Paid In Full
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Album Summary
Paid In Full came into the world on July 7, 1987, through 4th & Broadway and Island Records, and honey, it arrived like a thunderclap on a clear summer night. Recorded back in 1986, largely out of Marley Marl's home studio in the heart of Queens, New York, this record was the product of two young men — DJ Eric B. and the MC known as Rakim — who understood something about music that most folks were still trying to figure out. Produced by Eric B. and Marley Marl, the album was constructed on the bones of soul and funk royalty, pulling from the catalogs of James Brown, Bobby Byrd, and others who had laid the foundation decades before. What emerged was one of the earliest full-length declarations of what the East Coast hip-hop sound could truly be — not just a party record, not just a novelty, but a genuine artistic statement that announced hip-hop had grown up.
Reception
- Paid In Full climbed to number 58 on the Billboard 200 and hit number 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, a remarkable showing that signaled hip-hop's growing crossover power in the late 1980s.
- Critics singled out Rakim's vocal delivery as something genuinely new — his internal rhyme schemes and cool, almost conversational cadence stood in stark contrast to the more animated styles that had come before, earning him immediate recognition as a transformative voice in the genre.
- The album's title track received a celebrated remix from British duo Coldcut in 1987, which became a significant international hit and stretched the album's reach far beyond its original domestic audience.
Significance
- Rakim's performances across this album fundamentally redefined what an MC could be, introducing multisyllabic rhyme structures and an intellectual cool that set a new technical and artistic standard that generations of hip-hop artists have spent decades trying to match.
- Eric B.'s dense, loop-driven production — built from carefully excavated funk and soul samples — helped establish the foundational blueprint for sample-based hip-hop production that would shape the sound of the genre through the late 1980s and deep into the 1990s.
- Paid In Full stands today as one of the most revered records in hip-hop history, a cultural cornerstone that marked the moment the genre began demanding — and receiving — recognition as a serious and enduring American art form.
Samples
- I Know You Got Soul — one of the most sampled tracks in hip-hop history, with notable uses by artists including Public Enemy, whose production drew on its energy, and countless others across decades of boom-bap and beyond.
- Paid In Full — sampled by Kanye West in the construction of his sonic aesthetic and widely interpolated across hip-hop, its loop-driven structure made it a touchstone for producers seeking that classic late-80s New York feel.
- My Melody — sampled across numerous hip-hop productions over the years, its rolling, hypnotic groove proving irresistible to producers working in the East Coast tradition.
- Move The Crowd — sampled and interpolated by multiple artists drawn to its commanding energy and Rakim's authoritative flow over Eric B.'s stark, funk-rooted arrangement.
- Eric B. Is President — one of the defining tracks of the era, its production and Rakim's delivery have been sampled and referenced by artists across hip-hop's history, cementing its place as a blueprint record for the culture.
Tracklist
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A1 I Ain't No Joke 104
3:54
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A2 Eric B. Is On The Cut 100
3:48
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A3 My Melody 88
6:46
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B1 I Know You Got Soul 103
4:46
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B2 Move The Crowd 90
4:23
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C1 Paid In Full 99
3:50
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C2 As The Rhyme Goes On 92
4:00
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C3 Chinese Arithmetic 102
4:07
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D1 Eric B. Is President 96
6:15
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D2 Extended Beat 91
3:49
Artist Details
Eric B. & Rakim came together in New York in 1986, a DJ and MC duo out of Long Island who didn't just make hip-hop — they redefined what the art form could be, with Rakim's smooth, deeply philosophical lyricism laying over Eric B.'s hard-hitting, soul-sampled beats like velvet over steel. Their debut album Paid in Full dropped in '87 and sent shockwaves through the culture, establishing a new standard for lyrical complexity and delivery that every rapper who came after had to reckon with. They are widely regarded as one of the greatest hip-hop acts of all time, with Rakim in particular often cited as the God MC — a title the records themselves make it hard to argue against.
