Rakim: "Hard," to me, is a sound. This is music, you know what I mean? It ain't about chewing on nails, swallowing glass, screw face in the cameras and knocking 'em. It's not about that, you know what I'm saying. Being this is music, we express the hardness through sound: delivery, bass kicks, the mood of the tracks or the samples that we chose. That's what hard hip-hop is to me, you know what I'm saying. At the same time, I'm not saying you should all be running around floating on stage like everything is sweet, but being hard is not a physical thing. When it comes to this, it's verbally man, the music, where we all get that strength man.

Abbie: Everyone talks about "keepin' it real, keepin' it real." What does that mean to you?

Rakim: See, myself I don't even use that phrase 'cause it's so trendy, you know what I mean? I have always been a person that goes against the grain, and I like coming up with my own little slogans and things of that nature. But people took the words "keepin' it real" and wrote it down, and then everybody and their mothers are using "keepin' it real" and then it got to the point, where it's "what's real?" I guess right now, what's real is true. Then you got to also watch step, because if you're gonna speak about so much of the truth and bring it to hip-hop, a lot of that can't be heard right now. Little kids is listening, you know what I'm saying. There is only so much of the truth that the kids can hear.

Abbie: How so, when you say almost so much of the truth that a kid can hear?

Rakim: I mean, if like you are gonna' keep it real. Like I am saying, truth is real. So if I am talking about how it is where I live, so much of the truth will hurt a young person if you are talking about the gunshots and who got killed and what your man is doing on the corner all night and X-rated things, you know what I'm saying. You can't keep it that real. We're in music because it's supposed to be universal. You gotta' know when to hold back and when, you know what I'm saying, to let people have it. But we gotta' realize, this is music. We gotta' clean it up and present it to the world. I like making albums where I can take it to my man spotted on the corner or any corner in New York and play it for a whole crowd of people and take the same tape home to my mom and say, "Yo mom, check out my new album" and I don't gotta' stop it, pause it, just let the whole thing play through, you know what I mean. We all ain't gotta do that, but that's how I get down. That's how real I keep it.

Abbie: You were rehearsing over and over, I thought it was like "Rocky."

Rakim: Basic training.

Abbie: That's how you get the sound.

Rakim: You know what I mean, keep everything tight, keep doing it like anything else. The more you keep doing it, after a while, it's subconscious. You know?

Abbie: That's true. That's another lesson today. This is hip-hop 101 right? You have to rehearse. It's not about the studio where you can just push a button, do your tape one time and that's it. You gotta have it. You've always been somebody that was hard to pin down to do an interview, but now you're here, you're on time. Is this a new Rakim?

Rakim: Well, you can say that because before I was with Eric B., know what I mean and he was the type of person that loved to do the interviews and radio stations and things of that nature. Me, you know, I was more focused on the studio and the stage, you know what I'm saying? But Eric B. ain't here no more, so I gotta step it up and tell the people what they wanna hear, you know?