Rakim interview

This is going to sound unnecessary, but fuck it, I don't care how many dead rapper's bodies you exhume in your spare time, Rakim is by far the greatest rapper of all time. Period. I like Scarface, but when people try to roll his ass out when discussing the greatest MC of all time in a special Olympics "lets fight the east coast bias" kind of way, I laugh because he's not touching Rakim Allah. Besides Ra being the nastiest behind the mic, I kind of always viewed him as Hip Hop's version of "Sade" in a certain sense. No, don't let your mind wander, I want to fold Ms. Adu up like origami and attempt to please her in ways that would definitely land my black ass in her album liner notes, so Rakim isn't a part of that comparison. But I always respected Rakim, because like Sade he has always dropped material on some "when I fucking feel like it" shit. As a kid, and I guess now as an adult as well, I always liked how cool of a motherfucker Rakim is. He'd always talk in subdued tones, always keeping his emotions in check, I never heard him upset and I think I was in college the first time I saw the man smile. So you can imagine my amazement when I saw(and heard since there is audio) his reaction to the following question:

Halftimeonline: I was reading a couple of interviews with Freddie Foxxx and he always says when you and Eric B got together Eric was actually looking for him and he found you instead. In one interview he said he was trying to battle you and your crew back in the days but he said you didn’t want to battle. Is there any truth that Foxxx ever challenged you to a battle?

Rakim: Foxxx lived a town over from where I lived, but I NEVER fucking turned down a battle with that motherfucker! Foxxx get the fuck out of my face. You can front on the whole world but you not fronting on me nigga you never wanted it and you’ll never get it. This is what I’ve been doing from day one. Fuck that bullshit man. Back in the day we were supposed to battle but as far as I remember the story correctly they didn’t want to fuck around. They didn’t like coming to our part of the town. They didn’t even like going to the parties where we were because we drew at motherfuckers at the party. So run that shit by him. Tell him you spoke to Ra, tell him everything he’s been talking is fabricated and I never turned down a fucking battle with Freddie Foxxx. Tell him to knock it off and stop fronting. It’s Rakim Allah man he know who the fuck I am man.

When I heard this it was somewhat surprising because of the image of him that is burned in my brain of him walking nonchalantly through a crowd of people, acting cool as a motherfucker like everyone else not named Rakim were mere peasants in that "Microphone Feind" video. But then again I understand defending yourself, and your legacy, I wouldn't have expected less from the best rapper to ever grip a microphone. You can find this interview in its entirety, along with audio, here.