And it seemed like the journey would never end. Follow The Leader isn't quite the best Eric B and Rakim track, but it is the ultimate one, the one where the voyager / traveller element to Rakim's persona reached its absolute peak. It's essentially a promise, a key to a different world where Rakim's conviction that if we believe hard enough in God, we can all become Gods, and hold equal mental power over everyone else (it's a sign of his genius that I can even momentarily believe this bollocks) rules and dominates everything. In 1988, this was light years ahead of all other hip-hop (even Public Enemy's harsh aggression seems primitive compared to it, though it suited perfectly their utterly different intent). But very few singles have ever sounded this much like an eight-year-old's idea of space travel, with its spy-movie orchestral flourishes, airy magic carpet ride of a production, and what sound like rushes underground to an endless time tunnel.
If Follow The Leader sounds as though Rakim imagines himself to be a mental superpower, then it's egotism in the best sense. Rakim may sound utterly, unspeakably arrogant in his confidence that he is mentally superior to the rest of us, but it's because he knows it.
Robin Carmody, 14th August 2000
http://www.elidor.freeserve.co.uk/80s.htm