🧢 Old School Wednesday
Eric B. & Rakim ~ “Paid in Full” (1987)
*This is the video, but this is the album version
Thinkin’ of a master plan
‘Cause ain’t nothin’ but sweat inside my hand
That line alone became an anthem for hungry dreamers everywhere.
“Paid in Full” was a shift.
Enter Rakim.
🐐
Laid back. Smooth. Calculated.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t rush.
Rakim made it flow.
And while the cadence was calm, the rhymes were complex ~
Internal rhymes. Multisyllabic patterns. Poetic intentions delivered with surgical precision.
And it sounded tight.
Kool Moe Dee once said: “Any MC that came after 1986 had to study Rakim just to know what to be able to do.”
He wasn’t wrong ~ nearly every great that came after carries a little Rakim in their DNA.
And then there’s Eric B.
Raw, gritty beats.
Funk and soul chopped into something sharper.
His production was minimalist, but never simple ~ it left space for Rakim to operate.
When paired together, it was lightning in a bottle.
One of the most iconic MC/DJ duos to ever do it.
🧪 Sample Breakdown
“Paid in Full” is a masterclass in stripped-down, sample-based hip-hop. Eric B. dug deep and came back with gold.
Dennis Edwards ft. Siedah Garrett ~ “Don’t Look Any Further” (1984)
The Soul Searchers ~ “Ashley’s Roachclip” (1974) ~DC Style~
Fab 5 Freddy ~ “Change the Beat” (1982)
Bonus: The Coldcut Remix (1987)
The UK remix that took the track global ~ especially through clubs and radio overseas. It added chopped-up vocal samples and international flair, turning the minimalist vibe into a maximalist dance-floor cut.
💡 Why It Matters
“Paid in Full” raised the bar.
It shifted the culture.
It gave MCs permission to think deeper, and producers a blueprint for how to support that depth.
If you listen closely, you can hear echoes of Rakim’s flow in every generation that followed ~
From Jay-Z to Nas, Tupac to Biggie, Eminem to Kendrick, and beyond.
Eric B. and Rakim were just 21 and 19 when they made Paid in Full.
And 30+ years later ~
it’s still paying dividends.
*Rakim Tiny Desk concert was great. +Ali Shaheed Muhamad (ATCQ & the Ummah) +Kingfish
‘Cause I don’t like to dream about gettin’ paid
So I dig into the books of the rhymes that I made
So now’s a test to see if I got pull
Hit the studio, ’cause I’m paid in full
