Tahmell is an emcee steeped in Hip-Hop's tradition. Not only is the NYC rhymer's creative bonafides intact, he grew up in the same house with Hip-Hop royalty. The son of none other than Rakim, Tahmell is fully aware of his father's legacy and what it means to represent Hip-Hop. During a recent show in New York City, Tahmell spoke to ROCK THE BELLS about that tradition and what it means to see the reverence the world has for his dad.

"[I love] to be able to be a representative of what's going on now," he said of continuing his father's legacy, while speaking to the 25th anniversary of Rakim's The 18th Letter. "A lot of stuff, I was a baby when it came out, but this is dope."

In particular, Tahmell was inspired by his dad's 1992 opus "Juice (Know The Ledge)" from Eric B. & Rakim's fourth and final album, Don't Sweat The Technique.

"It's the clever way that he was trying to get his point across," Tahmell says of the track. "The record was so dope that you had to listen to it four or five times to her what he was saying. It wasn't even about what he was saying the first time you heard it. Beat was crazy, flow was crazy. And he had like four bars for the hook, verse coming right back. All in all, that was dope for me. And once I got older and was really listening, it became even more of one of my favorite songs."

"Know The Ledge" was also famously the theme song for the gritty 1992 drama Juice. It wouldn't be the last time Rakim would be featured on a hit movie soundtrack. In fact, one of Tahmell's favorite moments growing up was when his father contributed the song "Take The Train" to 1998's The Rugrats Movie.

"They did The Rugrats [and] the lady called the crib and left a message on an answering machine, like 'we're calling from The Rugrats,'" he recalls with a grin. "[Me and my sister] were like, 'Yo, Dad—you've got to answer the phone!' When a box of VHS tapes came to the crib, we was like 'Oh snap, dad did that! Yo, we got mad Nickelodeon!' That was crazy. Then to see what happened after that—that was dope, too, when the movie came out."