly for the lyrics. Songs like Chinese Arithmetic and the other instrumentals on Paid In Full actually made me not wanna listen to the tape. It was only the lyrics that got me. But even then, it wasn’t like I was walking around quoting Rakim. I was just in awe of his skill.

Kane, on the other hand, had lines that I just couldn’t help walking down the street quoting. Put a quarter in your ass cuz you played yourself? When I clear my throat, that’s AWWWLLLL she wrote? Come on. Where Rakim was that calm, laid-back, seemingly silent killer, while Kane was all bluster, swagger, and skill. And let me emphasize ’skill.’ Kane was that dude in a way that Rakim wasn’t. In a way, it’s kinda like Marvin Harrison versus Randy Moss. There’s Harrison’s quiet, efficient excellence and there’s Moss’s showy, braggadocios excellence. I don’t know that it’s fair to say that one is better, it’s just a matter of preference.

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