Paid in Full (Eric B. & Rakim song)

Paid in Full (Eric B and Rakim)

" Paid in Full" is a song by American  hip hop duo  Eric B. & Rakim. Written and produced by group members Eric Barrier and  Rakim Allah, the song was released as the fifth single from the duo's debut studio album  Paid in Full. "Paid in Full" became one of the group's most successful singles, owing heavily to a popular remix of the song by English  dance music duo  Coldcut.

Composition and lyrics
Like much of the duo's input, "Paid in Full" – produced by Eric B. & Rakim themselves – utilizes several sampled elements. To construct the song's drum track, Eric B. looped a portion from "Ashley's Roachclip", a 1974 song by funk group The Soul Searchers. The bassline was sampled from "Don't Look Any Further" by singers Dennis Edwards and Siedah Garrett. Towards the end of the track, Eric B. also repeatedly scratches the line "This stuff is really fresh!" from "Change the Beat", a much-sampled record by hip hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy.

 Coldcut's remix of "Paid in Full" has been described as a selective remix – one which adds or subtracts material from the original composition. Coldcut incorporated several new elements in producing their remix, including the addition of various vocal samples. The most prominent of these samples was the voice of Israeli singer  Ofra Haza, taken from her recording of " Im Nin'alu ". Jonathan More of Coldcut had previously played the Haza record in clubs and found that when he lowered its pitch, it synced perfectly with the "Ashley's Roachclip" drum sample. The success of the remix helped thrust Haza into the public eye. "Im Nin'alu" was remixed and released as a single in its own right, and sales of Haza's 1984 album  Yemenite Songs  increased dramatically. Haza only took issue to the fact that she was not informed of the sample. Another notable element of the Coldcut remix is its opening vocal sample, "This is a journey into sound!" – the voice of British actor  Geoffrey Sumner. The lines "Pump up the volume" and "Dance to the record" are sampled from Eric B. & Rakim's own song " I Know You Got Soul ", also from  Paid in Full. Other sample sources present in the remix include  James Brown ,  Don Pardo, the  Peech Boys  and the  Salsoul Orchestra.