It was a Thursday night so people knew they had to go to work in the morning. It was now closing in on 2am. People are starting to get a little antsy. It is Farmingdale Long Island, New York. Rakim’s old friends, family and fans are all in the building. Strong Island has not seen their Favorite son in over 15 years. We have sat through the opening acts. We have sat through his nephew J Readi (although very talented and very intriguing to see him on the same stage with his uncle)We have sat through a couple of Boring Opening acts (other than his nephew and a weird HipHop group name Conceptual Elements who turned out to be very entertaining. We now want to see Rakim, and about 2am The God Emcee Rakim Allah hit the stage to a packed out house. It may not have been Madison Square Garden,or Nassau Coliseum or The Meadowlands but if you would have had your eyes closed you would have never been able to tell the difference. When Rakim let’s out the first notes to the opening song “Guess Who’s Back” The Crowd at The Crazy Donkey that ranged from 20-year-old New Rakim Fans to A 30 year Old White dude who traveled all the way from Phoenix Arizona to see his idle. The God bounced back and forth between His classics and His new Joints off of his new cd The Seventh Seal. Most of the time gracefully moving slowly across the stage with his Eyes Closed Like a blind Man that has done this so many times before.Rakim kept saying to the crowd things you are not used to hearing from “The God” things like “tonight is a little different because I’m home” I may do some crazy shit like Jump in the crowd or something, Just don’t let the God hit the ground if i do” and staying true to his word(because we all know his word is BORN) on the track” It’s Been a long time” Rakim fell into the crowd chest first and just like he had requested he never touched the floor. In fact it was almost like he was floating, like he never even touched the crowds hands. Rakim belted out a 45 minute set ending it by asking the crowd” what they wanted to hear it was up to them”The crowd settled very quickly on “Know The Ledge” arguably The best soundtrack cut ever on a movie soundtrack(Juice). The crowd sang every word with mixed emotions.They were overwhelmed by his presence yet so saddened because they knew his time with them was about to come to an end. I fell right into that same category. I had not seen Rakim live since i was a teenager and it certainly was very emotional for me. Just the fact that through the years he had taken so much criticism from people around the HipHop community accusing him of not being able to reinvent himself.To keep himself relevant in today’s state of HipHop like Jay-z,Snoop Dog and to a certain extent Busta Rymes and LLCoolJ have been able to do.However on this night,nobody could question how important Rakim was To Hip Hop,nobody could question how relevant Rakim was to Wyandanch Long Island.Nobody could question How after not putting out an album in recent years,not going platinum on any of His solo cd’s he was still considered by most as “the greatest rapper,emcee,lyricist of all time, all you had to do is look into the crowd and see grown men and women mesmerized by this man on the mic and you would have known why they call Rakim Allah “The God”
The Word According To Heaven Hollywood 