Rakim News

"Follow the leader is the title, theme, task/ Now ya know, you don't have to ask." - "Follow the Leader", Eric B and Rakim An election was held in Harlem yesterday to elect a new national Black leader.

They never had a mainstream hit of their own, but during rap's so-called golden age in the late '80s, Eric B. & Rakim were almost universally recognized as the premier DJ/MC team in all of hip-hop. Not only was their chemistry superb, but individually, each represented the absolute state of the art ... MORE

ASAP Rocky's mother is evidently an old school Hip Hop fan, as she named her son after legendary emcee Rakim .

In recent years, the 75-year-old was in failing health and according to various sources, he suffered from dementia.

Hip-Hop may have been born in New York, but it moved out of the five boroughs in around 2000, when its most vital and progressive statements were being produced in Southern locales like Memphis, Atlanta, New Orleans and Houston - each city making its own hip-hop superstars, with New York's hometown heroes forced to the sidelines.

A$AP Rocky says, "I want to take every value of every state and mash it into this one revolutionary type of artist.'' As Rakim famously rapped in 1987, it's not where you're from, but where you're at.

Fans were alerted that the funk and disco player, oft sampled throughout hip-hop's history, passed via a family member's Twitter page.