Each album comes with a backstory, however not many include two. Rakim‘s new venture G.O.D’s Community (REB7RTH), out July 26, got here collectively in a number of fast months, from signing a deal in February 2024 to completion in June. The method was spurred by one devoted A&R particular person frantically combing by means of his community of rappers to get visitor verses over beats produced by the God MC himself.
However to listen to that A&R man, Matt “M80” Markoff, inform it, creating the seven-song venture did not take 4 months. It took 4 years.
“I’ve recognized [Rakim’s longtime manager] Matt [Kemp] and Rakim since 2007,” Markoff tells me after I get him on the cellphone in late June. “They’re used to getting calls from me a few instances a yr only for, like, present referrals, verse referrals, issues of that nature.”
Again in the beginning of the pandemic, Markoff had been speaking to the parents at Fats Beats, the venerable report store-turned-distributor that is an enormous identify in unbiased hip-hop. He talked about Rakim’s identify to the corporate, and Fats Beats responded that they’d love a venture from the God MC. The unique pitch, Markoff remembers, was “a 3 or 4 tune EP with some remixes.”
Rakim quoted his worth, Fats Beats agreed, and the venture was underway, with the emcee assembly with producers to search for beats. However Rakim, who hasn’t launched a solo album since 2009’s The Seventh Seal, isn’t one to be hurried.
“Ra was having [DJ] Premier and Pete Rock and Ninth Marvel and a few of these individuals come to the studio,” Markoff says. “Due to scheduling conflicts and stuff and, you already know, regular course of life, it simply wasn’t proper. The vibe wasn’t there.”
That is the place Jazzy Jeff got here into play. Rakim and the legendary DJ started working collectively and, per Markoff, it “simply meshed.” It appeared like, as a substitute of a handful of songs, a full-length report was within the offing.
“As quickly as they end the primary tune, I stroll into Fats Beats and say, ‘Hey, that is what we’re doing now,'” the A&R man remembers. “As a substitute of Rakim with random producers, it is Rakim/Jazzy Jeff. That’ll be enormous.”
Then…nothing.
A couple of years go, and the Rakim and Jazzy Jeff venture continues to be unfinished. (Rakim described its standing as “We have now a pair information already accomplished.”) Fats Beats, which was on the public sale block (it was ultimately bought in March 2024), desires its a reimbursement. Rakim obliges, and everybody appears set to overlook about the entire thing.
Markoff, nonetheless, was not about to surrender on working with the person he calls “my favourite emcee of all time.”
The revamped album began its life as not an album in any respect. As a substitute, the unique conception was a mannequin Markoff had used earlier than: licensing beats by individuals not usually considered producers. On this case, he’d offer aspiring rappers the prospect to get beats by arguably probably the most influential rapper of all time.
“He is taken people who find themselves not essentially referred to as producers and put collectively beat packages for them,” supervisor Matt Kemp says of Markoff. “After which, one of many issues he does is he goes out and he licenses these beats by means of an organization that he has. When you’re a European artist that would not essentially have entry to issues like that, you may get it.”
In order that, as of February of this yr, was the (revamped) plan: have Rakim do six beats and one verse, and promote non-exclusive licenses, in order that any rapper, wherever on the earth, who desires to make use of them in a tune of their very own might achieve this. This, certainly, was a imaginative and prescient that was adopted by means of all the way in which to the end line — you may see the top outcome launched July 12, priced between $700-$1,050 relying on what you need to do with the beats and the rhyme, right here.
However alongside the way in which to creating that package deal, issues bought considerably extra difficult. As Rakim was making the beats, he discovered he actually favored them. In some instances, he even needed to rhyme on them himself.
“Because the beats began coming collectively and Rakim was actually within the studio and we began placing the rhymes onto them, we realized that it was greater simply than that [original vision],” Matt Kemp mentioned.
The wheels began turning. Rakim, the God MC, as a producer? That could be a venture price sharing with the world, not only a few aspiring artists.
Because it seems, unbeknownst even to many Ra followers, the rapper has been making beats for the reason that starting. Actually, he produced — and performed drums on — one in all Eric B and Rakim’s traditional songs, 1992’s “Juice (Know the Ledge).” So producing a whole venture did not look like such an enormous stretch in any case.
“I at all times was connected to creating beats,” Rakim explains to me. “However I bought to the purpose the place I am assured with my manufacturing now. I bought the prospect to supply the album and jumped on the alternative.”
Rakim, as has been nicely documented through the years, comes from a musical household. His older brother Ronnie was a keyboard participant of some notice with his personal declare on rap historical past, his different brother Stevie can be keyboardist who carried out on some Eric B. and Rakim songs, and the rapper’s aunt is the late R&B legend Ruth Brown. So when making beats, Ra will usually play drums, bass, guitar, or piano. (He cops to enlisting one in all his brothers if the keyboard half will get too difficult.)
He describes his manufacturing model this manner: “You attempt to add on to the pattern, and improve sure sounds that you just hear. Otherwise you may simply add a melody that you just really feel enhances the pattern as nicely.”
Along with taking part in devices on the venture, Rakim additionally performs the turntable.
“I at all times knew the best way to DJ, and I like having the ability to benefit from the venture from a unique seat,” he tells me. “I loved placing the music collectively, arising with the scratch patterns.”
So with the musical aspect of the equation firmly in place, what concerning the vocals? Rakim was impressed so as to add verses on a number of songs, and hooks on a number of extra.
“It is principally a venture that I used to be presupposed to be producing,” he explains. “Within the midst of that, there’s sure beats that I am taking part in and I am like, ‘I gotta rhyme on this one,’ or, ‘I bought a rhyme that matches this one completely.'”
The query was, what to write down about? After a decade and a half with out an album, the rapper had a lot to debate, and wanted to search out new methods to say it.
For the venture’s lead single, “BE ILL,” he bought in loads of inner rhymes. And the tune’s tempo allowed him to provide you with totally different rhythms.
“When tracks are at that velocity, I can manipulate time and house to provide you with totally different rhythms as a result of I’ve a lot time and house to take care of,” he says. “It was one in all them songs I liked rhyming to. Simply having enjoyable with phrases and phrases, and on the identical time having a lot on my thoughts to say.”
“I am attempting to say quite a lot of issues,” Ra admits when discussing his writing on the album. “It is exhausting to simply come again and say a verse while you’ve been gone so lengthy. So I attempted to be very particular and cautious with the phrases that I selected, and attempt to be entertaining on the identical time. So it was somewhat nerve wracking.”
Even with Rakim’s vocal contributions (he finally ends up with both verses or hooks on six of the venture’s seven tracks), extra was wanted to finish the songs. That is the place Markoff actually bought going.
“Actually, I did not waste a single day,” he remembers. “I used to be calling the artists in my community. I reached out to every artist one after the other, and let every artist undergo the folder [of beats] with me and make their picks.”
Among the many artists Markoff reached out to had been a number of members of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has a protracted relationship with the crew, having labored with them on a number of initiatives together with the well-regarded 2005 album Wu-Tang Meet the Indie Tradition.
Markoff remembers the precise second when he lined up Wu member Masta Killa for his look on what grew to become “BE ILL.”
“I used to be on the first ever Wu-Tang Clan residency in Vegas, and I instructed Masta Killa, ‘Dude, I simply bought these Rakim beats 10 minutes in the past.’ I performed 10 seconds of the second beat, which was the beat for ‘BE ILL.’ And he was like, ‘That is the one.'”
A special Wu-Tang present was liable for one of many album’s different notable visitor appearances, Money Cash stalwart B.G. The 2 met on the live performance, and the Louisiana rapper was within the studio “48 hours later,” Markoff remembers.
For a handful of artists he had good long-term relationships with, Markoff allow them to select which of Rakim’s beats they needed to rap over. Along with Masta Killa, he names Chino XL, Hus Kingpin, 38 Spesh, and TriState as being on that quick listing. After that, he says, it was all his determination.
The tip outcome is a listing of a number of the high rappers in his Rolodex: Kool G. Rap, Methodology Man, Kurupt, Canibus, KXNG Crooked, Skyzoo, Joell Ortiz, and lots of extra — together with an outro from Snoop Dogg. However probably the most shocking issues on the tracklist is that plenty of the friends aren’t alive anymore.
Nipsey Hussle, Prodigy, DMX, and Fred the Godson have verses on the report. All of them had been individuals Markoff had labored with in some capability over the course of his profession. He says that the entire verses had been “in my stash or below my possession.” So when he was on the lookout for materials for the Rakim venture, they had been an ideal match.
The Nipsey Hussle contribution particularly stood out a lot that all the tune, “Love Is the Message,” was designed round it. The venture’s engineer positioned Neighborhood Nip’s verse first, and everybody else listened to that when recording.
“We type of glorified who he is, and got here up with the title ‘Love Is the Message’ to place every thing in perspective,” Rakim tells me. “So all people vibed off of that and every thing that we applied needed to have that really feel or needed to be in that route.”
One factor Rakim seen as he was listening to the contributions coming in? Lots of them had been paying tribute to him. Specifically, B.G. says in his verse that he is “on a tune with the best.”
“To listen to issues like that from my friends is a gorgeous factor,” says Rakim, who additionally admits to ripping up when listening to Snoop Dogg reward him on the outro of one of many album’s songs. “Hip-hop is likely one of the extra, I suppose, feisty genres. It is exhausting to get that love out of your friends. So it is an actual blessing to listen to it from individuals like that, to listen to what they consider you and to say that on information. Lots of people may suppose that of you, however would by no means say it on a report.”
For Markoff, B.G.’s tribute was notably significant due to the rapper’s historical past. He started his profession in a duo, and later a quartet, with one other rapper typically thought-about the best of all time, Lil Wayne.
“For B.G. to have that historical past, however acknowledge Rakim — I used to be speechless,” Markoff confides. “It was actually cool to see. It is like, ‘I am not simply going to say my accomplice, my buddy, my confidant Lil Wayne’s one of the best as a result of we grew up collectively.'”
Lastly, after all of the visitor verses got here in, the venture was prepared. Seven songs, fully produced by Rakim, with raps by him and a broad cross-section of artists. The query, then: what precisely is this venture? An album? An EP? Rakim’s massive comeback? A teaser for his eventual full-length return?
To Markoff, none of those labels are necessary. He isn’t involved about followers being dissatisfied {that a} venture below Rakim’s identify options solely a handful of the rapper’s verses.
“The fan goes to have a look at it nonetheless they need to have a look at it,” he says. “The destructive individuals will keep destructive. It would not matter if it was the best album of all time. The constructive individuals which might be so grateful that I stepped as much as the plate to assist convey new Rakim music to the world are going to find it irresistible.”
In any case, he continues, “The entire level initially once we began making it was letting his friends shine on Rakim beats. The truth that this venture morphed into one thing that Rakim actually is on 95% of, I could not have requested for extra of a blessing.”
So Matt Markoff, the boy who fell in love with Rakim’s music at 12 is now, three many years later, placing out music from his hero.
“Dream fulfilled,” he says proper earlier than we cling up. “Now I gotta determine what I will do for the remainder of my life.”