Eric B and Rakim are hip-hop royalty. In fact, they are hip-hop gods who influenced every aspect of rap culture. Rakim, much like many of the 90's rap legends like Nas (who famously stated hip-hop was dead in 2006), has been vocal about how the new-school of rappers makes him feel. The disconnect between generations is real, and Rakim apparently has little love for the music he's hearing on the radio these days.
Rakim took to Twitter on Monday to write, “You are now witnessing the devolution of rap music. The death of poetry and smoothness, they use this. The absence of a message. The inability to create meaningful change through words and verses, but the worse is, they don’t even know they hurt this artful purpose, it’s tragic.”
In a second post, uploaded on Valentines Day, Rakim wrote, "You need to look real close at this previous tweet that’s reached almost 1 million people already and see what you read. It says “rap” not “hip hop”. If you don’t know the difference, you can’t make a difference."
MTV famously ranked Eric B and Rakim's Paid In Full album as the greatest hip-hop album of all time, and Rolling Stone ranked the album with its 500 greatest albums of all time.
