Paid In Full
by Eric B. & Rakim

From telefunker 04/20/2009 18:42 | #3662 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

for me, early rap music has not aged particularly well.. seminal though it may be, this just doesn't hold up against anything today.. lyrically or musically.. whereas in other genres, the groundbreaking releases seem to compare very favourably to modern equivalents

This album is regarded as one of the key albums in the development of rap. In my opinion, this album seems boring when compared to today's rap and hip-hop. It's actually very sparse, mostly Rakim's calmly-delivered raps over drum-machine beats and scratching. The sampling seems very light. People may have danced to this back in the day, but I don't think people would dance to it now. Rakim's rhymes are good -- there's a lot of internal rhymes -- but not great. On the plus side, there don't seem to be any swear words on this album, nor are there denigrating references to women. I don't think the "n-word" appears on this album either. Like some of the other commenters, I don't think this has aged well.

From babyBlueSedan TOP 100 COMMENTER 03/28/2015 17:47 | #138079 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Proof that "seminal" doesn't always equate to good. Rakim's lyrics are great, but once you've heard albums like Liquid Swords or anything by DOOM the internal rhyming doesn't sound quite as hard hitting. And the production also hasn't aged well, as people have said. Not a bad album by any means (it's actually a really enjoyable listen), but it's not mind blowing either.

From joannajewsom 04/07/2018 17:12 | #212452 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

The instrumentals get in the way, but the rest is still incredible 30+ years later. I understand those who see the production as dated, but most of these beats still knock despite that.

And the real star here is Rakim's rapping. His wordplay, rhyme patterns, and delivery still hold up--they do more than merely hold up; they're great. This the the most meta- rap album in history probably. Every song, even the title track, is ultimately about how great of a rapper he is. And yet the content never bores me because Rakim is that creative.

This is a good example of a clean record for people who haven't listened to much hip hop.

Rakim's lyrics outdo Eric B's turntable work. His lyrical flow is relentless and clever, and his cool delivery was unlike a lot of the music coming out at that time. Eric B's turntable work is fun but very outdated and his instrumental tracks do poorly without Rakim's MC work.

#1 Greatest Hip Hop album of all time, according to MTV