Recently, we listed 5 Reasons Lil Wayne Might Be the Best …Maybe. Well, if he is, then somebody must have lost the crown. Ladies and Gentlemen, it had to be said: Rakim is going down. For years, it was taken for granted among the hip-hop intelligentsia that no matter what LL said, Rakim was the undisputed Greatest Of All Time. But here are 5 compelling reasons why, now, that’s not so much the case.
5. Lack of Product
In hip-hop, the old saying “You gotta play to win” might be revamped as “You gotta record to be heard.” For people to rate you, know you, discuss you, they have to hear you. Despite a few lazy cameos, Wayne’s prolific appearances have been quality and only made fans want more. Rakim just isn’t out there like that. Now I hear some of you saying Come on, he’s old school. Stop right there. KRS-One and Public Enemy have been around over 20 years and they still record like they’re in the prime of their careers. But more importantly, they feed their fans that have been down for years and it gives new listeners a chance to check them out.
4. Lackluster Beats
Rakim is the poster child of what happens when the beats don’t move your feet. He’s always got something nice to say 
but with generic or embarrassingly dated beats, nobody cops it. File it under GS Boyz’ Stanky Leg: a hot beat can shoot a song with lyrics hard as cotton candy into the stratosphere, but if the beat ain’t hittin, the song won’t either.
3. Time
Time marches on. With each year, titans of the past get a little dimmer. Rakim hit a looooooong time ago—I know, it doesn’t seem like it, but his last unqualified hit was Know the Ledge in 1991! The youngest Grownhead, at 25, was 7. Your average teen listener wasn’t even born yet. As far as they’re concerned, it may as well have never happened
2. Eric B.
Back in the day when it was officially Eric B. and Rakim, we fans often wondered why Eric B.’s name came first. He cut records like he was washing dishes, and his transitions were often awkward. He simply wasn’t that great of a DJ. I 
know I wasn’t the only one who got pissed when their albums wasted space for a REAL cut on a DJ-only song (two words: Chinese Arithmetic). He was no Jazzy Jeff, and you never got the feeling he was da man behind the boards like Pete Rock or DJ Premier. When they broke up, most fans were like, ‘Sayonara Big Fella, you were dead weight anyway,’ and eagerly awaited Rakim’s rise. But other than Know The Ledge, Rakim hasn’t had an official solo hit since Eric B. walked out the door. Hmmmmm, maybe behind the scenes, Eric B. added more to the sauce than we realized.
1. Dr. Dre
Yeah, you read it right. The D-R-E. There was a huge buzz when they announced that the good doctor was signing Rakim to Aftermath in 2000. The anticipation was palpable we just knew KNEW that this was the big one, this was it. The best hip-hop producer with the best rapper. Dreams of 5 mics and classic status awaited. And waited , and waited…and waited. Dammit, get in the studio already, what was the hold up?
What we didn’t know then and are now fully aware of is that Mr. Andre Young is on that SOS Band Plan. Take your Time and Do It Right. REALLY take your time and do it right. Look no further than the ever-perfecting Detox, due out this year…maybe. When asked what happened in an interview, Rakim said they got beat after beat from all over which he thought were hot, but Dre passed on all of them. Now, as we mentioned earlier, Rakim’s beat selection hadn’t been the best so we have to consider the source. Still, after the 100th beat got returned Rakim said they parted ways. The closest we would ever get to Dre and Rakim would be his cameo on the Truth Hurts single Addiction and Rakim’s appearance on Keep Watchin, a Dre-produced track for Jay-Z. Ahh, what might have been.
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I been saying this for years! Paper champion!
sacrilegious!!!
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