Rakim on His First Album in 15 Years ‘The God’s Network: Reb7rth’

Rakim is regarded by generations of rap fans as The God MC. But we may need to start referring to him as The God MC / Producer. Sitting in his studio on a sunny July afternoon, he tells Rolling Stone that he produced “a lot” of the seminal Eric B and Rakim albums, which were in part created from a stash of loops that he would keep in tow to rap along to at park jams.

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Even in the hyperbolic sphere of hip-hop, Rakim’s microphone supremacy can’t be overstated — Kool Moe Dee has said he “invented flow” on classics such as “Paid In Full,” “I Ain’t No Joke,” and “Move The Crowd.” But not as many people recognize his DJing and production chops. He says that beat-making was his first love, but he hasn’t heavily showcased it throughout his career. That may start to change with God’s Network: Reb7rth , out today, Rakim’s first project since 2009’s The Seventh Sea l.

The 56-year-old MC’s bars are still sharp, but the project predominantly highlights his production skills. He and A&R Matt Markoff compiled a cross-country collection of rappers like Snoop Dogg, B.G, Kurupt, and Method Man to rhyme on songs like the cipher-ready “ Be Ill ” with Kurupt and Masta Killa as well as the heartrending “ Love Is The Message .” The latter track includes a posthumous verse from Nipsey Hussle, and there are also verses from the late Prodigy, DMX, and Fred The Godson. Impressively, the project’s verses blend in a cohesive manner that showcases Rakim’s curatorial ear.

He has three MPCs—a piece of hardware that heavily shaped the sound of New York rap’s golden era (stalwart producers Dj Premier, Pete Rock, and Large Professor are just a few MPC devotees). That sound is reminiscent throughout God’s Network , which Rakim says will be followed by a rap album he’s crafting with Jazzy Jeff.

Rakim says the term “Rebirth” reflects overcoming a tumultuous 2020 which included four brain fog-inducing bouts with Covid-19. “I think after 2020 the world went through a lot, I went through a lot, people around me went through a lot, and it kind of put things in perspective,” he says. “I was able to put my reality in perspective. It was a hard time for a lot of people, myself as well, but it was also a time where what we’ve been preparing for, [I realized] I’m built for this. I’m not going to say I’m Iron Man, but we put here to go through life. That’s what makes us men. So bring that on. But you want to try to direct your energy where you need it. Take the good with the bad. Being an artist, that’s what we got to do.”

We talked to Rakim about God’s Network , his love for beatmaking, and navigating his career on his terms.

Can you explain the title to me, specifically “Rebirth?”
The last few years I’ve been doing a lot of tours and things of that nature, a lot of good things and the energy that I’ve been getting, I translated that into the studio. One of the songs that I did was called “Rebirth.” And that’s just the way I’ve been feeling lately with everything that’s been going on with myself and Hip-Hop, and even life for itself. So it is a good feeling, and I’m riding that wave right now.

Have you ever had that kind of period before where you felt like you experienced a creative rebirth?
I think it’s what’s going on with me and where I’m at in life right now. I love getting on the road. I love the energy that the people give me that’s why I write what I write. But the foundation for me is in the studio. And when I’m not in the studio, I don’t feel like everything is complete. So after COVID hit and all the crazy nonsense that was going on in that period, I caught COVID like four times myself. You get to a period where, especially dealing with the COVID, nothing really matters. The studio didn’t matter, it wasn’t that important to me with all the things that was going on around me.

A little time after that, I was able to refocus my energy back towards being creative. And it was hard after having COVID. The symptoms from having that leave you in a fog, but I was able to focus that energy back. One of the songs, like I said, was called “Reborn” and it was the way I was feeling after fighting that long way back, everything that I went through and the people around me, what they was going through, and definitely feel like I’m back, focused, but with a brand new agenda.

How long did it take to get back to feeling like yourself after COVID?
I started writing [for a project] just before I caught it. And to get back in the studio after a long time, you’re trying to get comfortable back in your pocket. So I was able to do that and everything was flowing, and then COVID hit. And then, I get back in the studio and things wasn’t flowing. And I’m being patient thinking, “All right, you ain’t working a long time, you got to…” And after a couple of weeks it’s like, nah, something ain’t right. So I reached out to my manager, Matt Kemp, and was like, “Yo, man, listen, I know what goes on with my mind and how I think. I don’t have to think for words to transform or concepts to come to me. I [usually] can’t stop thinking about words. A word can pop up in my head and automatically, I’m thinking of 100 words that rhyme with it. So I’m like, “Yo, Matt, something ain’t right, bro.” Long story short, man, we did a little research, and then, information start coming out about what happens after you catch COVID and how the symptoms, some are longterm, and it takes a while to get that out of your system. So knowing that — I felt better because I’d rather fight that than writer’s block. It was just something that I had to overcome. And that was the process of being reborn.

Can you tell me how the project came together?
My man, Matt Markoff, he been wanting to do some projects with me for a while. So finally, he came up with an idea where he wanted me to produce a couple tracks for some artists across states. I DJ when I got time at the crib and [I love] making beats. This is another thing that helped me enjoy the elements of hip-hop and then break the monotony [of writing]. When I come in my studio, I ain’t writing all the time. I come in, I write when I need to. I make beats. I DJ. Do whatever I feel for that day, man.

[But] I love doing beats, this was a good opportunity for me to showcase that side of Rakim, so I jumped on the opportunity. And I started sending the beats back to Matt Markoff. And I don’t know what he thought I was going to give him, but I sent him some nice joints. And he said, “Yo, we should make a project, get some artists and make it happen.” So he went out and started hollerin’ at rappers and letting them put they ear on the music. And before you know it, they start picking beats and writing their verses, and [it] came together. We planned it exactly like it did, but it was just organic, artists being creative. And what was dope is just everybody feeling the vibe of the track or whatever was going on.

How collaborative was the artist selection process? Did Mark spearhead the artists that he reached out to, or did you give him advice?
Matt networks with the hip-hop community. So he went out and let the right artists put their ear on the music, and [they said] “Yo, I like that beat right there. I love that beat. I like this beat.” It all came together. And then, from there, it was just a matter of making it fit and making it sound like we did it all together in the studio at one time. So big up to Matt Markoff. And peace to everybody that worked on the project, everybody did a hell of a job, especially the way that we had to do it. Modern technology is beautiful, the way you can send music to somebody, they can do what they need to do, send it back to you.

How do you feel about that adjustment? Back in the day, music was moreso created together in a studio. Now, so much stuff is digital and you lose some of the human connection of the creative process. How do you balance that dynamic?
I praise the artist that was on it because everybody understood what was going on and made it work. I think the tracks that I put out was easy to read. What was crazy is I named my tracks and I think a lot of the artists went on to [reference] that I named the original tracks. So everybody was on the same page and it came together. Even if we tweak the title later on, everybody still had the same agenda when it came to every record that was done.

There are artists from all over the country on the project. Can you speak to how cool that is and what kind of statement that makes about just the universality of hip-hop?
I think it speaks volumes how everybody came together. And again, it sounded like we was all in the studio for each track. The tracks and the music that I do, of course, I’m from New York, so they’re heavily New York influenced, but universal enough where anybody can understand the concept and say, “Yo, that’s a nice track.” So to be able to bring these artists from different places, and connect, and we all on one page is a beautiful thing. I think it should break down some of the limitations that hip-hop has.

And I’m sure also, nobody expected somebody from my time to be able to do what we doing, which is a blessing as well. But it just shows good music is good music. It don’t have to be a down South beat. It don’t have to be a trap beat. It don’t have to be a West Coast beat. It don’t have to be an East coast beat. Just a good universal track, I think that’s what I was trying to do from the beginning.

There are four posthumous verses on the project from Prodigy, Nipsey Hussle, DMX, and Fred the Godson. How did those come together?
Fred, Nip, Prodigy, and DMX [are] well-loved brothers in hip-hop, and artists that I love and respect myself. So some of these joints that he was getting, he was surprising me, [Like] “Yo, I’m not going to tell Ra I got this verse yet. I’m just going to surprise him.” So it was a couple surprises. Some of them were joints that I know that he was seeking out for, but it’s an honor to be able to have them brothers on a project, and then, at the same time, showcase their work and give the world more of these artists that we love and miss so much.

The Nipsey Hussle joint is called “Love.” It’s a heartfelt joint. You hear pain. You hear struggle. You hear also victory. It’s hard for me to listen to it without thinking about our reality, my reality, things we go through, things they went through. But things like that, it just made the project that much better and gave it that much more substance.

The Prodigy verse in particular, he was saying “ayo, God,” it really sounded like he was talking to you.
Right. Right. Incredible. When I heard it, man, that was a surprise too. I got the chills. People already understand that he’s gone, [but] how could you not think we ain’t do that in the studio together? Every time he said it, I wanted to respond on a record, but I didn’t want to mess with it like that. I wanted to respond on the record as if we was talking and having that conversation, but it goes without saying. So I just let it rock, so [it’s] beautiful to me.

I saw that you said that production was your first love with hip-hop. How involved were you in the beat-making process of the early Eric B. & Rakim projects?
I did a lot of those tracks. A lot of those tracks was records that I rhymed off of back in the day in the parks and the little yard parties and things of that nature. From Dennis Edwards to James Brown [who I sampled on] “I Ain’t No Joke,” these was all records that I rhymed off. If I knew the DJ didn’t have what I liked rhyming to when I went to the park, I had them in my little case. [I’d say] “Yo, my man, throw these on for me.” Those were some of my loves. And the first thing I thought of when we went to the studio is that, that was my bag.

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How much does it streamline your process when you’re making your own beats and you can write to what you’re creating vs. just getting beats from another producer? Are those processes any different for you as a writer?
Yeah, very, very. For some reason, the tracks that I do is easier for me to find concepts for. When I get a track from somebody else, being that I make beats as well, I’m always trying to make sure that we on the same page. So I’ll try to come up with a concept and the first thing I’ll do was holler at the producer and be like, “Yo, this is what I came up with. What was you thinking when you made the track?” So it’s harder for me to figure out what I’m going to do because again, I always want to be on the same page as the producer because sometimes, they’ll [give you conceptual advice] which is important.

Making tracks myself, I know exactly what to do. It almost comes as I’m picking a record. I can be searching for a record, and when I put that needle on a record, as soon as it starts playing, information starts coming to me. By the time I finish looping it up, if I’m going to rhyme to that, I’m already halfway. It’s different and a little easier when I make my own beats. But my problem is I don’t trust myself like I should, I’d rather get a beat from Primo or Dre or one of the heavyweights because that’s normal. But maybe I’ll get to the point one day where I can trust myself or take [my music] serious enough to know it’s good enough.

Maybe that could be part of the rebirth.
Yes, sir.

As a beat maker, what’s your workflow like? Some producers will make a quick beat and just be onto the next one. Others are more methodical and meticulous and may spend all day with one beat.
Well, it depends. There was a time, me and my brother, Stevie Blass, we used to sit down, and I [would] do like five beats a day and just record. This was after I came back from California working with Dre. But that’s just in the MPC, or I remember, back then, I was using the ASR-X as well, but I wasn’t dumping them to Pro Tools and building them up and making the bass big. But if I’m doing a track for a project and I know it needs to be concrete, I might go through a couple joints, I might make four beats to come up with that one, or I might just pop up on that sample that I know like, yo, this is it right here. And if I get that, it’ll take me a couple of hours or an hour to sample it and get it to where I’m ready to dump it on Pro Tools.

Once I dump it on Pro Tools, that’s sometimes where I like to take time. I don’t want to give none of my MOs away. [ Laughs ] But once I get into Pro Tools, I like to build the track up and make it sound big and I might add something to it. I’m sitting in my little studio right now. I got guitars in here, got a piano in here, I got the drums over there, I got a sax in here. So I come in here and I add whatever it needs to make it what it is. And that might take two, three hours. And again, it might take me a day depending on what the sample is.

How many beats would you say are in your vault?
That’s funny because when they asked me to do this project, I think there was two beats that I had already, but I did everything else from scratch. And my manager, Matt Kemp, he know I got samplers with millions of beats. I got Pro Tools with hundreds and hundreds of beats. He was like, “Yo, why don’t you just pick [from] what you have?” I was like, “I made those for me.” This was for somebody else. Everybody don’t want to rhyme off what I rhyme off.

Not everything I’m making in my library was made for me, but for certain projects you might have something for it, and you might say, “I’m going to make this from scratch, knowing what I’m doing, who I’m doing it for, or what the project is.” I think I’m at the point where I [have] minimum 500 beats. I got three MPCs, I got a 2500. I’ve got a MPC X. I just got the MPC XE. I had Pro Tools since 2002. So I got beats in Pro tools that go all the way back to 2002. I got beats in my samplers that go all the way back to the ’90s.

It’s funny, I just did a project the other day and I went to my oldest MPC, the 2500, and ran through a couple beats and played this one joint, and it was perfect for what I needed. So I’m starting to realize that I got to trust my production. I got some heat in there, bro, so I got to start using it, putting it out, and trusting my work. So it’s a good time for me right now. It lets me have a little fun. I take my writing real serious. But this allows me to enjoy [music making] and see it from a different view.

I saw you’re working on a solo album. What can you say about that it?
Well, that’s one of the songs where the title Rebirth came from. I got a project I’m working on with Jazzy Jeff. It might be like five songs deep, but that’s the project that I’m putting my all into. We got some other heavyweights that’s going to be on the album producer-wise. But this is that feeling I’ve been feeling these last few years that I’m translating to paper right now. So I’m real anxious for the world to hear it and see what they think about it. So big up to my man Jazzy Jeff. Of course, big up to Primo. I ain’t doing too much without brothers like these giants. And I got a big surprise on there that people, I don’t know if they expecting it or not, but I got something coming for them that I think they going to appreciate.

So listening to the project, the way the other artists were referencing you in a reverent manner, even what Snoop said, I was wondering-
Yeah, man, big up to Snoop. Not to cut you off. I had to call Snoop up and be like, “Yo, Snoop, man. Thank you my G. I love you my brother.” And he gave that love right back. From the project we just did, and my journey in hip-hop, it’s shone a lot of light on who I am and how these people feel about me. It was a beautiful feeling. I told Snoop, “Yo man, you made me tear up my brother.” It’s that real. Big up man. I love these brothers and they definitely is helping me. That’s what that reborn feeling is all about, love like that. And the comments and what I get from my fans when I see them out on the road, that’s what’s giving me this rebirth feeling.

That’s a cool story to hear. I was going to ask, as the top five discussions and the barbershop debates go, how much do you care about being seen as the best rapper?
I mean, at this point, hip-hop is so diverse, so many different forms of hip-hop, it’s hard to say which ones are everybody’s choice, but to just be mentioned, at this point, is my blessing. I’ve been around since ’86. And my rhymes [I] always said, “Yeah, I’m number one, and nobody’s better than me.” And I even said, “As long as the mic is loud and the volumes pumping, I’m going to move crowds to 2000-and-something.” Now did I really know that? That’s my ego. That’s just me talking crunchy. Being able to do rap, to be able to do things right now in hip-hop that’s relevant and get shine and get love, I still count my blessings twice a night and then I lock them up in the safe so nobody can steal them. It’s that real.

Did I expect to be here like this at this point? No. Did I want to be? Yeah. Do I want people to mention me in the top five every time? Yeah. If I’m not, does it matter? Sometimes no, it depends on how I feel during the day. I might be sitting with my granddaughter and somebody might say, “Top five,” and not mention me, I don’t give a fuck. But I might be in a different mood where I’m putting in work and I’m doing this and I’m just in an energy where I know my worth. And then [there will be] somebody that I feel like, “Hold up, I know he didn’t just not mention me.”

Why do you feel the references to the 5 Percent Nation aren’t as prevalent as they once were in hip-hop?
The conscious substance, that type of hip-hop is seldom heard now. The majority [of artists are] talking party rap. So for an artist to come out and talk conscious, you’ll get alienated. It’s hard for a lot of artists that would prefer to be conscious rappers and say things that have substance, they may be scared to knowing that they might get pushed aside. It’s something that was very relevant in the ’80s and in the ’90s, and then, gangster rap took over. And even in that time, when the majority of the genre shifts, if everybody don’t shift with it, then the artists feel they are going to get left behind. For artists that stand for something and don’t conform for any reason, we have to be careful and stand our ground, but you don’t want to get left behind.

So it’s something that I got to fight with just through the times. I understand hip-hop is going to shift from time to time, but at the end of the day, I always feel that reality is reality, and long as I deal with reality when I create and still make sure that my art imitates life and not the other way around, I feel that it will endure more than a lot of the other things. That’s the move right now.

So just trying to stick to my gun, stay focused and not let it get in my head that I should be rhyming a certain way or saying certain things or rhyming off a certain music. I feel that I got to a point where if I was to do that, my fans [would be like], “What is Ra doing? Come on son.” I got to a point where I could stick to my guns. And I think my fans expect me to do that. And people that may not be fans, I think they understand too, I think they understand the reason why I am who I am is because of my journey…the things I did and the things I decided not to do.

How much did that alienation of conscious rap play into you not releasing a project since 2009?
I don’t think [that] was so much of what was going on, I think it was what I was going through trying to find the right deal that makes sense. And then also, trying to find a reason to do a project. Time went on, and before you know it, it was 2020. But for me, time moves different. I’m always on the road, so I may not realize that the years is going by [like] this. But again, at this point, I have a nice fan base where I can put out music and my fans will check for it. I don’t have to worry about what’s going on at the time. If I had to conform, I think I wouldn’t have no fans at this point.

It’s funny, Jay Z called me up to his office a few years back and they was going to sign me to a deal. Long story short, Eric B. got involved and something happened and it never came through. But again, if the stars aren’t aligned perfectly for me, not only [will it not] happen, but I won’t let it happen. I don’t just jump on anything, especially for money. I don’t do deals for money. I got to do it because I love what I’m doing or I want to do it. A lot of things that I was going through, for one reason or another, some things wasn’t working out. And again, I know my worth and I’m not going to let nobody feel like [they can tell me] “take this [unfair deal].” Nah bro, I’m not going to do that. I’m good. I don’t need that. Things happen when they’re supposed to happen. I’m a heavy believer in that.

Yeah. Do you remember what year that was? Were those the Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam or Roc Nation days?
That’s when Jay just got that big deal. They gave him a few bags. He had the office downtown. I think it was shortly after 2020. But I mentioned that just to show how some things was this close to getting a good deal and then something may happen and for whatever reason it don’t work out. But big up to Jay, he definitely tried to make it happen for me. Some things took place and it didn’t go down, but again, you have to know when to put all the chips in one pot or when to keep the chips in the bag.

You did a promotional video for the Yankees before this season. How did that come together?
What’s dope, is they reached out. They was trying to get in touch with me, and what’s funny is, somehow, they got in touch with my oldest brother and was like, “Yo, we’re trying to get in touch with Rakim. Would you have him call us up? We want him to do something for the home opener.” So right away I called them back. I love the Yankees. Come on man, that’s the Bronx. And I’ve been representing the Yanks just as long as I’ve been representing the Knicks and the Giants. So, I got back in touch with them. And they let me know what they wanted to do and I was on board right away. It’s things like that that let me know that I’m doing something right, that make me feel like all the sacrifices and the hard work and everything is paying off.

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