When hip-hop got its start 50 years ago, it was a DJ cutting between two record albums and an MC rhyming over the beats. The the rhymes had predictable patterns; they almost always fell at the ends of the lines.

But in 1987, there was a seismic shift in the complexity of rap activated by Eric B. & Rakim and their album Paid in Full. They introduced internal rhyme schemes that pushed rap into new directions and challenged every MC that followed.

"I wish I could rap like him," says culture critic and music journalist Kiana Fitzgerald.

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