
Full Clip: KRS-One Runs Down His Catalogue Ft. BDP, Run-DMC, LL, DJ Premier, Diddy, Nelly And More
So let’s dispense with the formalities. KRS-One is one cocky bastard. The Bronx, New York rap giant, who once claimed that he was so far connected with the culture and artform of hip-hop that it was his dog, has never been one to shy away from grandiose, what-the-fuck statements. And at the moment, Lawrence Krisna Parker is in another one of those audacious zones. “I honestly now know that I’m the physical embodiment of hip-hop on earth,” KRS declares to VIBE with a knowing laugh. “That’s my only purpose here on earth is to keep the culture together long enough for it to remain everything that we thought it could be when I was coming up.”
But as seemingly lordly as the 46-year-old comes off, KRS-One is an earnest man. Within a span of 25 years, the founder and lead MC of Boogie Down Productions kicked off the gangsta rap movement with late DJ and partner Scott La Rock (1987’s indispensable Criminal Minded); recorded arguably the blueprint for all ruthless battle records (“The Bridge Is Over”); helped usher in conscious hip-hop (1988’s By All Means Necessary); rallied artists to take an activist stand on black-on-black violence (“Self Destruction”); preached the gospel of hip-hop not only as sheer party music, but as a life-saving religion (1990’s Edutainment); and made the second greatest comeback in hip-hop folklore after LL Cool J declared Mama Said Knock You Out (1993’s Return of the Boom Bap).
His latest release, The BDP Album, finds KRS returning to his vaunted South Bronx outfit after years of defiant solo statements. And he’s still thinking big. “When my time is up in hip-hop it’s going to remain what Afrika Bambaataa thought it was supposed to be,” he says of his legacy. “It’s going to remain what Kool Herc thought it was supposed to be; what Wu-Tang Clan sees it as; what Outkast sees it as; what Snoop Dogg sees it as. People are trying to forget that brand of hip-hop. You hear them say, ‘Oh, fuck that oldschool shit…we are not doing that.’ But these people are not doing it because they can’t. We are not going to allow our culture just to be thrown to the side and forgotten about because somebody’s record didn’t sell or some trend didn’t happen.” This is the remarkable recording history of KRS-One. This is Full Clip.—Keith Murphy
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KRS-ONE "Full Clip"

Criminal Minded--Boogie Down Productions
“Me and Scott La Rock (DJ and co-founder of Boogie Down Productions) started B Boy Records, which was a small little record company, with some other guys—Ray Wilson, Jack Allen and Bill Kamarra. That’s where we put out ‘South Bronx.’ Before all this, Scott Sterling (Scott La Rock) was my social worker and I was a homeless dude in the shelter. Me, Just-Ice, and ICU…we were all homeless b-boys who rapped and did graffiti. We were living in the streets day-to-day…all we had was hip-hop. We’d hang out at hip-hop spots, go to the train yards and tag, go to the park jams, battle each other…we were living it out completely. This was about 1985, and somehow, by the order of the universe, Scott becomes my social worker. He would ask me, ‘What is it that you want to do with your life?’ I would tell him I’m a MC and a philosopher [laughs]. But Scott really took that seriously and stayed on me. I did some rhymes for him about nuclear war and the world coming to an end and he loved it. But we didn’t always see eye-to-eye. We got into a lot of arguments.
But what’s crazy is Scott would invite me to a place called Broadway RT where he DJ’d every Friday and Saturday. That’s where my eyes opened up. I was on the guest list, had a drink ticket, walked in and the place was jammed. People were dancing and it was hip-hop to the maximum degree with the Adidas, bubble goose jackets, bamboo earrings, Cazal glasses and Kangols. And my corny, nerd social worker was the absolute coolest dude on Friday and Saturday nights! That blew my mind. Me and Scott formed the group Boogie Down Productions because with the way I rhymed we knew that nobody was going to sign us. We went around to everybody…RCA, Sony, Columbia…no one wanted to hear our records. So we became our own producers because we didn’t think we wasn’t going to make it as MC and DJ’s. That’s where the name Boogie Down Productions came from.
Flash forward. Boogie Down Productions’ career starts with a battle. A lot of people were saying we were going after Run-DMC. But let’s get this out of the way: Run-DMC was king during the time we were about to drop Criminal Minded! That needs to be said at the top of this interview. At that time Run and them weren’t king just because they were selling platinum records. They were king because of the way they presented hip-hop to hip-hop fans. It was the way that they dressed from the Adidas to the Godfather hats. It was the way that they rhymed. Everyone knew that Run-DMC with the great DJ Jam Master Jay were the ultimate hip-hop group from 1983 to 1987. In hip-hop you had to beat the guy on top. If you claimed you were the king, you had to be stomping crews out every week. And Run-DMC was killing them! Every week something was coming off those Run-DMC albums. And that’s when I came around in 1985. BDP wanted to prove we could be on top.
Now right around 1985 the crack cocaine scene was coming in. The West Coast had already had their share of it since ’82-’83, but it started getting into the East Coast on the street level. There was a group of people that felt like something should be said about the escalating violence; about how crack dealers were killing the weed dealers in the neighborhood. They were getting killed so that the crack dealers could move in. In a lot of cases, it was actually the cops that were working with the crack cocaine dealers killing off the Rastafarian dreads who would sell the herb in the ‘hood. Crack started destroying everything. At this time the MC was the person who spoke on behalf of our community. That was your job as a rapper. You didn’t think about making records. There were whole MC crews that never made records that influenced hip-hop greatly. Ask DMC who will tell you stories about sitting at the foot of Grandmaster Caz learning every cadence and move he made. This was a crazy time. You had Run-DMC, you had LL Cool J and Def Jam; and then you had another powerful clique on the rise—the Juice Crew. This was all happening as Boogie Down Productions was about to release Criminal Minded.
BDP wasn’t trying to be hard in a street sense. We were just taking our cue from the Black Panthers. Remember, they used to walk around with their guns out because it was legal before the Patriot Act. So on the cover of Criminal Minded you see me and Scott posing on the cover with guns. I even put the shotgun belt over my shoulder, which was a longtime symbol of revolution for the Mexicans, Native Americans, and for the Africans. The streets were bubbling. MC Shan from the Juice Crew disses LL and tells him that he bit his style and challenges him to a battle. This was huge! The Juice Crew was doing it big. Roxanne Shante just came off of battling UTFO. I finally had my demo of ‘Criminal Minded’ with Scott cutting up Trouble Funk. We also had ‘Elementary’ on there. Somehow we heard Mr. Magic (influential host of the legendary New York hip-hop radio show Rap Attack)—who was down with Marley and the Juice Crew—said we were wack. And we were like, ‘Wack???!!! Mr. Magic is wack! Shan is wack. Marley is wack!’ That’s when I picked a battle with Shan on ‘South Bronx.’ I mimicked his song the same way Roxanne did on ‘Roxanne, Roxanne.’ He answers me with ‘(South Bronx) Kill That Noise,’ which was a huge regional record as well. I then answered with ‘The Bridge Is Over.’ And I shut it down [laughs].
I was so happy to be making records. I’m still appreciative to MC Shan to this day. If it wasn’t for Shan there would be no KRS-One. BDP came out victorious, but we didn’t come out all the way victorious because the critics kept saying, ‘Well, all you guys are is a battle group…you’re not a real group like Run-DMC, the Fat Boys or like Whodini.’ And they were right. So I ran back and wrote songs that showed that we were here to stay…that we were capable of making an entire album. We did the [rock sound] like Run and them on ‘Dope Beat.’ We started making songs like ‘The P Is Free’ and ‘9mm Goes Bang,’ which talked about how the crack dealers were moving out the herb dealer. And we were breaking new ground by using dancehall reggae. Hip-hop had never heard anything like that before. Even Schoolly D was like, ‘Yo, that shit was cold.’ Even though he rhymed about street life, he was still a conscious street rapper like how NWA did it with ‘Express Yourself.’ Basically, BDP was all about realism. But on a conscious level.”

By All Means Necessary--Boogie Down Productions (1988)
“After Scott La Rock’s death the other members of BDP said, ‘We can’t go on. It’s over.’ Everybody thought Boogie Down Productions was finished. I was battling Melle Mel at the Latin Quarters when Criminal Minded was out. When Scott was killed trying to break up a dispute in the Bronx, I as a metaphysician and a philosopher knew what his death meant. Ironically, the lyrics to ‘Stop The Violence,’ which was featured on By All Means Necessary, was already written during this time when Scott was still alive. As sad as the situation was, it was the beginning of a new era in hip-hop and Boogie Down Productions was at the forefront of that era. I said that to everybody else in the group, but they didn’t feel it like that. They didn’t understand spiritual law. I knew it wasn’t just about Boogie Down Productions…it was about hip-hop. So when Scott passed for me he had become our guardian angel. That was my mindset on By All Means Necessary.
Why did I write ‘My Philosophy’? In 1988, when By All Means Necessary comes out, hip-hop had become officially mainstream. And with becoming popular it was becoming quite like a minstrel. It was taking us back a little to Al Jolson because now rappers were expected to play a certain part…a certain stereotype. And I’m not going to say it was Run-DMC’s fault because it wasn’t. They were leading the way as far as hip-hop goes, but they were also playing the mainstream game of getting played on television. They had to put a little white boy in the video for ‘Rock Box’ just to get played on MTV. This was this climate that we were in before Yo! MTV Raps. MTV was dissing hip-hop music and BET was just trying to catch up. And you can’t take anything from the Fat Boys. They are true hip-hop legends. But if you look at their movies they started to get a little silly. So guys like me on the street level was like, ‘Nah…that ain’t hip-hop. We don’t look and act like that. We are on this shit over here.’ And those people were Eric B & Rakim; that was Public Enemy; that’s Big Daddy Kane; that’s MC Lyte, that’s NWA; that’s Salt-N-Pepa, who came out gangsta with ‘I’ll Take Your Man.’
So this is where you get that attitude from on ‘My Philosophy.’ I’m saying, ‘It’s my philosophy, on the industry, don’t bother dissing me, or even wishing we soften, dilute or commercialize all the lyrics, ‘cuz it’s a about time one of y’all hear it!’ That was my point. People had felt this way for a minute. These rhymes resonated with many of the new generation of MC’s. You can even hear that rawness in the production…this was the new age of sampling. Hip-hop was now an art. And I wasn’t just rhyming to my fans…I was rhyming to other MC’s. By this time, I was really calling myself The Teacher. And the truth is being a teacher was not a thing that hip-hop took to with open arms. I had to fight every step of the way to convince hip-hop that it was more than just music. I’m going to battle you with knowledge on a song like ‘I’m Still #1’. I’m going to show you that knowledge is superior to these average rhymes that you might be hearing. It’s important that you don’t think KRS is superior, but that you think knowledge itself is superior.”

Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip-Hop--Boogie Down Productions (1989)
“When Ghetto Music was being recorded I was getting away from D-Nice, Harmony, Scotty Morris, who was our manager at the time, and Ms. Melodie. I was getting away from them because we all had a big falling out. I had gotten divorced from Ms. Melodie and D-Nice quit the group and went to Flava Unit. Boogie Down Productions fell apart after Scott’s death, so I went on. Here’s Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip-Hop, and as you can see from the earlier days we were trying to write out a cultural plan for hip-hop. Let’s look at the music more than just sounds and lyrics. Let’s look at this even from a spiritual point of view…let’s start questioning the philosophies and the theologies that are around us. This is where we started doing songs like ‘You Must Learn’ and ‘Why Is That.’ We were questioning what everyone thought was real. We were questioning the interpretation of the Bible. We were questioning how black kids were being taught in school.
I won’t take all the credit for Ghetto Music’s [groundbreaking sound]. At the time I was surrounded by some very talented people. Now I had some new people with me…some new influences. One of those new people who joined BDP was Sidney Mills who came in around 1988. He was one of the producers of this reggae jam ‘Telephone Lover.’ This record was disgustingly huge! At the same time I was producing Sly & Robbie, major reggae artists that did every reggae beat that you could imagine. I’m in the studio working with them and they were lending me ideas, and samples and basslines and all kind of craziness. And in addition to that, I had my own set-up in my basement…the SP-1200 is in full effect!
I got people like Kid Capri, who was just starting his DJing career. He’s sleeping on my couch in my house. I had people like Fat Joe who I was starting to take under my wing…just street dudes I was surrounding myself with. Ghetto Music comes out of all this. It’s very reggae-based, very dancehall…it leans to that side. It reflects the time when reggae and hip-hop was starting to merge after I did ‘The Bridge Is Over.’ These were the experimental days. That’s why we called the album The Blueprint. The lyrics and sound on that album was drawing a line in the sand for DJ’s, MC’s and producers: this is what hip-hop is. We were defining it in 1989.”

"Self Destruction"--The Stop the Violence Movement (1989)
“‘Self Destruction’ was out at the same time as Ghetto Music. When we talk about defining hip-hop this was very important to rap in the early days. The hip-hop community would have meetings and summits regularly. This is how the record ‘Self Destruction’ was made. It was another time in hip-hop when rappers actually called each other up and conversed with each other because there weren’t many of us. Most of the rappers were still in New York. This was before the West Coast really blew up. You had Ice T, you had Too $hort, NWA and a few other groups. And the South was just getting started with Luke and the Geto Boys. And that was about it. So that ‘Self Destruction’ record brought meaning and purpose to hip-hop. And hip-hop fans loved it! Because by the time ’89 comes around, the Teacher is victorious…everyone is with it. Everybody is wearing the African medallions. Everybody is listening to Public Enemy. Everybody is black…we got the flattop fades. Everybody knows their culture.
But it wasn’t [all unity]. No one should be looked at any less or any more, but having said that, it seemed that in the world of hip-hop even when you did conscious music you still had to be highly competitive. It started with ‘South Bronx.’ We were trying to get that record pressed up at the same time that Kurtis Blow was getting a record called ‘The Bronx’ pressed up. The pressing plant that we were using called us up and said Russell Simmons (Def Jam founder) halted the pressing of our record to press Kurtis’ record. So right away at the beginning of my career I’m starting to feel the sting of a more powerful corporation manipulating and trying to hold its space in the music industry by pushing us little guys around.
So having said all of that, we started working on the ‘Self Destruction’ record. Doug E. Fresh came up with the chorus…long live Doug E. Fresh. D-Nice did the music…long live D-Nice. But then D-Nice and Doug E gets into an argument while we were recording the song. It was over something stupid like D-Nice not being large enough to be on the record. There was an argument about Just-Ice because somebody had a problem with him being on the record because he was prone to violence. He was the original hip-hop gangsta…no bullshit. This was after he was arrested for allegedly shooting someone in Washington D.C. People had issues with him being on the song and in the video because we were talking stop the violence and they’re thinking I’m putting Just-Ice in the video only because they thought he was my man. But my argument was it’s not that he’s my man; it’s just the ones that should be saying stop the violence are the ones that have been the cause of it. Ann Carly, who was the A&R for Jive Records at the time and who helped put the whole project together, agreed with me.
Heavy, much respect the [late great] Heavy D, showed up to the ‘Self Destruction’ session. LL Cool J showed up, too, but he got a phone call from Def Jam in which somebody told him not to perform on the record or else he was going to be kicked off the label. This was a big threat, but he still came to the studio and I will always respect LL for that. He sat down with MC Lyte and co-wrote her part. There was a lot of love there. And Run-DMC wanted to be on the record, too! But they couldn’t be on it because of Rush. And Jam Master Jay was angry about this. Not just on some homeboy shit. Jay was really angry at the fact that he thought we wouldn’t consider Run-DMC for this record, like, ‘That’s some bullshit!’ But it wasn’t us. It was the record companies that were denying our record, one of which was Def Jam. And this was all supposedly coming out of Russell Simmons’ office. Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince also wanted to be on ‘Self Destruction.’ But Ann Carly stopped them because she felt that Will [Smith’s] and Jeff’s image was too commercial for the record. I didn’t even know that at the time. I learned this over the years. I respected Will Smith so much for even wanting to be a part of that record.

Edutainment--Boogie Down Productions (1990)
“Right around this time the Gulf War is humming. We thought America was setting up for urban warfare in the United States. But it was really urban warfare in the Middle East. It was too controversial to speak of. You really had to speak about these things behind closed doors and with friends. We didn’t have the Internet back then. You had to go to certain addresses to hear people like Steve Coakley talk about what was going on with the secret societies. You had to find Jordan Maxwell to hear him speak. You had to find these dudes. So those of us who would attend these meetings and speeches knew what time it was. This is why we started steering hip-hop in an even more conscious direction because we knew it was still commercial. When we were making Edutainment I started talking about hip-hop as a culture. I started really building up an idea of a hip-hop nation.
Now I’m talking more about race and race relations. And right around this time I was touring with Kwame Ture, formerly Stokely Carmichael. That’s Kwame Ture’s voice that you hear on Edutainment. Back then, I wanted to know more about the Civil Rights movement, so he sat me down and started teaching me what it was really about and the fact that it was a human rights issue. This was where I was at on Edutainment. ‘Love's Gonna Get'cha (Material Love)’ was done in the style of KRS…to talk directly to my community. I do records for hip-hop not for the radio. I wanted my people to hear it. There was too much material love out there. And not enough love [for ourselves or each other].
A lot of rappers today rap to an audience that is not hip-hop. And they are excellent at what they do…you have to admit that. But their audience is not hip-hop, so they have to write their rhymes a certain way or approach their lyrics a certain way because they know they are rhyming to people who might not really understand where they are coming from.”

"Human Education Against Lies"--KRS-One/H.E.A.L. (1991)
“Kwame Ture opened my eyes to what happened to the black power movement and who was a fraud and who was a snake. But more than anything else he taught me that we are all human. That’s when we formed H.E.A.L. (Human Education Against Lies). A few years later, I followed my teacher all the way to his deathbed when Kwame Ture was at Minister Farrakhan’s house dying of prostate cancer. I kissed him and he smiled at me. He gave me an elder’s hug where you can feel the spirit leave him and go into you. You can’t front after that. I can’t blame an artist who never knew a Martin Luther King or a Marcus Garvey or a Kwame Ture personally. There’s no ‘you’ with that. There’s no ‘I’ anymore. All you remember is your teacher, that deathbed and your mission.
We were able to get some great names on the H.E.A.L. record: Big Daddy Kane, MC Lyte, Kid Capri, Queen Latifah, Freddie Foxx, and LL Cool J. After Run-DMC weren’t allowed to be on ‘Self Destruction,’ Jam Master Jay tells me, ‘Okay…no problem. If you do another record like ‘Self Destruction’ call Run-DMC personally.’ And they were able to do the H.E.A.L. project; Jay and DMC came through for us! But Run didn’t show up. When it came time to shoot the video, however, LL wasn’t allowed to be in it. So again, when some rappers weren’t allowed [to appear in the video for ‘Heal Yourself’], this is just part of hip-hop’s history.”

Sex And Violence--Boogie Down Productions (1992)
“Right around 1992, the Gulf War is on big time. We just knew it was the New World Order. There were a lot of things going on in hip-hop that I didn’t like. So I made an album called Sex And Violence to make that point. I was letting everybody know what hip-hop had become. We needed to re-think this; we needed to re-think what we were becoming. So for the album cover I used Robert Williams’ surreal artwork, which depicted the Oracle of Delphi. It shows a half-man, half-woman swooping in on the entrepreneur, squeezing cheese out of a lady that was sitting on a man’s lap. This entrepreneur is obviously in a sexual situation with her and while he’s wasting time the oracle comes in with a clock that points to doomsday. I put that message out in 1992 because I didn’t want to be so blatant with just screaming out things like the New World Order or globalization or the Illuminati. I think we chronicled everything hip-hop was going through on Sex And Violence.
But I wasn’t the only one trying to say these things. Back then all of hip-hop had a philosophy. You had the pro-Black philosophy prevalent in hip-hop, which equaled to Pan-Africanism—Kwame Ture to the fullest. He talked about a socialist Africa. That’s how I got caught up with the African National Congress when [Nelson] Mandela got freed. When he was let out of jail I was one of the only rappers that was asked to perform at Yankee Stadium when he came to New York. So the Pro-black philosophy was still very prevalent. At this time the black man is God! The 5 Percent Nation was huge. This was an offshoot of the Nation of Islam. There were names like Born Allah and Freedom Justice Equality. People were studying what they called their lessons. But when you looked at some of these people’s actual lives—and not the leaders and serious studiers of 5 Percent knowledge, but their underlings—some of these people just had half knowledge and was running around saying they represented the entire culture. These were some of the people I was going up against when I was making Sex And Violence. And I addressed my beefs on the song ‘Build & Destroy’.
Basically what I was trying to get across on that song is I didn’t see color to be honest with you. I believe that human beings are consciousness and energy. Intellectually, I didn’t understand the whole concept of the black man being God or how the black woman was the earth. I didn’t grasp it, so some of my own ignorance was at the lead. Within my own ignorance of the 5 Percent Nation I’m looking at these cats like, ‘Y’all dudes are playing with God!’ And I’m serious about God. I was also getting into it with the X-Clan. They started taking shots at me saying stuff like, ‘Brother, you must learn’ and calling me captain human because I put out Human Education Against Lies and I’m doing records with R.E.M. and talking about environmentalism and saving the planet. It all just sounded too white to them.
And X-Clan was rolling with some old school revolutionaries like Sonny Carson. These guys put in work and it was actually them who was telling X-Clan, ‘Yo, go get that brother KRS-One…knock him down.’ I learned later on from Brother J (X-Clan’s lead MC) that they were putting him up to this. So I started putting word out around Brooklyn like, who is this Brother J dude? And J started putting word out like, who does KRS-One think he is? It started to get so wild that there were crews that were gearing up in the Bronx and in Brooklyn all because of X-Clan and KRS beefing! So Afrika Bambaataa calls us both us and says, ‘This is bullshit…both of y’all stand for something way deeper.’ Basically Bam embarrassed us both on the phone and called us up to the Bronx River. We shook hands and squashed it. From that day on, we became friends.
But right after I squashed it with X-Clan, cats from the 5 Percent Nation was still attacking me. They heard ‘Build & Destroy’ and were really coming at me. My own arrogance and ignorance allowed me to debate with others that were ignorant and arrogant. There was a real beef in the streets to where I was doing a show at the old Studio 54, which was called The Ritz back then. And about hundred Gods with guns came to the show and were screaming, ‘Yo, when KRS comes out we going to see him.’ And I’m like, ‘Fuck this…I ain’t no punk. I’ll battle everyone of these Gods.’ I was beefing with Poor Righteous Teachers, too. But then I realized from one of the leaders of the 5 Percent Nation who explained to me the depth of the movement. The fact that the Asiatic Blackman was the first man to walk the earth, even before writing was invented—this was solid knowledge. We broke bread and squashed the beef. I found out that my real beef was with the people who was taking this lightly. We all learned from each other.”

Return of the Boom Bap--KRS-One (1993)
“I didn’t feel like I had a lot to prove on Return of the Boom Bap, but some people were saying my career was kind of over. Sex And Violence had sold only 200,000 copies and everybody was saying KRS-One is finished! Even Jive Records was talking about dropping me from the label, and I was happy with that. It was my cocky, happy attitude that made them keep me on Jive. I said to Barry Weiss, the president of the label, ‘Yo, I’m not a regular recording artist. I’m something way different. It doesn’t matter where I am, I am hip-hop.’ Usually I was getting over $200,000 to record my albums, but since Sex And Violence only sold 200,000 copies they told me they weren’t going to pay me my usual fee. I then told them I was leaving the label, and of course they didn’t like that.
Jive knew I could get another deal, and for a lot more money. I just felt like I was worth more to Jive than just record sales. My presence on Jive drew other artists that would not have normally came to this label. A Tribe Called Quest signed to them because of me. R. Kelly signed to them because of me. These artists would tell me, ‘Yo, we came to Jive and thought it was cool because you were there.’ That argument punched Barry in his face. I told him to give me another $75,000 to do the album I really wanted to make. And that album was Return of the Boom Bap.
So I take the $75,000 and found out about this underground group called Gang Starr. They had just put this record out called ‘Just To Get A Rep’. And I loved this record! I’m like, ‘Damn, if I can get with the guy who produced this I can start a whole new trend in hip-hop.’ And lo and behold that guy was DJ Premier. His music was hip-hop to its core. So I ran up on Premier and he was floored. He wanted me to sign his albums and all this shit [laughs]. He was like, ‘Yo, I don’t know what to say…KRS…man…I’ll do it for free!’ We finally got in D&D Studios and I ain’t got to say anything else. Premier showed his ass.
Preemo let me hear the beat for ‘Outta Hear’ and that was it! When Return of the Boom Bap came out that shit was like Criminal Minded all over again. The streets were loving that record. DJ Premier rose to the top of all producers. That album’s sound became something that defined much of the ‘90s. I’m starting to pick up new members of BDP. There was Heather B and Fat Joe was hanging around us more now because he had this record coming out called ‘Flow Joe’. Pras and Wyclef were with us and they had this group called The Refugees…and this was before Lauryn Hill joined. And I can’t forget about Supernatural, who had just come in from Indiana. It was a real crew! This was a new time for me and for hip-hop.”

“This is when I realized my first enlightenment. This is when I declared I’m not just doing hip-hop…I am hip-hop. The year before, I made the statement to a magazine that I was the living embodiment of hip-hop. And some people took that as me being arrogant. But I believe that everywhere I go, hip-hop goes. And I felt the same way about everyone else. We are all hip-hop. You are not just doing hip-hop…you are hip-hop. I started putting those slogans out and I got into a lot of debates and bumped heads with magazines.
There were new members in my crew: Mad Lion and Channel Live. We were killing it. This is also the time when the Wu-tang Clan was strong. You had people like Ol’ Dirty Bastard making great music. These were not just MC’s. These were characters, who just happened to MC. When we were making the KRS-One record, me and Preemo started to really find our niche. You can hear that chemistry on ‘MC’s Act Like They Don’t Know’. In any creative environment you enter a space where you know you have something good and nobody else can do it. If you are really into your art you maybe enter that space two or three times in your career. I entered this space a few times in my career and ‘MC’s Act Like They Don’t Know’ was one of those spaces. I was putting my flag up.”

I Got Next--KRS-One (1997)
“I entered into that creative space again on ‘Step Into A World,’ which was produced by Jesse West. Musically, we were able to explore whatever we wanted to do. We became free men. It was so effortless. This was our sound. But let me say this. We didn’t get a huge backlash in the beginning when Puff Daddy did the remix for ‘Step Into A World’. Because keep in mind…in ’97 Puffy was the shit! People forget how powerful Bad Boy was: Biggie, Craig Mack, 112, Faith, Total, Mase…they were unstoppable. So we didn’t get any backlash in the beginning because Puffy was the undisputed king of rap. And what was so interesting was I was making ‘Step Into A World’ to reclaim hip-hop because nobody wanted to put breakers in their videos. Nobody was standing behind graffiti art anymore. Hip-hop had went where Biggie had taken it, which was still dope. Rappers started wearing suits again! But everybody started to do the same things. And we were all mourning the deaths of Tupac and BIG.
So I went right back again to my formula of talking right to the community to say, ‘You think record sales make you the dopest? No it doesn’t…because I got the no. 1 record in the world!’ That was my campaign. And to go even further with it, I got Puffy to do the remix. I saw him in a club and I asked him if he would remix my shit, and he said, ‘Hell fucking yeah!’ And Puffy did it for free. That should be written down as hip-hop history. He charged Jive whatever the studio time was, but all that $120,000 for remix? We didn’t go through that. And when it came out it was blazing!
But the ‘Step Into A World’ remix backlash came a few months later when I became an executive at Warner Bros. Now we are all executives…we are at the pinnacle of our game. We have taken over the music industry literally. I’m talking about the street hoodlums way back in the days…they were now lead executives in the music industry. And I’m one of those people at Warner Bros. helping run the entire roster. But at this time, Puffy’s productions were getting played so much that it sparked a backlash. People thought Puffy was getting too much radio airplay and he was getting criticized by everybody in hip-hop. They thought that only the records Puffy produced were in regular rotation. So there was this backlash against everything P. Diddy produced. They started questioning why would an artist like myself work with someone like Puffy. But I wasn’t concerned with that because Puffy, in my eyes, showed he was real when he did that remix.”

The Sneak Attack--KRS-One (2001)
“I had just left Warner Bros. in 2000 because I had gotten tired of the corporate thing. I think everyone in hip-hop had started questioning its own roots, especially after 911. They started questioning whether hip-hop would remain cultural or whether it would go all the way out to the mainstream for good. And hip-hop actually chose culture. People like Missy Elliot, who had breakers in her videos, held hip-hop down ridiculously. Outkast held hip-hop down ridiculously. Lil Wayne held it down ridiculously with ‘Go DJ’. Everything was still mainstream, but there were a few acts that kept it hip-hop…kept it real cultural. But at the same time, there was some bullshit going on. I was tired of us making excuses about the police and the white man, and yet we turn around and start shucking and jiving. And I addressed this on The Sneak Attack. That record was prophetic, too. The Sneak Attack came out a little before 911. I remember when I dropped the video for single on that album called ‘Hot’. In that [clip], I’m coming across the Brooklyn Bridge with a bunch of people with me, and behind me the Twin Towers is burning. I remember BET stopped playing the video after the towers went down. This happened to a few artists. People were getting their albums taken off the shelves. This was hip-hop on some psychic shit.
But I was angry on The Sneak Attack. I was expressing my John the Baptist in the wilderness screaming at hip-hop to get its act together. I wanted MC’s to hone their skills and not just their bank accounts. While all this was going on me and Nelly started going at it. I’m a battle MC. You don’t challenge KRS-One to a battle and don’t expect to get one. I would have let it go, but Nelly challenged me. He did a remix with Freeway and Beanie Sigel where he called me out. And I said, ‘Well, there it is!’ It was an honor for me because I only battle people I respect. Before all this, me and Nelly actually knew each other. We shared the same attorney. I was supposed to do a record with the St. Lunatics (Nelly’s crew). I went to Electric Lady Studios to meet the Lunatics and they played me some beats and gave me a CD of tracks to rhyme over. But when the battle popped off one of the bitch ass producers called me up and said you can’t use the beat no more. I later found out Nelly thought I dissed him on this record called ‘Clear ‘Em Out’. But I clearly put out two press releases stating that I was not dissing Nelly because when I diss someone I don’t do it subliminally. I call out names.
But Nelly wanted to answer it and the industry hyped it up. So I put out ‘Ova Here’. I’m was saying, ‘The real hip-hop is ova here!’ We knew we weren’t going to sell as many albums as Nelly. And I called for a boycott of Nelly’s record, which I was heavily criticized for. People felt I took it too far, but I was speaking for the women at Spellman college who was saying that the [‘Tip Drill’] kind of rap needed not to be supported. But at the end of the day, people felt like the battle was stupid. Like why would KRS be battling Nelly? And Nelly why would you be so crazy to try to say something about KRS? We eventually made up. I was doing the 20th anniversary of the Stop the Violence record. And Nelly was the first artist there in the studio to do his part! We squashed it right there.”

Spiritual Minded--KRS-One and the Temple of Hip Hop (2002)
“Most people in hip-hop felt like this album was wack. I didn’t think so and about 175,000 people didn’t think so either. Before that album I had gotten saved. I was heavy into theology. I was finishing up my Christian studies. I was heavy into the Christian thought…I had the Bible down. I went to Bishop Clarence McClendon’s church and got saved right there because he believed that hip-hop heads were God’s chosen people. He would preach this in the church. He would break down how the hip-hop generation would be the generation to lift up all other generations. And I was with that! I was like, ‘Yep…I’m getting saved at this church, right here!’ But from that moment I realized that what Christians call being saved is not really being saved. They tell you that you can’t curse no more, that you have to stop drinking and you can’t smoke weed. But I didn’t agree. People don’t want to talk about the shaman at the beginning of all religions. All of my studies of theology told me this didn’t add up. Every prophet smoked, drank and got so fucking high that they saw God.
I was giving a lot of time over to real Christian thought. And I looked at black Evangelism and churches…and it hurt my heart. They completely let me down. Every last one of the black preachers let me down. That’s why I did Spiritual Minded. They weren’t about saving people. I didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought about me being a Christian. To me this is what hip-hop needed to hear. This is what I’m about. I wanted to bring those Christian hip-hoppers who don’t get the time of day, who do their rap, but have to stay in the background because the church doesn’t appreciate them. Meanwhile, hip-hop fans don’t appreciate them either because they are rapping about Jesus. So they are in a hard place. That’s why I came out with an album saying, ‘No, I am hip-hop. And hip-hop can recognize Christian rap. Take a look at me…I’m going to join you.’ I found out that all of these Christian rappers were gangsta! Everyone of them was listening to 50 Cent and Redman. They didn’t bring it to the church because they had to clean up their raps. And I’m debating with these guys like, ‘Why do you have to change who you really are?’ You are hip-hop!”

Kristyles--KRS-One (2003)
“After Spiritual Minded, I felt like, ‘Well, damn…I have to get back on my shit now and bring out that super lyrical cat.’ I started hammering these MC’s because for some reason they thought just because you say you are saved that means you’re soft now. To say that you are about love and peace means that you can punk me and push me around. So I put out an album called Kristyles and we brought the lyrics right back around to I’ll chop your fucking head off. I loved the lyrics off Kristyles. That was some of my best work. But my relationship with Koch Records had come to an end with this album because they tried to sneak it out without me knowing it. And Kristyles wasn’t even finished! I put an injunction on it, ran to Federal court and sued Koch. That’s when we settled out of court. I was of course dropped from the label…we just left it at the settlement.”

Survival Skills--KRS-One and Buckshot (2009)
“When the battle with Nelly came up, I just took a track from Da Beatminerz without even asking them and rhymed over it. And that’s important to note because it says something about family and hip-hop. I just thought, ‘This shit is hot and I’m using it.’ And I sent them the record fully mixed and finished and Da Beatminerz was like, ‘Go Kris…We gotcha back!’ Because I knew Evil D and I knew Mr. Walt (members of Da Beatminerz). It was nothing…this was my family. I knew them even as far back as their Nervous Records days. The Boot Camp Clik called me and said, ‘Yo, when are we going to make this album we keep talking about?’ Me and Buck had been talking about doing an album together since ’93. So they called me up and said let’s finally do this shit.
When me and Buckshot did Survival Skills it was effortless. It was one of the most fun albums I had ever did! And the album was great! You walk into the studio and there was always a cloud of smoke [laughs]. You see Rock of Heltah Skeltah, you see Smif N Wessun, you see Buckshot…you are back in the ‘90s. Dudes are wearing hoodies and vests with Tims [laughs]. How could you not start spitting raw? I just went crazy. I started rhyming about all kinds of shit. My favorite song on there was ‘Clean Up Crew’. That shit was dope…I think everybody came off on that.”

Hip Hop Lives--Marley Marl & KRS-One (2007)
“Simple and plain, I owe my entire career to Marley Marl. If it wasn’t for that battle with the Juice Crew I would not be here. Real talk. I was grateful that I was able to do Hip Hop Lives with Marley because it was there I got the chance to say thank you to Marley, to MC Shan, and to Roxanne and to Mr. Magic, who has since passed away. I was working with a true legend in Marley. Again, we used to battle against each other…the Juice Crew and BDP. Think about that. Now Marley and KRS-One are together??? This album is history.”

The BDP Album--Boogie Down Productions (2011)
“The decision to make another BDP album was really Kenny’s (Longtime BDP member Kenny Parker). In my world, I’m just more interested in staying vibrant and inspiring my generation in particular and the younger generation as well. But I want my generation to understand that you can continue to do this craft. That you can keep doing this…to never give it up…to never think you are too old or that your rhymes are tired or whatever it is that stops people from pursuing who they are in hip-hop. For me that’s where I come in on this album. Kenny kind of took advantage of that, knowing how competitive I am. I was in New York one day and he was just like, ‘Yo, you want to do another BDP album?’ It has more of a BDP subject matter—more battle rhymes, a lot of live club rhymes, with one or two songs pointing towards a conscious direction. This is what we call a BDP album; more of a confrontational, I’m the greatest, check out these rhymes statement. There was a lot of freestyling in the studio. A lot of the songs I came up with right there.
KRS-One is the teacher of hip-hop. That’s it. I’m here to make sure that what we thought hip-hop was supposed to be becomes just that. And that mission is not over. That’s why I started The Temple of Hip-Hop. This is our life’s work. I’m letting everyone know: you are also the architect of hip-hop. I’m showing it can still be done at 46-years-old. I’m still working. I’m doing a world tour starting February 4 where I go to places like Hawaii, Australia, Japan and I swing right back around to Canada. I say all this to my elder brothers and sisters that may have had records out in the ‘80s or ‘90s and don’t even do it anymore. I’m hoping that they read this article and become inspired to pick up the mic again. I’m showing you that it’s not about age…it’s about your mentality and love for your craft.
G. Simone [KRS-One’s longtime wife, artist, partner and manager] is coming out with the craziness. She did a dope jazz record with Najee that’s getting ready to blaze. She has a record where she’s doing some Janis Joplin type vocals…very raw. Then she jumped over and did a remix with Fallout Boy for Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Wish’. She’s friends with Stevie’s management, so she’s going to have him in the video, which is going to be insane. On top of that, Kid Rock is going to do some lyrics on a song called ‘Situations’. His drummer did the percussion for us on one of Simone’s songs. Kid Rock is threatening to go have dinner and hang out with me [laughs]. We’ve been talking about this ever since D-Nice discovered him.
I don’t want people to read this interview and think, ‘Oh, KRS is large…he’s an icon.’ I want them to come away and say, ‘I got to remain hip-hop…fuck this…I’m never giving this shit up. Let me get on my back and start breaking; let me start DJing; let me get my graf piece out.’ And I’m not only talking about the 15-year-olds. I’m talking to my 40 and 50-year-olds. In 2012 I am still relevant…me and my brother just released an album…in 2012! My videos are out…I have a clip called ‘Just Like That,’ which is a reminder about me and Scott La Rock. His spirit will be here forever.”