Born on this date in 1968, William Griffith Jr. aka Rakim Allah is considered the greatest emcee to ever touch the mic. His debut album along with DJ Eric B., Paid In Full, is a necessary piece of Hip-Hop’s creative history, used as an instructional tool to many up and coming emcees and deejays as a style and sound to emulate. There were a few emcees who cashed checks sounding like the “R”, so since it’s said that mockery is the best form of flattery, TheSource.com put together this list of Rakim soundalikes who owe the God some recognition for borrowing from his style.
Grand Daddy I.U.
The rapper known from his “Something New” fame dropped several albums with a voice, flow and cadence that was identical to Rakim.
King Sun
The 6’8″ emcee, whose raps were also saturated with Five Percent Nation venacular, had a flow and vocal tone that was very similar to Rakim and being that he came out after Ra, his music immediately drew many comparisons.
MC Rell
With all due respect, this guy was the epitome of what Hip-Hop considered a “biter”. Rell not only dressed exactly like Rakim on his Follow The Leader album cover, but only true Rakim fans and Hip-Hop aficianados could tell the difference between this copycat and the 18th Letter. Needless to say, his career was very short lived.
Antoinette
As the only female on this list, her voice couldn’t possibly sound like the God, but she tried extremely hard to mimic his flow in order to get recognition in the male dominated field of emceeing. Needless to say, her nemesis and pioneer femcee MC Lyte, used that in her “Beat Biter” battle record, saying, “..you should win a prize as a Rakim soundalike..”
EPMD
The legendary duo from Brentwood, Long Island came out just one year after Rakim, but their “It’s My Thing” single made many critics say that they were biting Rakim’s style. So much so, that by the time their “So Whatchu Sayin'” single dropped fro mtheir second album, PMD rapped, “..people around town talkin’ this and that on how we sound like the R and our music was wack..”
