>
>
>Rakim:
>
>More lyrically, than musically...Rakim was the first MC to
>write a song as a secondary character...Take say, "Eric B. For
>President"...Rakim turns the mic into a living character and
>becomes an afterthought: "I came in the door, I said it
>before
>I never let the mic magnatize me no more...But it's biting me,
>fighting me, inviting me to rhyme..."
>
>As I said in a old post about Rakim's impact, rappers were not
>doing this in 85/86...This was still the era of Run DMC and
>LL: very B-Boy...Rakim brought a surreal self awareness to
>writing when it came to hip-hop...Everything changed from
>that...


all that, and he rapped on Jody Watley's "Friends" at a time when MC's wanted nothing to do with Non-Hip-Hop records. In fact, when it first came out, people were dissing Rakim for 'selling out' and dissing Jody Watley for bring the streets to Radio and R&B. and of course a couple years later, EVERY R&B artist had a rapper throw a hot 16 on their shit.

and LOL @ the era when people had two versions of the same song; one with the rap, and one with the empty 16 in it...for radio, of course.