It’s been about a decade since the world has had the pleasure of a new Rakim full length. And if his new disc comes to fruition this year, 2009 might be the biggest year in hip-hop for another decade.

Beginning as a teenager in the mid 1980s, Rakim teamed up with Eric B. to release three seminal rap albums. Even today, the production style and approach to rhyming from these three discs has continued to be as important an influence on hip hop as anything else. Every rapper that’s released any work surely owes a debt to this duo.

After breaking it off with Eric B in the early ‘90s, Rakim hasn’t exactly kept up a busy release schedule. He, of course, has appeared on albums by other rap luminaries – like Jay-Z. But the world has been waiting on the new disc for such a long time, expectations are high.

Working with Dr. Dre for a fleeting moment a few years back found hopes pointing at a release date during 2007. That obviously didn’t occur. But even when parting company with Dre, the producer allowed Rakim to take the tracks that the two worked on together.

Since then, there’s been chatter occasionally about a concrete release date. But after a mid-December New York show where Rakim featured some new tracks, everything seems to be in order – we hope.

But the veteran emcee knows that this release is going to be scrutinized. And for that reason, maybe waiting is good. If his new disc doesn’t match expectations, it won’t exactly tarnish his legacy, but in light of the fact that the 1997 The 18^th Letter was such a solid release – not to mention that it was met with positive press – this new disc needs to at least measure up to that.

That new album, The Seventh Seal, purportedly means a great many things to this rapper. The seventh letter of the alphabet is ‘g’ – and for Rakim, who is undoubtedly a religious man, that letter means god. But he’s also said that there are seven continents, seven days of the week and on and on.

For such an intelligent man, waiting on his this new disc doesn’t really seem so bad, once we listeners receive the end result of this thoughts and work.