Man, talk about shooting your wad too early. While undeniably an old-school classic let's be honest, the first two tracks of Eric B. & Rakim's sophomore LP Follow The Leader are the only real reason to own this album. The title single and "Microphone Fiend" (with arguably the most copied groove in rap history) are two of the tightest hip-hop songs ever - the kind of shit you'd give to an alien if you had to explain to it what rap was. Now as far as Eric B. & Rakim go, I was already a pretty big fan of theirs (primarily from the epic seven-minute "madness mix" of "Paid In Full" off the Colors soundtrack) so when the gangster-esque "Follow The Leader" video debuted on Yo MTV Raps! (yeah white suburbia!) I was fucking hooked. With a voice like no other, Rakim was easily one of the smoothest and most recognizable rappers of his time and while I never thought Eric B. could stop traffic as a scratch artist that guy could cut some fucking samples together. The rest of the recordis listenable, if not terribly overwhelming. There are elements of "Lyrics Of Fury," "The R" and "Musical Massacre" that I kinda like every now and then but pretty much I wore out my cassette rewinding the first ten minutes of side A over and over again. Enjoy.
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