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KRS One Still Number One
Perhaps one of the biggest things you should know about KRS One is his time spent with Boogie Down Productions. This is a rap group for the ages, starring KRS One and DJ Scott La Rock. In fact, this group probably started one of rap's most celebrated practices: the diss and the rivalry.
Back in the say, KRS One went after DJ Mr. Magic and Marley Marl because the two DJs wouldn't play KRS One songs. It was really a battle between Queens and the Bronx, with KRS One coming from the Bronx and the DJs and their rappers claiming that hip hop originated from Queens. This was a turf war before the whole West Coast-East Coast thing got started. The battle was called "The Bridge Wars." And who won? KRS One of course!
Short Lived Group, Long Lived Success
Boogie Down Productions put out its first full album in 1987 with "Criminal Minded." It is perhaps one of the first gangsta rap albums ever produced. The cover after all had the two young stars covered in bullets, as if preparing for war. We're talking even before NWA got its big breaks on the West Coast.
The band for the ages didn't actually last very long. In that very same year, Scott La Rock was shot down. He was trying to be the nice guy during a fight between one of the members of Boogie Down Productions and some local punks, and somebody pulled a gun and shot him dead.
Technically, Boogie Down Productions did not die with Scott La Rock. KRS One kept it going, bringing in his brother, his wife, and D-Nice, and they put out four albums under the name. If you listen to KRS One on these early albums, you really hear his politics coming through. He was against violence now, becoming more a Teacha than the Blastmaster who had started the Bridge Wars and wore bullets on album covers.
KRS One on One
In 1993, the first solo KRS One album came out, called "Return of the Boom Bap." One of the top KRS One songs on this album-and one his top singles in the history of hip hop-is the "Sound of da Police," in which he can be heard mimicking the sound of the police siren coming to get you. what did he have against the police? The KRS One lyrics in this song famously point out how today's police officer are much like the "overseers" of the slave days. Ouch!
In 1995, the second solo KRS One album came out called "KRS-One," came out, followed in 1997 by "I Got Next," which actually turned out to be his best selling album ever. Some say, though, that this KRS One album is also one in which he got very close to selling out to mainstream interests.
KRS One did not disappear after this though. He became a vice president at the record label called Reprise Records, and after he left that, he started releasing other albums, including "The Sneak Attack" in 2001 and even a gospel record in 2002. Perhaps the latest KRS One record worth paying attention to, though, was the one from 2007 in which he partnered up with another legend, Marley Marl.
