Eric B. & Rakim: Don't Sweat the Technique (2LP) [BACK TO BLACK / GEFFEN]

Why you'll love it

This Back to Black reissue spreads the album over a 2LP set. It reached No. 9 on the Billboard R&B albums chart, and the title track went to No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Rap Songs.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Back to Black series

About the album

By 1992 Rakim had nothing left to prove, so he spent Don't Sweat the Technique proving it anyway. Recorded and produced by the duo themselves at the Hit Factory in New York, it builds on the jazzy, soulful bed Eric B. laid down for Let the Rhythm Hit 'Em, and Rakim sounds sharper and more pointed than ever on top of it. It debuted at No. 22 on the Billboard 200 in July 1992.

Two of the songs had already lived on the big screen: "What's on Your Mind" came from House Party 2, and "Know the Ledge" first turned up in Juice, a first-person story told with a novelist's eye. "Casualties of War" takes on the Gulf War, "What's Going On" looks hard at New York's streets, and and Rolling Stone's Havelock Nelson called Eric B.'s tracks "mellow and mean."

The Washington Post's Gil Griffin praised Eric B.'s "dense jazz tracks full of acoustic bass, brass, piano, and thick drumbeats." Rakim remains the yardstick other MCs get measured against, which must make him very popular at tape measure conventions.

Also at Kops: more Eric B. & Rakim on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On MCA / Geffen, a reissue of the 1992 album.