Rock the Mic Featuring: Rakim, Doug E. Fresh, & Slick Rick

Hip hop icons Rakim, Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick are bringing their Rock the Mic tour to Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana’s Hard Rock Live venue on Friday, November 29. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets for Rock the Mic go on sale this Friday, October 4 at 10 a.m. Central Time. 

Rakim is considered a transformative figure in hip hop for raising the bar for MC technique higher than it had ever been.[2] Rakim helped to pioneer the use of internal rhymes and multisyllabic rhymes, and he was among the first to demonstrate the possibilities of sitting down to write intricately crafted lyrics packed with clever word choices and metaphors rather than the more improvisational styles and simpler rhyme patterns that predominated before him.[2] Rakim is also credited with creating the overall shift from the more simplistic old school flows to more complex flows.[3] Rapper Kool Moe Dee explained that before Rakim, the term 'flow' wasn't widely used – "Rakim is basically the inventor of flow. We were not even using the word flow until Rakim came along. It was called rhyming, it was called cadence, but it wasn't called flow. Rakim created flow.”

Doug E. Fresh peers have dubbed him the “World’s Greatest Entertainer” and the “Original Human Beatbox.” During his nearly 40-year career, he has etched himself into the annals of music history with his creation of the human beatbox art form, whereby he vocally simulates the sounds of drums and other musical instruments with stunning accuracy. His unrivaled skill and myriad talents have resulted in an enduring legacy that continues to break new ground. As a pioneering hip-hop artist, Fresh possesses the unrivaled ability to captivate audiences with or without a musical backing track and has performed at the request of US Presidents, foreign dignitaries, and Saints. As a television personality and producer, he has appeared as a performer and musical mentor on Fox’s “American Idol,” hosted HBO’s “Bad Boys of Comedy,” served as one of three celebrity judges on BET’s “Showtime at the Apollo,” and earned three consecutive executive producer credits for his work on BET’s newly reprised “Soul Train Awards.” He has also launched marketing campaigns for brands like McDonald’s, Toyota, and Febreze. As an entrepreneur, he has established several commercial enterprises, namely an eponymous restaurant in New York City and multiple real estate development projects.

Slick Rick became the third artist to sign with Def Jam Recordings.[4] He has released four albums with the label: The Great Adventures of Slick Rick (1988), The Ruler's Back (1991), Behind Bars (1994) and The Art of Storytelling (1999). His music has been sampled and interpolated over 1,000 times,[3][5] in songs by artists including Eminem, Beyoncé, Mariah Carey, Beastie Boys, TLC, Nas, Miley Cyrus, Kanye West, MF Doom, Czarface, Black Star, The Notorious B.I.G., Snoop Dogg, MC Ren, Montell Jordan, Tech N9ne, Lloyd, and Color Me Badd. In the process, Slick Rick has become one of the most-sampled hip-hop artists of all time.[6] Many of these songs based on Slick Rick samples went on to become hit singles. He was one of the first hip-hop artists to be covered, when Snoop Dogg (then Snoop Doggy Dogg) rapped Rick's lyrics from his record "La Di Da Di" almost in their entirety on the track "Lodi Dodi" on his debut album Doggystyle in 1993. At the time, it was uncommon for rappers to record covers of each other's material.