“Follow The Leader” by Eric B & Rakim

"Follow the Leader" was the first single from Eric B. & Rakim's second album of the same name, and MCA put it out in 1988; it sounds like the duo had decided the bare-bones approach of Paid in Full was yesterday's news. Eric B. and Rakim wrote and produced it themselves, building it out of other people's records: jazz musician Bob James's "Nautilus", funk musician Baby Huey's "Listen to Me" and percussionist Coke Escovedo's "I Wouldn't Change a Thing".

Critics have called it space-age, pointing to the throbbing bass and samples that hang in the air almost like ambient music, and Rakim's words reached well past the debut's minimalism too. It drew acclaim and is widely counted among the pair's most influential tracks; in his book Icons of Hip Hop, Mickey Hess called it an "event horizon" for the rap soloist.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.