Marley Marl Recalls Making "Eric B. Is President” & "My Melody”

Marley Marl previously stated that he produced the Eric B. and Rakim tracks “Eric B. Is President” and “My Melody” off 1987’s Paid in Full, a claim Eric later denied. While he may have only served as engineer, Marl recalled giving Rakim a shot after Eric, his roommate at the time, asked for studio time to lay down tracks with the up-and-coming rapper.

“Eric B., he was my roommate with me over in Queensbridge. He used to see a lot of cats come in and really start bubbling. He was like, ‘Yo Marl man, I got some dudes who can do this too. Let me get a day in the studio,’” he told Brooklyn Bodega’s Wes Jackson. “He was like, ‘OK, my man’s coming today.’ So we sitting and his man never showed up. ‘Yo, where’s your man at?’ The first man who never showed up was Freddie Foxx. Yo man, I got my other dude form Long Island. He’s dope, I’m telling you. That nigga nice. We’ll give you another shot.”

Over the next week, Marl ended up having a hand in the cuts “My Melody” and “Eric B. Is President,” as well as Biz Markie’s “Make the Music With Your Mouth, Biz” and MC Shan‘s “The Bridge.”

“Rakim comes in, rhyming slow, he made ‘My Melody’ first. So collectively, we both had the ideas for the song but I physically put it together. For ‘Eric B. Is President’ and ‘My Melody.’ We made ‘Make the Music With Your Mouth,’ ‘Eric B Is President,’ ‘The Bridge’… I used to call it the sound of the week, so I used to have the kick and snare in the sample. Whatever songs I was making that week had that kick and snare in it.”