Rakim recently broke his silence on his relationship with Aftermath Records and Dr. Dre.
It seems that creative differences and an undesired image change led to one of the greats breaking away from the good Doctor. Here are some highlights from the interview which can be found on XXL’s web site.
”The artist that I am is the artist I want to remain” he says of himself. ”My integrity and my pride for my craft, hip-hop and the hood is something that I don’t want to play with Dre, I respect him. He’s a smart cat, man. He knows what’s in the mainstream. But at the same time, picking the guns back up and talking about a lot of the dirt that I’ve been around and seen, I don’t think that’s a smart move for me right now. I respect the people that I been around. I respect the neighborhood too much. I don’t want to play myself short with that. The things that I’ve seen and the people that I’ve been around is real people. I respect them, and I’m not going to do nothing to put them out there.”
Rakim went on to say that he felt some pressure from Dre to conform to today’s Hip Hop standards when making music.
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”Dre got his people around him that would speak to me, or they would ask my manager to ask me. Sitting down in the studio and speaking to Dre, he would most of the time say, “Well, that’s what I want you to talk about, Ra.” Things that go on in the ’hood, things that I’ve been around—that’s what he wanted me to speak on and that was clear. And [from] some of the people at his label, that was they message as well.”
While the emcee can still keep it street, you won’t see him going the way of the G Units and Young Jeezy’s. At this stage of his career, Rakim needs a purpose to go there.
”I do grimy records, but it has to have a purpose. One of the grimiest records I did was “Juice,” and that was for a movie. Its purpose was to show you the difference between what you think juice is and what happens if you take the wrong road.”
