Craft a record iconic enough and, no matter what you’ve sampled to make it, you’re destined to be sampled more yourself.It helps if you’ve got Rakim’s voice, of course. When he and Eric B went into Power Play Studios in New York in 1987 to record ‘IAin’t No Joke’, their next move was highly anticipated due to the critical success of the duo’s first record, ‘Eric B. IsPresident’. Rakim was already seen as a masterful MC with a distinctive slow, baritone flow and seamless access to a rich vein of words not often heard in hip-hop.

• 1. T No Joke
• 2. Eric B. is On the Cut