“He makes his kind of music and I make mine. We didn’t understand how different we was until we got into the studio and started working together.”
Back in 2000, Rakim was thought to have made the signing of a lifetime when he placed himself inside the camp of Dr. Dre and joined the Aftermath Entertainment record label. Aside from the rapper, the melting of the two could have easily been a way to set their respective careers to new bounds.
As the work was set in motion for the album Oh, My God, Rakim found himself on hits such as Truth Hurts’ “Addictive” and Jay-Z’s “Watcher pt. 2.”
The road is tumultuous and it wasn’t meant for the two as creative differences resulted in Rakim leaving in 2003 and having the album shelved.
Since then, it’s been like a revolving door with artists in the camp of Dre and Eminem going out on their own.
HardknockTV took a few to speak with Rakim as he reiterated the fact that creatively, they were in two completely different places and although no longer under him, he was able to leave Dre with a gift for the future.
“The last I spoke to him, I had did something for him maybe like a year ago when he was just starting to put together his album. I did something on one of the tracks, but I don’t know which songs is making his album.”
According to Rakim, some of the joints they did together have already been leaked.
The rapper also added that once his business was done on the West with Dre, he found it necessary to play the game by his own rules and fly as the pilot.
“I went back to the East Coast, I had to get my business head together. I got my own label, got my album coming out on my own label so there was a lot of things I had to do as well as get the album together, but it took awhile and I think it was worth the wait.”
The wait he speaks of is to The Seventh Seal, which is only a mere two weeks away with a release date of November 17.
I went to LA to get wit Dre, we tried to bridge the gap an/ take night, mix it wit day, guess it wasn’t meant to happen. – Rakim (Unknown)
