Review Summary: Rakim, one of hip hops most notable and legendary MC's, released one of the laziest and weakest rap albums of the year.
Ever since Eric B.’s disappearance from public knowledge, Rakim’s career has only seemed to be dragged in with him. His debut and sophomore album, though just as strong lyrically as anything Rakim lyrically had done, the beats felt like half-assed efforts from well-known producers like DJ Premier and Pete Rock.
The Seventh Seal, unlike Rakim’s first two albums, at times represents a lively record, as the production is much more energetic than either of those albums. The epic guitar beatdown of “How To Emcee” introduces a certain feeling of bravado, and starts off the record perfectly for how the record will continue. However, despite finally getting driving instrumentals that he deserves, Rakim got these instrumentals shipped at the wrong time.
How is that so? Well Rakim’s last album was a full ten years ago, the dull
The Master, and has been lost in a sea of label troubles and push-backs since. It’s hard to hold your craft up when you have to deal with disappointment for years and years, so a falter in Rakim’s lyricism was to be expected. However, a fall this hard was not expected. Rakim no longer sounds inspired to rap anymore, and unfortunately if it weren’t for his somewhat slick flow, he’d get completely outshined by Maino on “Walk These Streets”, both rappers discussing topics so generic it’s hard not to just predict the next lyric for lyric. The only track that doesn’t completely shame Rakim’s lyrical history is “Holy Are U”, a track that listeners were hoping to God that wouldn’t be it, and even then it only contains lyrics what we would have expected from Rakim on his debut (“The world wonder, Im still standing like pyramids/Design so vivid, every brick it got a story to tell/My rhyme flow different like a hieroglyphic/Mind prolific, infinite, like mathematic” are the best lines of the album). Unfortunately that’s what sums up
the Seventh Seal, Rakim finally acquiring beats worthy of his verses, but his verse writing abilities draining to the point of status quo.
Truly a weak effort.
