Consumer Guide Album

Eric B. & Rakim: The Best of Eric B. & Rakim: 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection [Hip-O, 2001]
One more once, I played the six other titles on the legendary 1987 Paid in Full. They're pure, innovative, in-your-face--no doubt. But they're also turntablism with spoken decoration, of small use to anyone who hasn't internalized the "real" hip hop aesthetic. Adding seven songs from their three excellent later albums to the debut's four groundbreaking masterworks, this is where the rest of us go with their flow; I don't know another hip hop album that sweeps by so easily and rapidly. Not that there are no bumps--in a way, the terrain is all bumps. Sometimes the effect is mountain-hopping the rooftops, more often kayaking through Hell Gate. Always the mind is quicker than the beat. A