Dedicated
Microphone fiend Rakim is back
by Ericka Blount Danois
I enjoyed your show in D.C. I heard in some shows you’ve performed “Mahogany” with a live band. I was hoping that would happen in D.C.
Touring around the world is always a real eye-opener—seeing different cultures and hearing what the streets is saying in each town. We like to mix things up a little with the way we put on shows and the elements we bring in. My dude Kid Capri has held us down on the ones and twos year after year. We’ve had live bands. Questlove is a great musical director, and he has put them together for us, and then the Rhythm Roots All-Stars held us down on the “Hip Hop Live” tour in 2007. For this tour, we chose some more intimate venues to start testing out material from the new album and brought along Technician the DJ who is a beast on the decks. We’ll be back early 2010 to support the release, and I’ll see what I can get poppin’ for you.
For the first single off the album, “Holy Are U,” what you’re talking about it? Is it a metaphor for the transformation of hip-hop, where we are as Black people, the coming of the apocalypse, or more personally your own spiritual growth? Or all of the above?
I think it’s closer to all of the above, really, but specifically with that song and the whole Seventh Seal album. I was trying to bring the light to some of the lessons I’ve learned over the years and let people know that some of these things we are seeing have been written about, not just in the Bible, but the Koran, Mayan prophecies, the Sutras, and so on. They are speaking of wars and fires, plagues and earthquakes, great storms and tsunamis that all lead up to the apocalypse. I ain’t saying I’m sure it’s all gonna end in 2012 or that swine flu and Ebola are gonna wipe out humanity, but you can’t deny we are seeing a lot of these things happen in the world today. Metaphorically, it’s what we need in hip-hop, tsunami the whole thing out and then step back and take the best of what remains from each style and region—which there is a lot of—and build back up the Kingdom. In “Holy Are U,” I also introduce the concept that all men are Gods. That takes from some of the lessons you build on with Five Percenters and interpretations direct from the scriptures. Without paraphrasing the exact text, the message in the end is that each individual is in many ways the center of their own universe and has the power to affect the world around them with their words and acts.
What does the Seventh Seal represent for you?
The album is my music for the listener. A lot of my writing in the past focused on my own actions, my own skills. With this one, I tried to interpret what’s going on in the hood, what’s happening in the individual lives, and shine a light on that. Whether it’s tracks about the struggles in the streets or in your house, conflicts with your faith or your loved ones, I tried to relate the experiences people are having out there and, over the course of the album, how that fits into the broader view of the world. I also had to throw a couple on there like “Still in Love” and “Put It All to Music” that are straight up props to the whole hip-hop scene and, with a track like “How to Emcee,” let the world know that this is still Rakim, and I still do what I do.
