AR: Paid in Full

Eric B. & Rakim - Paid in Full (1987)

In 2010, Eric B. & Rakim's breakthrough effort sounds like an archaeological dig through a hip-hop tomb. It's an immediate, pleasing album of its own accord, sure, but much of its contextual power lies in its emphatic sense of music-as-museum. Whether you are well-versed in hip-hop history or not (or, like me, somewhere lost in between), this classic is a powerful trip, an essential document for late 20th century popular music.

Throwing this one on the stereo really is a quick course in vinyl anthropology. For one, it smacks of the pared down essence of the hip-hop genre. The super spare beats, samples and record-scratching DJ effort are the minimalist skeleton for music from all over the hip-hop map since; the silk-smooth, multirhythmic MCing is likewise the paradigm for every would-be street-rhyme-slinging poet. Eric B. has legendary, establish-the-art level chops on the turntables, and Rakim is routinely name-checked as a candidate for best MC of all time. These are names whispered in hushed tones when they're not being screamed in admiration, godfathers of the entire community. The production on this album is crisp though still organic and a little raw by modern standards; still, you'll have no trouble discerning the pristine qualities that made these two stalwarts if not chart-topping stars.

For two, the album plainly reveals where the idea of "stealing" James Brown horn and drum breaks came from. It's a move that prompted a lawsuit in addition to dictating the quick-cut / fill-style so integral to rap's sound. But specifically, it centered the sampling library on the ouevre of Brown, Parliament, Funkadelic, and other select artists. I.e., it established major pieces within the canon, and so is a pivotal timbre-establisher, too. But it's not just that it established the proper sources of sampling. The seamless quality of said sampling served key, too. Outside of the record scratching and vocals, most of the instrumentation of the album is plucked. I highly doubt any live drum playing went on. But you'd be hard-pressed to note this - album credits allude to five, six songs sampled per track, and while some elements may leap out, this crediting often reveals how subtly background elements can be worked, too. It's unnecessary to go into the classic merits-of-sampling debate here, but turntablism saw its one of its pivotal popular moments here and crept along its path towards legitimate art.

For three, and perhaps most importantly, the album just *is* the artifacts that are strewn all over the hip-hop landscape. Half the album is an experience of "Oh, that's where that came from!," as major hooks, phrases and lifted lines from numerous modern hip-hop hits pop up in their "original" form*. For a well-after-the-fact listener like me, those iconic moments make the disc. Most famously, the slinky funk number "I Know You Got Soul" contains the lyrical aside "pump up the volume" that was turned into the driving sample of a huge electro-dance hit. "Move the Crowd" should jump out as the bassline from the everpresent sit-com theme "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air." "As the Rhyme Goes On" contains the "why would I say I am" lyric that was checked by Eminem years later. The title cut "Paid in Full" contains a tight, circular bass and drum line that is a hip-hop staple with good reason; it's a perfect pattern that, under Rakim's incredible flow, makes one want to hear the tune roll on forever. This paragraph, in fact, could roll on forever: to see where this seminal album sits within the genealogy of a lot of hip-hop, check a site like whosampled.com - a slew of people have sampled this album which, as mentioned, itself sampled a slew of artists.

* - "Originated," of course - many of the littered elements that can be heard everywhere today are really widespread grand- and great-grand-children. But a lot of them are lyrics lifted as so fundamental to the genre's history that listeners would be expected to recognize the allusion to this classic immediately. So if the newer songs are Simpsons episodes, this album is a collection of classic film and television in monolithic form. The originals are, I don't know, books or something.

All of this history aside, the party disc makes for a great contemporary soundtrack, too. No skits here - that's a convention waiting in the wings at this point - but the album does break down for three (!) instrumental tracks that exclusively showcase Eric B.'s dizzying skills, plus a fourth track that serves as a dub-model karaoke track for one to try to emulate Rakim. All told, twenty minutes of the forty-five minute album are occupied by scratch-wizardry; this is often pointed out as a minor weakness as it starts to feel like indulgent filler after a few spins. This is probably a fair criticism as the magic is really in the interplay between the two artists (plus you can imagine how it would come across if rock bands took up half of their albums with look-at-me guitar solos). Still, the birth-of-the-artform aspect gets those tracks a pass, and there are plenty of highligh duets here to make the album a classic beyond its historicity; "I Ain't No Joke," "I Know You Got Soul" and the title track all smoke today just as well as they did two decades ago.

Paid in Full is, in short, a highly revered album that established numerous elements of the old-school rap motif. It's an historical classic that stands up as a rich listen years later, giving the modern listener a nice little deja vu trip as it displays just how powerful a stripped down '80s hip-hop LP can be. It ain't perfect but it's bad-ass, a must for your collection.

Status: Recommended

Nyet's Fave: "I Ain't No Joke"