Follow the Leader is released

Why it matters

Follow the Leader came out July 25, 1988, on Uni Records. It is Eric B. & Rakim's second LP and the album where Rakim went from "new generation of writing" to "there is now a Rakim style and everybody is studying it." The title track is one of the most-studied rap songs in the history of rap lyric writing, partly because the rhyme structure is so dense that students of the form pull it apart line by line. "Microphone Fiend," "Lyrics of Fury," "Put Your Hands Together," the title track. The album is Rakim functioning as the most respected rapper alive, in a year when his only real competitor for that title (KRS-One on By All Means Necessary, released two months earlier) was also having the year of his career. Other rappers were openly trying to write like Rakim by 1988. Big Daddy Kane was. Kool G Rap was. By the early 1990s Nas would be too, by his own admission. If you have ever been told "if you want to study the bars, start with Rakim," the bars they meant are these bars. You should not let the title slip past, either; Follow the Leader.