Eric B & Rakim - Follow The Leader

1988. I remember that year well, as that was the year that hip-hop really blew up as an art form and popular music across the United States and was the first year of a period of unparalleled creativity that spawned the best hip-hop releases. A white kid like me living in suburban Northern VA didn’t have much access to hip-hop, I got most of my fix from my next door neighbor who moved there from NYC and had a bunch of mix and radio tapes. I was already into Run-DMC (as a lot of American kids were), but in 1988 MTV started Yo! MTV Raps! which brought numerous videos of artists I’ve never seen, dancing around in the Puma sweats and the super dookie rope chains, with the MCs jumping and dancing, and the DJs looking cool as shit just nodding with the headphones on. The one I remember that summer was the video for Rob Base & DJ E.Z. Rock’s “It Takes Two” which I thought was the greatest song ever created and that tape NEVER left my walkman, and was the anthem of the summer from the baseball fields, the pool, and playing it on my friend’s boom box when we would hang out in someone’s yard as I was trying to kiss Ginger Bennet. So 1988 was the start of myself taking a huge interest in girls, and the real beginning of a love affair with hip-hop. It is kind of cool that a music shares the same age and maturation as yourself. Hip-hop and I were born around the same time, and both evolved to that next level in 1988. There are different opinions but most will claim that hip-hop’s Golden Age was 1988-1995 and I would tend to agree. 1988 saw the breakaway of goofy party raps and focused on fierce lyrical delivery and vocabulary, coupled with extremely innovative production techniques involving sampling, stereo mixing and additions of effects into the music. Gone was the days of a MC rapping over a TR-808 beat, producers like Marley Marl, Eric B, Ced Gee, and the Bomb Squad were weaving tapestries of complex beats that still sound fresh today. 1988 saw such incredible albums released as Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back¸ Ultramagnetic M.C.s Critical Beatdown, Big Daddy Kane’s Long Live The Kane, and of course the record in question Eric B & Rakim’s Follow The Leader. It was one of those years in musical history where everything just came together, and came out at the right time.

A common feeling of hip-hop from this time period is that many listeners are worried at first that it will sound jaded and elementary. However I would point out that EARLY hip-hop from 1979 to 1983 (the year when Run-DMC came out and changed the face of the game) sounds pretty silly these days. The beats are basically 2 bars from a disco record played over and over and the rhymes are about the party. But by the time 1988 came around, hip-hop had evolved to a more complex definitive art form; a parallel of 1988 vs. 1981 hip-hop would be like comparing 1967 to 1961 rock. Both latter periods obviously were influenced by the previous music, but then extended it and made it more complex. Which is why I think Follow The Leader is such a ground breaking record.

Now before I go into the production and rhyme techniques I would like to point out that this record, is a prime example where Side A is considerably better than Side B, almost to the point where it would have been better to be an EP. Aside from the sucka MC diss track with the unique (at that time) beat in reverse production “No Competition”, the rest of the tracks on the second part of the record don’t hold up well to the first part. Now that I got some negative comments out:

The triad of “Follow The Leader”, “Microphone Fiend”, and “Lyrics Of Fury” may be one the greatest openings of a hip-hop album ever. All three tracks hit you in the face with a 4-finger ring that spells MIKAR on your forehead when you look in the mirror.

“Follow The Leader” starts out with it a devastatingly liquid bassline setting the tone of gritty dreams, and a very eerie string sample weaved in and out L to R. To be honest if an instrumental version of this could come out today with Amon Tobin'’s name attached to it and no one would blink. Ever time I hear this track I’m amazed about how inventive this was for 1988 (and probably 2007). The samples flow incredibly well around the simple drum loop, pushed harder by the horn stabs that grow in strength through the bars. In fact this is one of the first examples I can think of a hip-hop beat using volume in the stereo mix, and it totally compliments the overall menacing tone. And why should it be menacing? Because Rakim at this time would straight up MURDER any MC that would try to come his way. NO ONE sounded like this, and his place in the MC hall of fame cannot be understated. His rhyme delivery is very quick but he makes a point that you hear ever word he says. True in 1988 braggadocio was still the name of the game, but Rakim does it better than anyone else.

But my favorite track is “Microphone Fiend”, as this was the first video I saw and my first glimpse of Eric B & Rakim. It opens up with the badass guitar sample of Average White Band’s “Schoolboy Crush” with some “ahh” vocals under the mix. When Rakim comes on its just…..

COOL! Cause I don’t get upset, I kick a hole in the speaker pull the plug and I JET!

(btw this is the first instance I know of when a recording studio is referenced as the lab…..worthy of recognition in and of itself). Rakim is at his best for the rest of his track, and many of these verses have been sampled in a lot of places. It’s too difficult to even write about his rhyme technique for this song, just listen to it.

Then comes the riot starter, b-boy circle former, the infamous “Lyrics of Fury”. Now a lot of producers in 1988 were using “Funky Drummer” but I think this is the best usage of it. They either sampled it off of a copy they found in a sewer, or just twisted the filter knob just so to give it that distance-dirty sound to it. Plus that hard guitar thrown over it? This shits on that Sinead O’Connor remix. Replay the instrumental at 130 BPM and it’s an instant killer jungle track. Rakim never sounds like a happy person, but he is straight up ANGRY on this track. He seems to be jumping at you, punctuating his rhymes perfectly syncopating ontop the right snare hits off the drum loop. His rhymes are so strong that he even pleads that that he killed someone with them. ‘Nuff said.

An honorable mention goes to “Eric B Never Scared” the DJ track. The beats aren’t as inventive except for the delay effect, but I just how he scratches a sample stating “God is a living man…” Can’t really argue with that…..

In summary I will just state that 1988 was the year when hip-hop really grew up and broke out as an art form, and that this record is a testament to that. Sure more complex records with better MCs have been released since this one, but listening to Follow The Leader either in 1988 or 2005 you can’t help but nod your head.