IRVINE, CA - JULY 18: Rapper Rakim performs onstage at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on July 18, 2015 in Irvine, California.
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Rakim: "I Played Drums On 'Juice' and Produced 80 Percent of My Catalog"

Rakim: "I Played Drums On 'Juice' and Produced 80 Percent of My Catalog"

Published Tue, January 31, 2023 at 9:24 AM EST

It's known that Rakim is a musician, has produced songs in his catalog, and is even nice on the wheels of steel. In an old episode of King Crooked's Crook's Corner podcast that has been making its rounds on social media, Rakim revealed that he played drums on "Juice (Know The Ledge)" and produced a great deal of his catalog.

When Crooked asked about Rakim playing the sax he replied, "I never played the sax on any of my music, but I always wanted to. I think about it a lot. My oldest brother just got me a saxophone so I'm lookin' forward to tryin' some things."

Rakim then talks about his involvement in the Juice Soundtrack. "I did play drums on one of the songs," he said. "I played drums on 'Juice (Know The Ledge)'. It was an ill situation they asked if I wanted to see the movie and write a song for it, not the title track."

He then explains that he attended a private screening and that after it was over he was approached to do the title track to which he agreed.

quotes
I was lookin' for a particular style of drums and I couldn't find it, so I just found a little drum sample that I could put on it to start writing

- Rakim

"I was going record shopping all the time, and I would put records to the side so I could come back and sample 'em up later," he explained. "I came back home and went to a stack and grabbed a record and no exaggeration, it was the record with the bassline [to 'Juice'], so I sampled it. "I was lookin' for a particular style of drums and I couldn't find it, so I just found a little drum sample that I could put on it to start writing."

Ra says that he was so consumed with writing the song that he never found a permanent drum sample. " I got on the studio and there was a stack of records, but they still didn't have the drums that I needed. So, I looked in the back and asked the engineer to mic up the drum set. I went in and I played the drums on 'Juice'. So whenever you hear 'Juice' and it's rockin, thats ya boy!"

After Rakim revealed that he scratched on "Musical Massacre" from 1988's Follow The Leader, Crooked asked what percentage of his catalog he produced or co-produced. "I think 80 percent of the catalog I produced," he said. "Comin' up it looked good for the group if people thought that Eric B did the beats, and I was doin' the rhymes, so I never said nothin'. As a young rapper, I knew what I liked rhymin to. I liked to rhyme to Dennis Edwards' "Don't Look Any Further" and Funky Drummer. I didn't know how to sample, so my engineer Patrick Adams would sample beats and add basslines."

Check out the snippet above.

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