January 20, 2000
It’s been said about The Velvet Underground’s debut album that not many people bought it, but everyone who did formed a band. While apocryphal, the story holds a sprinkling of truth, speaking to the album’s staggering influence. Precisely the same story applies to Paid in Full. One of the three most important hip hop albums of all time, it retains its focused power nearly 15 years later – any recent hip-hop convert hearing it for the first time today will be shocked to hear how many of Rakim’s lyrical licks have been sampled, quoted or otherwise appropriated; there isn’t a line in “I Know You Got Soul” that hasn’t appeared in some album released in the last decade, as lesser MC’s try to capture some of that early magic. As a lyricist, Rakim remains the Holy Grail of darkly authoritative delivery; when he brags, you believe. His groundbreaking microphone attack sounds deceptively conversational while employing sophisticated internal rhyming techniques and imagery, and hearing such inventive rhymes so early in hip-hop's development remains shocking - it's as if you came across a dusty Charley Patton 78 and heard a Stratocaster screaming in the background. Suddenly, Run-DMC’s style, in which rhymes you saw coming from miles away landed directly on the beat, seemed hopelessly amateur.
Sonically, Paid in Full shattered the mold – with its extended instrumental tracks, it put greater focus on the DJ, anticipated trip-hop and was the first to use James Brown’s hollers, drum breaks and horn blasts, establishing what would later become hip-hop’s ubiquitous homage to the Godfather. Huge, skeletal beats punctuated by depth-charge bass booms and dub-like, echoing scratches combine with strange synth whistles, haunting flute loops and xylophone tinkling to make singles of stripped-down, hallucinatory impact. The title track houses a brief, complex parable of rampant materialism, braggadocio, disaffected urban violence, and hip-hop as redemption that sums up all of the genre’s major themes in 2 minutes; its menacing bass line was the first thing I learned how to play on my 4-string. ‘Nuff said.
- Jared O’Connor
hallucinatory power