Don’t Sweat the Technique

Eric B. and Rakim formed on Long Island in 1986. DJ Eric Barrier met rapper William “Rakim” Griffin III through radio work at WBLS. Their 1987 debut Paid in Full reshaped what a rap record could sound like. Don’t Sweat the Technique came out June 23, 1992. It was the duo’s fourth studio album, and their last together for the next five years.

“Don’t Sweat the Technique” came out as the album’s third single on June 27, 1992, four days after the LP itself. Eric B. and Rakim wrote and produced the track themselves. The beat splices the bassline from Young-Holt Unlimited’s “Queen of the Nile” with horns and drums pulled from Kool & the Gang’s “Give It Up.” Rakim raps almost entirely about his own technique on the mic, daring researchers and scientists to figure out how he builds a verse. The single reached No. 14 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and hit No. 1 on Hot Rap Songs. The parent album debuted at No. 22 on the Billboard 200 the week of July 11, 1992.

Business problems ended the partnership, not a personal falling out. Eric B. wanted more control over production. Rakim wanted to record on his own. “The business, it went bad and that’s why the group broke up,” Rakim said years later. He didn’t release another album until his solo debut, The 18th Letter, in 1997.

That five-year run with Eric B. was enough to make Rakim’s reputation permanent. NPR critic Tom Terrell called the duo “the most influential DJ/MC combo in contemporary pop music period.” Rapper Kool Moe Dee put it even more bluntly. “Rakim created flow,” he said, crediting him as the inventor of the modern rap delivery every MC after 1986 had to study. MTV later placed him at No. 4 on its list of the greatest MCs of all time. The Source went further, naming him No. 1 on its 2012 list of the Top 50 Lyricists of All Time.

Eric B. and Rakim never fully reunited as a recording act. They shared a stage once more, at Harlem’s Apollo Theater in July 2017, to mark Paid in Full’s 30th anniversary. The Recording Academy made the duo’s standing official this May, inducting Paid in Full into the Grammy Hall of Fame alongside Tupac’s All Eyez on Me. Don’t Sweat the Technique turns 34 today. Four albums in five years, then nothing together for five more. Rakim is still the rapper other rappers measure themselves against.