Jay Electronica-Exibit C

This is an absolute heatrock from one of the most gifted lyricist of this decade.

Ice Cube vs Cypress Hill(revisited)

LOL honestly I think Cypress got him, this was one of those battles I admit dont really remember much about when it went down. I did remember hearing King Of The Hill back then but I never actually heard Cypress’ disses until like years later. I was just remember being like why is he dissing Cypress? It seemed like Cube around westside Slaughter House time stayed in skirmishes. He still is one of my favorite mc’s of all time but this one B-Real surprisingly got the best of him. I liked Cypress as well just not as much as Cube(obviously). The album that basically started all of this was “Temple Of Boom”(which is a slept on banger). My Cypress love mostly came from my love of DJ Muggs. He is one of my favorite producers of all time. Far as the battle, I can recall hearing things at the height of this battle it started to get out of hand, my LA homies used to say that it almost started a race war in LA. Never the less its a battle that doesnt get talked about as much for some reason.

VH1-Hip Hop Honors 10/13/2009

So its fall, its October and time for the annual VH1 Hip Hop Honors! For those who are not familar it is an award show where we pay homage to pioneers past/present of the Hip Hop movement. This year’s sole honoree was the legendary Def Jam Records. In the past I admit have been critical of the honors. My beef was that they seemed to just focus on more obvious contributions where as i felt they could give mostly forgotten pioneers their true due. While they do achieve this I just feel they could do more in that regard. As of late it seems they are going the more popular kids route, especially with the last group which did have . This year I decided to quit being a jerk and give it a go.

I admit I totally forgot that it was coming on and had no clue until right before watching that Def Jam was being honored. Def Jam is the most important label in hip hop history. They also are by far the greatest label of all time, releasing classic after classic for the good part of 25 years. Immediately I was intrigued to see who they would choose to showcase this incredible history. Now obviously you know LL, PE, and Beasties would be there it was the others were the question. In the end they went with the aforementioned along with Foxy Brown, Rick Ross, Scarface, Ghostface, DMX, Ja Rule, Method Man, Redman, Warren G,and one of my personal favorites Onyx.

Upon seeing the roster the 1st thing that immediately jumped out at me was where the hell was Slick Rick??? Him being a no show instantly lowered my expectations since he only was responsible for some of the most influential songs in their/hip hop history. Outside that I was pretty satisfied at this route since it covered most of the bases I expected that.

Tracy Morgan Hosted as always and he was great.(His accent always cracks me up for some reason). The Roots were the house band and they were on point as usual as well. The 1st tribute was LL Cool J’s Rock The bells (obviously) performed by Black Thought(one of the greatest MC’s of all time) and Eminem. They killed it and had pretty much had the best performance of the night in my opinion. For the last verse they went back and forth “double trouble” style which was great. You had no doubt that a young Em and BT used to sit in the mirror and pretend they were L and spit every word. Em apparently was a HUGE eminem fan..

Next up was Public Enemy(one of my favorite groups of all time) to do their classic song from the legendary “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back” album Rebel Without A Pause”. Not much really to say other than it was perfect. PE is a group that always took pride in their live show so its no surprise that even though its been 20+ years since this song was released they still rip it with the same energy. Crowd loved it and I loved it(obviously). The Roots captured the classic JB Horn riff perfect. The whole gang was there as well even Terminator X(at least it seemed) it also appeared Lenny Kravitz assisted too(which seemed random). One thing I though that was kind of funny was during the intros they would have Russ and Rick give stories about the said act. Russ was saying how he always loved them but if I remember correctly they were more of a Rick Rubin thing.

The next tribute was dedicated to Def jam South’s contributions. All Two artists of it Ludacris and Scarface. Scarface released his insanely dope “The Fix” on the label(The only album he released on DJ).Scarface opened it up with his Kanye produced hit “Guess Who’s Back”. He did his verse to the instrumental. It was surprisingly underwhelming but I think it was just that it was the wrong song in my opinion but honestly from what I understand apparently Def Jam did Face grimy and eventually caused him to resign from his position as president of Def Jam South. (I can recall Face in an interview back then saying he just felt “disrespected” by Def Jam). Honestly I though it was kind of a sham to just give my man half a song ESPECIALLY considering Scarface is one of the greatest MC’s of all time. Luda came in soon as his verse was done to do his hit “Throw Them Bows”. the crowd seemed to fall in energy but quickly pepped up. Luda gave his usual energy. Nothing really surprising here. Staying on the Southern Tribute vibe they went right into Rick Ross with a very forgettable-yet out of place “Hustlin” performance.

The next tribute was the Beastie Boys(another given). The artists pegged to honor them were KRS-1,Wale, and Gym Class Heroes they performed the classic No Sleep Till Brooklyn. My man from Gym Class Heroes started but I could tell what was coming by the fact that KRS and Wale didnt adlib him one time, that instantly told me they didnt really know the song. (?uestlove also confirmed this on Okayplayer) KRS spit a freestyle and Wale started with the verse but ended up spitting a freestyle halfway through. I think it was wack of them to do that honestly and I love both artists. Its also ironic that 2 days later I read no outrage from the blogosphere/public considering “Fiascogate” went down over the exact same thing. If you are pegged to do a tribute to someone at least have the decency to learn the lyrics. I never was the biggest Beastie fan but they deserved much better than that. They are musical icons.

Affter the Beasties performance was Warren G doing his own classic “Regulators” with Tray Songz as Nate Dogg. It was a good show Warren looked like he hasnt aged since 94 and it was pretty funny to listen to Tray try to sound like Nate Dogg. He reminded me of that skit on 36 Chambers when someone was impersonating Method Man asking “Is Is He dead”. They did good the crowd response was definitely much better than the Beastie Boys Tribute.

The rest of the show was kind of a blur to me. Method Man and Redman came out and did their thing as always performing “Da Rockwilder”. I honestly figured they would do “How High” but either way they were solid. The next tribute(which i knew was coming but kind of like to pretend didn’t happen) was the Ja Rule and Ashanti(who was looking incredible as always) did their hits “Down for You” and “Always On Time”. I can’t lie I honestly hated both of those songs back then and haven’t changed now. Although I never really dug that movement I can say that you can tell Ashanti has been working on her voice. It seems every time i have heard her live she seems to improve. DMX came out and ripped it doing “Party Up” (aka one of the top 10 random songs you are guaranteed to hear at a white party/club) It was also funny to see how little he aged as well.

The only other standout was Onyx(one of the underrated groups of the 90’s) doing their biggest hit “Slam”. It was a dope show my only beef was that the band’s interpretation of Slam seemed kind of off. It may have been the fact we are watching on tv and tv does NO justice to any live show, especially a hip hop show. They still did their thing. After them they did a forgettable Def Jam medley and once I saw that EPMD only got like a song(Crossover) I was done.

It was good that they paid homage to Def Jam but they are such an iconic label to fit it all in an hour is just wrong. In my opinion they should have just did spread out the acts and let them all eventually get their individual tributes. It started good but dropped dramatically the 2nd half of the show. Rick Ross had more time than EPMD..Think about that..What does that say about our concern about our musical history? I can’t be too mad though it IS VH1 same channel responsible quality programming like For The Love Of Ray J,Flavor Of Love,and Real Chance At Love.

Goodie Mob Reunion 9/19/09

The Goodie Mobb Reunion was by far was one of the 5 best shows I have ever seen. It was such a prideful moment for Atlanta Hip Hop. It reminded me of being in High School on the bus after a big win in football. We would sing songs all the way back. (mainly down south songs) This was really fun if it was a school far away cause we would sing whole albums sometimes. I can recall “Goodie Bag” being a favorite song choice. In past shows I never really got this feeling but this was different. It was as if it were just as much an ATL reunion as it was a Goodie Mobb reunion.(maybe the two are synomimous somehow…hmmm) The one thing I was worried about was it not being a good turnout but that was put to rest early once i came down that hill on Ponce behind the City Hall east. I’ve never been so excited to be in traffic in my life.

If you don’t know this about me, I am becoming a cheapskate (thanks to my shopping expert wife lol) so you know I found the free parking. I was about a block away from the venue. I was on a random street off ponce, it was actually the back way to get to the popular bar/lounge Two Urban Licks. Now leading up to this show there was torrential downpours all week. It rained non stop and cause numerous floods all around the metro area. I found out only upon getting in line that the show was outside. Yet it stopped raining an hour before the show started. (I guess God was a Goodie Mobb fan too) The funny thing is that no where on the event info did it say the show was outside. It didn’t matter to me either way. Goodie Mob is a great inspiration for me as an artist and as a person in general. It would have taken an Extinction Level Event to keep me from that show.

The great thing about my knowledge of the event was that I had little to no knowledge of the details. It was all a surprise. Now one thing of note is that this wasn’t the usual “hip hop” crowd. In Atlanta over the years there has been a split in the hip hop scene. You have on one hand the more “East Coast/Underground” influenced side. This consists of mostly carpetbaggers/transplants. Then on the other you have the more “Traditional South” influenced sound, the more indigenous sound made up of more locals or people from the south. Over the last couple of years however the split is becoming minimal (which is a good thing in my opinion). At this event I felt like there was no split at all. We all were there and we all were one. I also felt like there was a tremendous local presence, like I had no doubt that the everyone around me went to high school around Atlanta and loved Goodie Mobb and Dungeon Family just as I did. It might not make much sense but I rarely feel like im in Atlanta when I’m at hip hop shows. The Goodie Reunion was the most Atlanta show I been to to date. I was proud.

The event started with DJ. Sweet…something (I forgot her name) She did some dope blends but it was more lounge than crunk (which is what we all were all ready for) During her set this incredibly bad light skinned girl got in the middle of the stage and started dancing like she was fresh out of Jazzy T’s. I think she was part of the show, no one really paid that much attention since people were still filing in. Atlanta legend Dj Jelly preceded her and he brought the good Atlanta energy. He played all the Down South, Atlanta local, and even “booty shake” classics. Jelly covered everything from Kilo Ali’s ATL classic” Cocaine” to Luke’s “Scarred”, Ghetto Mafia’s “Everyday”, 8 Ball & MJG’s “Armed Robbery”, Dungeon Family (obviously) and pretty much anything that was being bumped in the hood circa 1995.

Once Jelly got the crowd ready. He brought out the host/ poet “Georgia Me”. She came right out the gate with fire inducing sonnets about the history of Atlanta Hip Hop, referencing everyone that paved the way for our hip hop scene as we know it. The crowd went berserk. She did a great job transitioning into the different acts even when there seemed to be any type of delay you never felt like it was. It seemed all just apart of the show. It all went very smooth, i’m not sure who has more to do with it but the production was on point all night.

The opening act was a complete surprise to me. Dj Kizzy Rock got the opening spot. He had some hits but he was best known or the Bankhead Bounce inspiring “Whats up Whats Up” on the “So So Def Bass All Stars.” Now I admit back then I used to laugh at that song, but when at a party it was fun. He started with what I think was the “Yeah Shawty Yeah” and brought out this dance crew they were a famous dance crew around Atlanta in the 90’s. It was 2 guys and this older cat. He looked like that bug eyed guy who Blade Brown kept beating up in Class Act . The dancers killed it. (We have this local type of dance that was big in the early 90’s. We never actually had a name for it. The only example I can think of is Outkast’s Bombs Over Baghdad video, more popular dances came about from this particular type of dance such as The Ragtop, and The Bankhead bounce.) Kizzy went from that song on to his local classic “Eat Em Up”. He pretty much just did call and response to this for the rest of his set. At many points when a dancer pulled off a nice move we all would do a collective: “YEEK!” (This is another 90’s Atlanta linguistic mainstay). You could see pockets of crowd circling around fans who also started dancing to this song. His set was really fun but it kind of wore off near the end. All in all he did well.

The next act was the only confirmed guest I knew that was coming. Soon as Georgia Me announced the name “Pastor Troy” everyone went wild. Pastor Troy is a local legend of sorts. I can recall Troy in 99 with no radio play and no ad campaign selling over 100K copies of “We Ready I Declare War”, matter of fact I remember at my senior prom(right before Nina Hall decided to go all Ashanti on me…. long story) cats were on music watch for the exact moment the dj was going to play “No Mo Play In Ga”, like brothers were literally waiting like vultures over a battlefield. He wasted no time going into the meat and potatoes of his catalogue with Visa Versa and “Help Me Ronda”. Once he finished Ronda the chants started. The whole crowd just started screaming: WE READYYYYY AND WE READYYY in reference to his most loved song, the one that started it all: “No Mo Play In Ga” His famous diss record to Master P and No Limit. (Legend has it that Troy tried to get a deal with P’s No Limit Records but he shunned him so when he kept grinding and eventually had a deal on the table with Universal. P blocked it.) I know he was planning on doing that song but I got the feeling he was going to do another song but once the chants got so loud he had no choice. Once the dark piano intro started everyone went nuts. People jumping around, throwing and abundance of bows , upon 1st glance, one would think they were at a Black Flag Concert instead of a Hip Hop show. Troy’s signature extra long goatee and locs flailed about as he jumped around with seemingly endless energy on the stage. Troy ripped It.

Next were the surprisingly MIA Youngblood’s. I was really surprised to see them on stage honestly. Its been so long since I even said their name seeing them let me know how long its been. I think everyone else was kind of surprised as well(in a good way). J-Bo and Sean Paul (not that one) were back in full force. They started with their first song “U-Way” (another ATL classic hood slang term). I couldn’t help but think about Pimp C when I saw Sean Paul.(Pimp C had some less than flattering things to say about Sean claiming he sounded too much like him among other things.) I also laughed to myself at how much J-Bo looks like Andre 3000. The Youngblood’s were a part of a clique named: “Attic Crew”. One thing that jumped out at me was how many hits The Youngblood’s had, they had a serious run on the low. I credit them with basically giving Lil Jon one of his biggest songs with “Daam”. The Bloods followed U-Way with the Lil Jon assisted banger. Every one started doing the A-Town Stomp (basically the song that the dance was invented for) it was beautiful. They went through some more hits like “85” and “Presidential”(one of my favorites). Around the time they were wrapping up their set they brought the crew on stage.(Edit: I was informed that Jim Crow was NOT on stage with them I guess I was mistaken sorry folks)They ended their set with 85 and everyone knew all the lyrics. Sean Paul assured us that “the real shit was coming back don’t worry”. It was a great performance.

The time finally was near. The main event, the legends, the soul, The Mob! Once the lights went dark the whole crowd went berserk. The band opened with Survivor’s Grammy wining Rocky themed “Eye Of The Tiger”. The Mob members Cee Lo, T-Mo, Kujo, and Big Gip filed in one by one dipped in matching red outfits. Kujo had a hood on and Cee lo lifted it as if he were crossing over a Frat like the scene on Stomp The Yard (underrated movie btw). At this time all of the members all exchanged hugs and daps like long lost brothers. It was well received with shrieks and cheers the whole time. Once they were done they went right into it starting with one of my personal favorites of all time: “Goodie Bag”. Everyone (me included) screamed EVERY lyric, when it got to Cee lo’s verse (probably his most recognizable verse of all time. I would even go as far to say you aren’t a true Atlien if you were born before 88 don’t know this verse) the crowd energy reached even more epic proportions. Goodie Mob followed with “Rich To This” with “Backbone” coming out to do his verse being one of many highlights. From this they went to another classic song: Outkast’s “Get Up Git Out” they did it a little different opting to use Spandau Ballet’s “True (PM Dawn’s famous one hit used this sample as well if that doesn’t ring a bell)” Once Cee Lo finished his verse you could see everyone looking eagerly for Big Boi (whose verse followed Cee’s). Big Boi didn’t come out but Mob members just did his verse. Either way we weren’t losing steam by any means. They followed this with “Sesame Street” (another one of my faves) and “Black Ice” . Andre wasn’t there so unfortunately we could get to see him do his classic verse. At the point when Dre’s verse started the band cut right into Cee Lo’s Grammy Award winning hit “Crazy”. I recall the crowd being still hyped but the energy weirdly dropped off. It was if almost like a unspoken “Mannn we wanna hear that Goodie Sh—t shawty” moments. Once he finished Cee Lo worked the crowd some and went into some Maze “Before I Let Go” (The unofficial “yall-gotta-get-yall’s-asses-out-the club-we-about-to-close” anthem) It won the crowd as everyone sang along. I mean, how can you NOT sing along to that song. Cee Lo showed his really incredible vocals as always. After the Maze tribute they got back to business doing Still Standing’s” Beautiful Skin”, which always reminds me of an episode of Moesha when they decided to take on the Rap lyric controversy and Goodie Mob guest starred (Yes ,I watched Moesha don’t trip). They did a couple of other joints like “They Don’t Dance No Mo” but I can’t really remember the rest, I do know one featured TI and some cat with a gold satin shirt who appeared to be “Lil Will” came out and did TI’s verse. They also did “Soul Food”. The highlight of the night in my opinion came next. The Pianist (who was excellent the band was as well) started this incredible solo and had everyone in awe and he ended it with the beginning notes of “Cell Therapy”. Everyone went wild. Kujo had the mic and was starting his verse and stopped. He said something to the effect of:” AWW YALL GONNA DO KUJO LIKE THAT???!!!” He was implying that we weren’t crunk enough. I knew it was just a set up..but for what? The guitar player started playing the famous opening notes of Black Sabbath’s Metal classic “Ironman” and I already knew what was coming. It was truly remarkable. Kujo destroyed it! After this they went into Cee lo’s “In Da Wind” and surprise guest Big Boi came through in the clutch. Once done with that Cee Lo expressed how much he loved us and went into another beloved song closing with Cee Lo’s solo “Free”. He then asked the crowd are we ready for another Goodie Mob album? He was rewarded with thunderous noise. He then asked if we were ready for another Outkast album to which he reicieved even more applause. Cee replied with: “Well yall gotta wait till Big Boi album drops”. They ended to show with a “Jackson 5/Ron ,Dwayne Wayne, and Jessie Jackson 3 winners, lift everyone’s hands to the sky type” embrace. It was truly a beautiful image.

Goodie Mob Reunion Show at Masquerade Park from www.mauricegarland.com on Vimeo.

The theme of the show was Remember Atlanta and they pulled it off perfectly. We did indeed remember Atlanta. It reminded me of a time before the Olympics when we just were us, before it was “cool”. A time when Andre Benjamin upon receiving a Source Award to boo’s stood up and said “ITS LIKE WE GOT A DEMO TAPE AND DON’T KNOW BODY WANNA HEAR IT.. THE SOUTH GOT SOMETHNIG TO SAY THAT’S ALL I GOT TO SAY” receiving more boo’s from a bunch of people and artists who would be begging him and his elk to be featured on their albums in years to come. I felt really at home here like I stated earlier you looked around and its like we all were the same. At times I turned around to and was amazed how many people were there. It was not an uncommon site to see people’s eyes watering or even people crying. There was a time when hip hop shows were where you could go and be around people like you (in my experience) cause in regular life you were an outcast (no pun intended). Now not so much Hip Hop is everywhere. Its not just for us anymore not saying it’s a bad thing but its just different. Remember Atlanta just brought be back to a good place. I had memories of being in the cafeteria of Peachtree Junior High writing my 1st raps to the “Get Up Get Out” maxi single instrumental plotting on whether I was gonna ask Tanishia Smith to the snow ball.

Random Mathmatics with The Neptunes

10 years and 6 days ago Ol dirty bastard dropped his critically acclaimed LP (4 mics in the Source) Nigga Please. It will go on to be his most commercially sucessful album and feature a hit single produced by an upstart production team out of Virginia cleverly named “The Neptunes”.

This same song will feature another unknown artist named Kelis. Ol Dirty will tragically pass away in 5 years 2 months and 4 days. 9 years prior Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams would meet at band and form the Neptunes. They would eventually go on to enter a talent showcase and win catching the attention of Teddy Riley. In 2 years Pharrell would write Riley’s verse for Rump Shaker.

6 years later the Neptune’s will score their first Billboard hit with N.O.R.E’s “SuperThug”

and in a year they would produce the hit single “Got your money”. That same year Kelis will release her debut album “Kaleidoscope” produced exclusively by the Neptunes. In 4 years she will release her best selling album “Tasty” which she would also have her 1st #1 single “Milkshake”.
A year later The Neptunes will win two Grammy’s one for Producer Of The Year and another for Best Pop Vocal Album with Justin Timberlake’s Justified. Two years later Pharrell will release his solo LP “In My Mind” to mixed reviews, within a year later will go on to be nominated for a Grammy and eventually lose to Ludacris’ album Release Therapy which featured a Grammy winning single “Shake Your Money Maker’ also produced by Pharell Williams who got his 1st writing credits from Wrexx & Effect’s Rump Shaker.

Classic Stories with Kenny Parker of BDP

Per:unkut.com

KRS-One’s younger brother and long time BDP producer/DJ Kenny Parker recently provided a first-person perspective of what happened at the PM Dawn bumrush from BDP’s perspective:

Robbie: You guys must have felt like Prince Be deserved to get his ass kicked?

Kenny Parker: Actually, it didn’t start out that way. The plan wasn’t to attack Prince Be at all. The climate at that time…we had just finished doing the Sex & Violence album, and over the past year, year and a half before that, people had been taking little subliminal shots at Kris. No one came out like “KRS – you suck!”, nobody really came out like that.

Ice Cube had that little comment.

Yeah, that really started the whole thing, when Ice Cube said, “Some rappers are heaven sent/but Self Destruction don’t pay the fuckin’ rent!” That line kinda pissed Kris off. “Self Destruction” was his baby – the concept, gettin’ all the rappers together – the whole thing was his baby, and Ice Cube just came out and dissed. Later, Ice Cube came out and said he ain’t really mean it like Kris took it. I don’t really know what other way he coulda meant, but that’s what he said.

He might’ve just meant that positive records don’t sell. It’s hard to say though, in retrospect.

In retrospect, I’m gonna say “whatever” to his answer. He also said on his first album: “I’m not a rebel or a renegade or none of that crap, I’m a N-I-double-G-A”, and everyone knows Kris says “Rebel, renegade, must stay paid”. So you hear all stuff like that and you’re like “OK, this guys dissin’”, but Kris didn’t really…I remember him being a little pissed, but he didn’t really say “I’m gonna answer Ice Cube”…actually, you know what? That’s a lie. We started doing a song about, say, Ice Cube, a response to that, but we never finished it. It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things and then it was like “Ah, this is wack. You know what? Forget this”. Now moving along, then X-Clan made “Fire and Earth”.

Where they were talking about “We’re not down with the humanists”.

Yeah, and that’s around the same time that Kris was coming out with Human Education Against Lies, that was his new thing. “I’m a humanist” – that was his new stance, and X-Clan thought that he was a sell-out. So that little subliminal thing was going on too. Aight, cool. So dude’s are sayin’ their little somethin’, whatever. So Kris went and made “Build and Destroy”.

That song was absolutely an answer to X-Clan. So then when Kris was doin’ a interview, he heard about PM Dawn. A writer say “So how do you feel about PM Dawn dissin’ you?” and he was like “I don’t know what you talking about”. The guy repeated what he said in the article, so Kris was like “Damn! Now I got a dude like PM Dawn tryin’ to diss me! And he said my name! What’s goin’ on? OK, now I’m gettin’ pissed off”.

So now that was the climate. It just so happens that maybe two weeks or a week after he heard this, I found this flyer at some party, and it was the MTV party. I think it was Leaders of the New School, Nice & Smooth, Supercat and PM Dawn, and I think somebody else was on the bill. And I came to Kris with the flyer, we were in the studio, and I said, “Yo, PM Dawn got this show!” So he was like “You know what? I’m gonna go there and I’m gonna challenge him right there on stage. I’mma throw on a couple of my records, hype up the crowd, them I’mma challenge him to battle me right there.” That was the initial mindset. “I’m gonna go up there, and I’m gonna be like ‘KRS One’s a teacher, a teacher of what?’ I’m gonna show you right now”, and that’s that. That was the initial mindset that we talked about – me, Kris and Willie D. The show was five days later, so we was like OK, some of us is gonna go down to the place and we was gonna meet a couple of other people, and we was gonna go in. So I think the initial people that went down there – Freddie Foxx was supposed to meet us, but he never showed up – it was me, it was Kris, it was Willie D, it was ICU, it was Just-Ice. I don’t remember if K-Def was there, but I know Larry-O was there – I’m gonna say both of ‘em were there, but I’m sure Larry-O was there.

So we initially got there – there was, say, nine of us – initially went to the club. Now Kool Kim was sayin’ twenty dudes came on stage with all hoodies and black shirts on. It wasn’t even that organised, like we were all gonna wear the same clothes or whatever. We just hooked-up and we went. Kris actually had a hoody on that day, ’cause I remember he came in the club – we came in there early – and Kris doesn’t usually hang out in clubs unless he’s trying to get on and rock – so for him to just come to a club and hang-out was out of his norm. I remember he came there, we sat in the corner by the stage and he had a hood over his head and he was just chillin’. We chilled there for about two hours.

Was he wearing the hood so no one would recognize him?

Yeah, he was tryin’ to be on the low. We was just chillin’ there with the crowd, but you couldn’t really see him. But the stupidity was, I was just there chillin’! So people that knew me, they’d be looking to see Kris! [laughs] So it was really stupid, that was the stupidity. A couple of guys we knew were in there and they’re like “Yo Kris, what’s goin’ on?” and he’s like “Yo, PM Dawn tried to diss me! I’m gonna run-up on his set”, so they was like “OK, we’re down”. So now nine or ten became fifteen. Then we saw Naughty By Nature – Treach and ‘em – and we was like “We’re gonna run-up on stage”, so of course Treach is down, and of course they was deep as hell, so now fifteen becomes twenty-five! I’m not gonna say Naughty was down with us to rush PM Dawn, but if Kris is like “Yo, I’m goin’ on stage, it’s about to happen”, then Treach is like “Whatever, I’m wit’chu”. That’s how I recall it, I don’t wanna put words in Treach’s mouth. And Latifah was there too.

So we had two plans. The first plan involved me – to get control of the DJ both. “By any means necessary – Kenny, you get control of the booth”. That was it, that was the only real plan we had. And Kris says “When I get the mic, you throw on “Still #1′”. So that was the plan. So I had a couple of guys with me, we went to the DJ booth around twenty minutes before PM Dawn was meant to go on. I had never even seen him, I didn’t even know he was in the place. Clark Kent was deejaying, so I went up there and I said to Clark: “In about ten minutes I’m gonna need the turntables for a second”, and he was kinda reluctant. I guess he thought like I was tryin’ to get on his set – like he was the DJ for the night and because it was a packed crowd, I just wanted to get on. He had a look like “C’mon man, I’m deejayin’ up here!” So I was like “Look, something’s about to happen, Kris is about to run on stage. I need to be set-up and I need to be ready.” He was like “Aight, cool”, and he wasn’t deejayin’ at that moment ’cause there was shows goin’ on. So we chilled. I think Leaders went on first, then there was a break and I’m like “Is PM Dawn goin’ on?” Then PM Dawn comes on stage and starts doin’ his show – and nothing happens! So I’m like “Aww man, Kris backed-out. He’s not gonna do it”. I remember I had “Still #1″ on a big acetate, ’cause there was no instrumental of “Still #1″ on wax. It’s really hard to cue-up those acetates – I had to keep checking to see if it was ready, ’cause you have to really move it to get it started. In my mind I’m like “Yo, this acetate is gettin’ on my nerves! What is Kris doin? Is he gonna do it? What’s goin’ on?”

Then all of a sudden, “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” comes on, and PM Dawn starts doin’ his thing, and then you see Kris comin’ up – there was like a ramp comin’ up the stage – and you see people comin’ up the stage, so I start cuing up. Now let me say this – Kris actually never hit PM Dawn. I think that’s like a big misconception. The guy who actually did – I’m not gonna repeat his name – but there was one guy in our crew, his attitude was like “I’m wylin’ out!”. Right when we came in the club, he said to Kris “Whatever happens Kris, make sure you bail me out”, and we all started laughin’. So they rushed the stage, and PM Dawn’s music…he had a DJ up there, but the music wasn’t on his turntables – it was on a DAT – coming from somewhere else, maybe the side of the stage. So Kool Kim said he heard a “Rrrrrippp!” and the music go off – that’s not what happened, he wasn’t even on turntables! So that’s not true either. So this guy with us takes the record off the turntable and smashes it, but the music is still playin’. I guess whoever saw what was goin’ on stopped the DAT. PM Dawn had some girl dancers up there – this guy pushes one of the dancers into the crowd – hard! And I remember she tried to sue Kris a few months after that. While this guy’s doin’ this, Kris comes up. PM Dawn is not knowin’ what’s goin’ on – imagine, he’s in show mode and his music stops – and Kris grabs the microphone, so they both have it. Like a tug-of-war for a second, and then Kris pushes him and takes the microphone in his hand. Right at the same time, the guy who pushed the girl into the crowd punches PM Dawn in his face – POW! Then he punches him again – POW! In the face, twice. Then, if I recall, Just-Ice pushed him off [the stage] and Prince Be fell into the crowd. I don’t remember dudes jumping him and beating him up. The crowd in the front backed-up when he fell – you couldn’t really see what was goin’ on, it looked like a robbery. Then Kris has the mic and he goes “BDP is in the motherfuckin’ house!” and then everybody was like “Hooo!”, the whole crowd was like that, and right at that moment I threw on “Still #1″ [does the horn part]. It was over! People was jumping up and down and they was goin’ crazy and screamin’…it was like a riot!

Clark Kent turned to me and he said “Yo, that’s the greatest thing I ever seen in my life!” Where I’m at is across the room, upstairs on the second level, looking down. That’s how the DJ booth was set-up. When Clark Kent said that, I remember bending down to get “The Bridge Is Over” out of my bag, and when I came to cue it up, Clark Kent had already left the DJ booth, went downstairs and ran across the crowd to climb up on stage! I think Queen Latifah was on top of a speaker, just whylin’ out. Everybody was goin’ crazy. So I threw on “The Bridge Is Over”, and then Kris was – Kris was supposed to rhyme, too! If I threw on the song, he was supposed to do the rhyme! But it was just so wild that he never even rhymed! He was just goin’ “Jump! Jump!” and everybody was just goin’ crazy. All I remember him doin’ was “The Dawn is over, the Dawn is over!”, like that. I think the third record I threw on was “Duck Down”. That hadn’t even had a video or nuttin’, I think that was really new when I threw it on. Kris was just talkin’ shit. He was goin’ “What?! What?! Anybody that try to diss BDP! What?!” He wasn’t even rhymin’! I remember seeing T-Money, it was his party, and he was up up stage, jumping around. The stage was packed now! The wack part was that later on, when all the flack came, T-Money was like “Ahh, man, that was bullshit. Kris messed-up my party!” I knew that he worked for MTV at the time, but I thought that was bullshit that he said that, ’cause I saw him goin’ crazy on stage.

So out of the corner of my eye, I saw security come rushing in, onto the left side, but then when they saw it was Kris and they saw it was like a party-like atmosphere, they just stopped – they was just looking. I guess they thought something happened, but when they ran in it was like a show, almost. Now Kool Kim said that PM Dawn was rocking the party? Let me set the scene for you real quick – this is a party with LONS, Nice & Smooth and Supercat – now a party that those people would be rocking…PM Dawn wouldn’t rock in that setting. His record might’ve been number one in the country at that moment, but in that setting I don’t think he was rocking. What happened was, there was a lot of record company people there from Island. When he came out, they was clapping. His people were clapping, but it wasn’t like the whole crowd was lovin’ him ’cause it wasn’t that type of crowd. Actually, Clark Kent was playing some new Das-EFX stuff on a reel-to-reel. When I went up to the booth I asked him what he was playin’, and he said, “This is my group, Das-EFX”. It wasn’t “They Want EFX”, it was somethin’ else, actually I think it was somethin’ that wasn’t on the album. So in a place where you’re playin’ Das-EFX reel-to-reels and Leaders of the New School is performing, I just don’t see PM Dawn ripping like Kool Kim said. I saw a handful of people that looked like record company reps there that was rockin’, but there was like a thousand people there! It wasn’t all those people rocking to PM Dawn. I’m gonna say “No” to that.

After all this happens, Kris rushes out. Kris is gone. He told his wife “When I go up on stage, bring the car ’round, so as soon as I leave out the building I can jump in the car”. But somehow she didn’t leave off the stage until after he was already rocking, so she was late bringing the car ’round. So when I came outside it was just me and another guy. She was all upset, goin’ “Where’s Kris?” and I’m goin’ “I don’t know, he was supposed to be with you!” So she was like “You gotta go back in there and look for him”. The crowd was so wild that they started fighting amongst themselves – that part that Kool Kim said was true – they was so wild, it looked like you could throw raw meat out there. They were so savage…like somehow they just turned on each other and started fighting! When she said “Go back in” I was like “Go back in? Oh my god!” So I go back in the party, it’s a mess. There’s no more music, it was like a riot to me. I saw the Awesome Two – Teddy Ted and Special K – and they looked at me and they was like “Yo, are you alright?” and I’m like “Yeah, I’m fine! I’m cool!”

After that, I didn’t see Kris, I left and we went back to a meeting spot where we were always gonna meet-up, on Christopher Street somewhere, in the Village where he used to live. When I got there, he was outside talkin’ to Just-Ice and they was all laughing. So we got in the car and we went to his house in Jersey. It was just me and him after this whole thing, and we was up half the night, just talkin’ about it. It was like ‘Can you believe how wild it got?” It wasn’t even supposed to be that, but it just became that. I think it was just a classic case of “entourage gone wild”. [laughs] Ultimately, Kris is responsible because it is his people, and he is the absolute leader. Everybody follows what he says and does, in our crew at that time. But they just blacked-out. When they just got up there and started, they was just outta control. They just took it upon themselves. I’m not tryin’ to defend Kris, but he actually didn’t hit him! Kool Kim said he took the microphone and was hittin’ him on the head and you could hear it through the speakers – that’s bullshit. That absolutely did not happen. He just had the mic in his hand. the people that was really involved was KRS, Just-Ice, maybe ICU and this other guy. Those four guys were absolutely involved, and everybody else was just up there.

Kenny Parker: So the next day, Jive Records calls up and they’re like “The press wants to talk to you, Kris. Come down to Jive”. When we got there, the mood was really somber. Everybody was upset, and I remember seeing Busta Rhymes – I guess he was there with Tribe [Called Quest], I dunno what reason Busta had to be at Jive that day, but he was there – and he was like, “Yo, you are the greatest!” He was hugging Kris, and he was shaking him so hard he was crying! Busta was crying tears, and he was hugging Kris and he was shaking him so hard that they knocked over a computer off of somebody’s desk and break it on the ground! [I burst out laughing] At this point they had done “Scenario”, so I guess Jive didn’t really care, but they broke a computer that day. [chuckles] It was just the illest thing, ’cause it looked like a classic video: sucker MC’s rhymin’, super MC comes along and knocks him off and starts rhymin’. It looked like that.

Jive was like “every press in the country and overseas wants to know what happened”. It was MTV, it was all Europe press, every magazine…everybody was like “What happened? Why did you do this?” And I think that’s where the problem started. When Kris said “PM Dawn tried to diss me so I went up there and showed ‘em who the Teacher is”, that’s when all the backlash started. And let me say for the record – the backlash was enormously negative for him. ENORMOUS! You know how people say “All publicity is good publicity”? I’m gonna say “No” to that. I think Kris would’ve been better off saying, “Yo, I was just there and it was wack, and I was drunk and we just went up there and I just wanted to livin’ up the party!” He might’ve been better-off saying that then “PM Dawn tried to diss me so that’s why I went up there”. Because then it became: “Hold up, you’re the guy who made ‘Stop The Violence’. You’re a hypocrite. You’re a fraud!” And from that point on, people started saying “Kris is a hypocrite. Says one thing and does another”.

I think Kris is two kinds of MC’s. He’s a battle rapper, and he came-up battling, and he’s had a lot of numerous battles that people know about – and don’t even know about – AND he’s also a conscious rapper who tries to talk about upliftment of our race, the government, and things goin’ on. I think there’s no way you can be both without being contradictory, in my opinion. The problem Kris has had over the years is that when he starts talking about the government, about “Black man rise up”, people start saying “Yo, he’s too preachy. Edutainment was too preachy. Whatever happened to Criminal Minded? Why won’t he make ‘9MM’? Why won’t he rhyme like that?” Then when he makes battle records, then the “conscious” people go “Oh, he’s contradictory. How’s he talkin’ about snapping a MC’s neck? He’s supposed to be talkin’ about ‘Stop The Violence’!” The problem is that Kris would’ve had to leave one of those behind. Either he would’ve had to say “I’m not a battle rapper. I ain’t making those kind of records ever again”, or he would’ve had to say “I’m a battle rapper. I’m not making conscious records ever again”. Every album he has, he’ll do both. He’ll talk about things things going on in society, then he’ll make records talkin’ about how he’ll crush an MC.

I don’t have a problem with that, personally.

I don’t have a problem with it either, but in his career I’ve noticed that either which way he goes, the other side is gonna call him contradictory. That’s the price that he has to pay for being both. Knowing Kris, he really is both! He really likes battling and he write rhymes about rappers, even though he has no beef with them. He’ll just write a song about somebody and then just never use it. He’s just that kinda guy. And also he likes to talk about the government and Malcolm X – he’s that too. If you look at By All Means Necessary…that record “Stop The Violence” – everybody points to that, but on that same album on “My Philosophy”, he says “KRS-One is the kind of guy who lead a crew/right up to your face and diss you!” That’s there in clear English! No one hears that part, they just hear “stop the violence”, so if he takes a run-up with a crew they gonna say “Where that come from? He’s not like that!” when he’s tellin’ you “Yeah, I am!”

The biggest thing that hurt Kris with that PM Dawn thing is not even the incident, but it’s that Source article. That article caused us so much drama that year. The year of ‘92, into ‘93, was like “damage control year”, from that Source article.

KRS-One – Destroy & Build – April ’92 Source Interview

He was callin’ out names big time in there.

Yeah, there’s two things in that article that caused us a lotta problems. One is that Kris was like “You know what? I’m tired of everybody. I’m tired of X-Clan, I’m tired of Ice Cube, I’m tired of PRT!” I don’t remember what Poor Righteous Teachers did that pissed Kris off. X-Clan I remember, and Ice Cube – I can’t remember for the life of me what Poor Righteous Teachers did! [laughs] Everyone that he mentioned in that article at some point that year tried to step up, and we had to deal with them. Also the second part that was a big thing was when Kris said “I am hip-hop”. That is the biggest polarization of his audience…and I think that’s a big misconception, because Kris says “I’m hip-hop. I’m not doing hip-hop – I am hip-hop. We ALL are hip-hop. We’re writing hip-hop as it goes along. There’s no rules! It’s not like a basketball player in the NBA and you have rules that you follow in the game. The hip-hop game – we’re writing the rules as we go along – so we ALL are hip-hop! I’m hip-hop, you’re hip-hop. We’re not doing it – we ARE it.” Even in that article he said “It’s not just me. Treach is hip-hop too.” But no one heard that part. They just heard him say “I’m hip-hop and I’m the greatest of all time!” and people was just like “This dude has lost his mind”. The funny thing was, I heard Vinny from Naughty By Nature said he was mad at that statement, and Kris said Treach was hip-hop!

He was just mad ’cause Kris didn’t say his name as well!

[laughs] Maybe! Vin is my man and I love Vinroc, but it got back to us that Vinny was mad too. Over the years a lotta people was mad. Biggie Smalls was mad over that! Biggie Smalls was like “How can KRS-One say he’s hip-hop? That’s bullshit”. But I think everyone’s missing what he was saying. Between him saying he’s hip-hop and him saying he’s stepping to the other rappers – yo, that hurt us. I think Kris lost half his audience that year. All the albums Kris had done prior to Sex and Violence went gold. At that time, Kris usually sold around 600,000 records or so, on the average. Sex and Violence sold like 300 [thousand].

Maybe that was because it was such a hardcore album – it was just raw.

I think that was part of it, but it was such a negative backlash. Every magazine you opened up: “KRS-One is a sucker. He’s a phony!”. I think a lotta people were like “You know what? Fuck him!” That whole year of ‘92 was damage control. Now the thing with X-Clan – that was turning into some big deal. It was getting back to us – we had mutual people that knew both camps – that “Yo, they said this” and it would go back them “Yo, Kris said this”, and it was gonna be a big deal, and Afrika Bambatta called a meeting up in Bronx River. He was like, “This is not good. I’m cool with both groups, and both of y’all are really talking about the same thing. We can’t have a divide and conquer situation going on”. So Afrika Bambatta calls us up to Bronx, and I remember that X-Clan had brought guns up there – they thought it was gonna be like an ambush or something. Willie D, who’s down with us, is president of a chapter of five in Zulu Nation, so we have a real close affiliation. So if dudes from Brooklyn is coming all the way up to Bronx River to have a meeting with some dudes that got beef that are down with Zulu Nation – they must’ve thought it was an ambush or some drama. Security that was there was saying that X-Clan had guns and the whole nine, they told ‘em to leave the guns outside and come inside.

I didn’t know they rolled like that.

I didn’t know they rolled like that either! So we had the meeting, and everything was squashed. By the time “Build and Destroy” came out that beef was already squashed. Kris was like “I’m down to squash the beef with X-Clan, but let me say my piece though. Then we good”. Here’s the third thing that caused us a lotta beef – he said something about the 5%ers that article too. 5%ers was furious! Kool Kim said “KRS did say nothing when 5%ers and King Sun was gonna fuck him up!” First of all – King Sun is our people from back in Latin Quarters days. We know King Sun really well. So King Sun came to one of our shows, and he was mad over the whole article and he wanted to talk to Kris about it. I don’t know if he actually got to talk to Kris, but he had a long conversation with Willie D about it. I wasn’t there at that moment, but Willie D told me after the fact that King Sun was mad, but he didn’t come there on some “Yo! I’mma punch Kris in the face!”. He came in on some “Yo, Kris. Why you say that? What’s the deal?”, and they squashed it up. But let me say, the second part is – people, you can’t just roll-up on us like that either. It’s not like “OK, I feel like punching KRS-One in the face. Here I go, I’m just going down to the show”. It wasn’t really like, because we had people with us too. You know what I mean? We had a show and a bunch of 5%ers came to our show too, and they was waitin’ outside and there was like thirty of ‘em, and they was mad as hell around this time too. But one of the leaders of their group knew Will – again – and they came upstairs and they talked to Kris and somehow they smoothed it out and it was all good.

All these little things were happening, week after week, after that article. I don’t know if this is true or not, but somebody told us that Lord Jamar from Brand Nubians was trying to organise all the 5%ers in hip-hop against KRS. I heard that he went to GURU, he went to Rakim, and they was like “Nah, Kris is our man. We’re not getting that deep with it”. But it was brought to our attention that Lord Jamar was trying to do this. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it came to us like that.

So a week or so after this article comes out, Kris has a lecture in Jersey, and this is one of the first times I ever went to one of his lectures. All of a sudden, someone stands up in the crowd and goes: “You’re wrong, Blackman! You’re wrong!” So they shine the light on him and it’s Wise Intelligence from Poor Righteous Teachers! So first people was like “Shut up! Shut up! Sit down, he’s doing a lecture!” but Kris was like “Nah nah nah, let him say his piece!” So they get back and forth into a little debate. It was like ten minutes! I guess PRT’s stance was more like X-Clan’s: “How you gonna call yourself a humanist? You’re selling-out the Black race”. If I recall, that was kinda his stance. And this is on film – Kris has the tape! I don’t know what he did with it, but it was on tape though.

So were they yelling at each other?

Wise Intelligence was in the crowd – he was about maybe ten or fifteen rows back from the podium, so was yelling and Kris was talking on the mic – but it was heated! I remember getting mad because the whole time the other dude – Culture Freedom – he’s heated, he’s pacing back and forth. So finally Wise Intelligence goes” “You said in The Source that we were soft. What about PRT is soft?” to Kris. And Kris says “That guy right there!” and he points to Culture Freedom. [we both laugh] Right when he said that, I grabbed the microphone and I said “This debate is cool, but Culture Freedom if you’ve got problems we can settle it!” I remember saying it, and everybody jumps down my throat [in an official-sounding voice] “No! No! No! This is a college! This is intellectual!” You know, like “Get the fuck outta here” basically, to me! After I said that, then it was like “Aight, everything’s cool”. We did a show in Trenton a week later, right in their neighbourhood. When we got out the limo they was all standing outside, but it was just “What’s up” and we kept it moving. They was upset over that article but it wasn’t like they was gonna rush us. We travelled kinda deep a lot of the time, people don’t really know that. BDP crew was a lot of people at that time, so you couldn’t just run-up on KRS.

I think there’s a misconception in hip-hop that there’s an unwritten rule that back in the day all battles was on wax, and the rule was that everything was kept on wax. That was not the rule! It just so happened that it was like that, but the other crews had CREWS! So you didn’t want to run-up on them. For example, Eric B. & Rakim had a CRAZY crew! A NOTORIOUS crew!

Rich Porter and all them.

Yeah! All those dudes that was on the back on the album – those dudes were serious! Now if you was like “You know what? I wanna battle Rakim. I’ll run-up on Rakim” it wasn’t like that! You couldn’t just run-up on Rakim like that! Same with Big Daddy Kane. He was running with all those Brooklyn dudes – Hawk and all them guys. As a matter of fact, a lot of the fights that used to go on in Union Square and Latin Quarter was these Brooklyn dudes that used to run with Kane!

And they’d be fighting guys from the Bronx and different neighborhoods?

Yeah, they was always fighting guys from the Bronx. They was always fighting Chris Lighty and the Violators! [laughs] Back then, Chris Lighty was a Violator and he was a thug. You couldn’t even run-up on Red Alert! You think Red Alert is just the coolest guy in the world, and I love Red Alert – that’s my brother – but back in the day, if you ran-up on Red Alert like “Yo! Play my record!” you was gonna have problems! You follow me? Kane had a crew, BDP had a crew, Rakim had a crew…even Chuck D. If you ran-up on Public Enemy – those Security of the First World, the S1W’s was serious! They weren’t just marching around!

They knew kung-fu and shit!

Yeah! Professor Griff was a black belt in karate! Professor Griff will whip your ass! [laughs] Because dudes had respect – plus everybody was cool with each other – like KRS, Rakim, Kane…all these people were friends. But it was a mutual respect and dudes had crews. It wasn’t like a fear thing, it wasn’t like you were scarred of their crew, but you knew “If I step to Kane, there’s gonna be a problem”. People always thought battles was just on wax. Like if MC Shan had of decided “You know what? The ‘Bridge Is Over’ was a little too personal. I think I’m gonna kick KRS-One’s ass!” [I start laughing] If the Juice Crew had thought “We’re coming for KRS”, it wasn’t that simple. There would have been a nice little skirmish! I’m not saying we woulda won or lost, I’m saying that it would’ve been a problem. I think a lot of people just think rap was just like “Yo, we’ll battle, and that’s it. It’s just cool, cause nothing’s ever gonna jump off. We’re just gonna battle and that’s the code!” That was not the code! The code was dudes was getting robbed and beat-up and all kind of shit was going on, and if you ran-up on somebody tryin’ to battle them, chances are their entourage – “entourages gone wild” – chances are, not the rapper but the people that’s with them, is probably gonna kick your ass!

Or even steal your equipment.

Yeah, even back in the day with Flash and all them, they had a crew! You ran-up and try to steal Grandmaster Flash’s turntables – you got a problem! And Zulu Nation? Forget about it! Don’t even THINK about stepping to Afrika Bambatta! That’s the last thing on earth you want to do. And Bam is the coolest guy and he talks about peace – Afrika Bambatta is one of the coolest guys I ever met. Don’t run-up on Zulu Nation and Bambatta. And because everyone had crews, I think that kept a lotta battles from not being battles. Plus you’ve gotta understand, back in the day if you lost a battle – your career was over! It’s not like now. Now dudes will make a couple of diss records on a mixtape and then they keep it moving. If Kane had of tooken out Rakim in a battle? Rakim was over! His credibility was over. I think that had a lot to do with it as well – dudes had a lot to lose.

But back to that PM Dawn incident…if Kris knew in hindsight? He wouldn’t have went to that thing at all. People say “Why didn’t he step to Ice Cube? Why didn’t he step to these other people like he stepped to PM Dawn?” After that PM Dawn incident and the amount of heat that Kris got – he wasn’t in the position to step to nobody! He had to really chill after that. After that thing, you probably coulda said anything you want about KRS for like a year, and he might’ve had to eat that, because there was so much flack. I can’t even begin to describe to you…everywhere we went…we went overseas to promote the album – nobody was even talking about “You have a new album out”, nothing. It was “PM Dawn!” People was talking – we needed a translator – we was in Japan, we didn’t know what they were saying, it was just “Duh duh duh duh PM Dawn duh duh duh duh!” We was like “Ohhh shit!” 90% of the time I was standing right next to Kris, so I saw all of the drama. If you was there at the club at that time? Then you was with it. If there was a thousand people there – 900 of them was like “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen”. But after you read the [Source] article, if you wasn’t there and you just read what people said and the you read Kris saying “I am hip-hop”…people was just like “Fuck him!” And you know what else? MTV was like “You know what Kris? You’re banned from MTV forever!” Cause it was their party and PM Dawn was their guy!

How long did that last?

Kris’ attitude was like “You didn’t play me records anyway, so fuck MTV!” was always his stance anyway. But they didn’t play no KRS records until “Rapture (Step Into A World)”. That was in ‘97, so it took about five years for MTV to get past that. Kris was always an underground rapper anyway, but MTV was furious. That incident hurt Kris more than it helped him, in my opinion. But it happened.

Robbie: So did Kris really become a “Born Again” Christian?

Kenny Parker: For lack of a better term, I’m gonna say “Yeah”. But he’s a little more deeper than that. The thing with Kris is he’s forever evolving. He reads a lot and he evolves a lot, and when you catch him at a particular time, where he’s at at that time is what he’s gonna say, and then another year or two from now he might move on to something else. And he might be “Well, this is me now. I’m this”, and then you might say “What happened to that from two years ago? Oh, you’re contradictory. You know what? Get outta here”. From Criminal Minded to By All Means Necessary, to me that was a completely different vibe for him, for the most part.

But it was all hits, so people were just like “It’s all good”. Kris being contradictory – I think some people say that like it’s cool to boot A-Rod, like after a while you just say it and you just do it. But if you really look at it…to me, you know what’s contradictory? When you come out hardcore with a hoody on, and on your next album you have a suit on and you’re smoking a cigar. [laughs] To me, that’s contradictory. I can name a whole bunch of rappers that was crazy hardcore in ‘93, ‘94, and then by ‘96 they was “Dons” and they had jewelry on. But they get a pass for that, ’cause I guess no one looks at it like that. Even Tupac – to me, Tupac is the most contradictory artist of all time, because he was a lot of different things! He really was a revolutionary, a thug, a ladies man – he was all of those things. So he made all of those records. At one moment he’ll say “Keep Your Head Up” and the next moment he’s like “Fuck bitches! Get Money!”. He’s all over the place, but he gets a pass. Most people get a pass but KRS-One – that’s his curse. He is “Stop The Violence” and that’s it.

I was also interested to know what you’ve been up to? Do you still do beats for Kris?

Yeah. Actually, he’s doing an album with Marley Marl…ironically. I never would have thought the day…now that, in all honesty, that might be contradictory. Marley was never really the problem, the problem was Mr. Magic. It end up being with Marley, and he dissed Shante when she had nothing to do with nothing, but he was like “Fuck it!”, and Shan. I find that ironic. Actually, I have a collection of old stuff that Kris did, like practice tapes and like some of the stuff that you have on your site, like unreleased stuff. Kris used to come to my house and we used to have a little $15 microphone and he used to rhyme onto the mixer and we used to record stuff over raw beats, and he would work-out routines or he’ll say some rhymes that end-up being on other stuff, and some rhymes that people never heard before. I was moving and I found all these cassettes that I had, so what I did was I took some of the stuff and I put it on CD, and I’m about to come out with it and put it out as a little album of all kinda practice tapes and unreleased stuff. I dunno if it’s long enough for a whole album, so I was thinking about adding some unreleased instrumentals that never came out, like “Sound of Da Police” and different beats.

I’ve been working on that project for a minute, I just haven’t had a chance to put it out. I’ve been doing a lotta deejaying in different spots, I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and say “Well let me do this”. But that’s the next thing I wanna do. I got rhymes that Kris said that were supposed to be on Return of the Boom Bap that didn’t…I got rhymes that were supposed to be on Criminal Minded! Little practice tapes that he did with Red Alert that no one ever heard. I’m the only one that has these tapes – I used to steal tapes from his house, back when I was younger. When Criminal Minded was out I was still in college, I wasn’t deejaying or anything. I was in school, so I used to come by the house and he’ll have a tape, and I used to be like “Let me hold this tape”, and then that was it! I’d just have it. [I laugh] So now, a lot of the stuff I have – I’m the only one on Earth in possession of it. Some of it doesn’t even have any hooks – it’s just rhyming, and then he’ll go “OK Kenny, cut that off”, or he’ll start talking and go “Nah, I’m gonna change that, and I’m gonna put this instead of that”. It’s real unedited stuff. He’s just rhyming and we’re just havin’ fun.

I’d buy a copy…that album you did with Heather B – the music on that was great. It was so raw, but the drums were crazy.

Thank-you very much, man. That was my little project. I just talked to Heather about a week ago. We were talking about doing some stuff, she had some ideas and I was like “Yo, let’s just put some stuff together and see how it sounds”. I still have a lot of tracks – I’ll still do tracks until the day I die. I’d talked about doing some more stuff with Kris, but then he ventured off and caught-up with Marley Marl. I guess Koch had some money, so he went off in that direction. [chuckles] But me and Kris was ’sposed to work on some stuff too – maybe afterwards or maybe a remix. I was always the one that got remixes on stuff. I did a couple of songs for Boom Bap that never made it, I did songs for different albums that somehow got cut-off…eventually Kris’ll get around to me.

Did you do Heather’s album on the SP?

The SP-1200, that’s my machine of choice. What happens is that’s the first drum machine I ever learned how to work, so I stuck with it.

And I like how the drums sound on there – you get a harder kick and snare sound for some reason – so I still use it. I’m a little old school with that. There used to be a little civil war – the SP-1200 Vs. the MPC. I remember me and Premier were going back and forth about the virtues of both, and he was gonna teach me how to work the MPC one time, back when they was doin’ Boom Bap. I used to laugh about that, it was like a little war. On one side was the MPC guys, on the other side was the SP-1200 guys. But now the MPC is just so popular that I guess the MPC’s won. [laughs]

They stopped making the SP’s so they’re pretty expensive to get second-hand.

Mine is so old. My SP-1200 is from the 80’s! I still have my one from the 80’s, and actually – I jacked Kris for that! [laughing] All of my equipment I jacked! Kris is real impulsive. You could be like “Aww man, look at these turntables. They’re gettin’ kinda old. You should get some new turntables” and he’ll go “Yeah. Damn, I should!” and he’ll go buy some new turntables and you can go steal the old ones that weren’t really that old! Like the SP-1200 – we had been using it on the road, I used to rock beats in the shows, and I remember when we came back off the road and we was like “You know, this SP-1200’s been on the road, it’s been kinda beat-up” – imagine, we had it for like eight months – it was like “Yo, the SP-1200’s been all over the place! You should get another one” and he was like “Yeah, I’mma go get me a couple of ‘em!”. [laughs]

[laughing] So you were like “Kris, let me hold that old one!”

You can’t believe it. I got speakers, turntables – like four of ‘em, mixers – like five of ‘em, SP-1200, a four-track…I got all kind of stuff in that same mode of “Yo, this is garbage! Get a new one”.

Even though the BDP albums said “Produced by KRS-One”, DJ Doc and D-Nice used to help out as well, didn’t they?

Yeah, well it depends. Let me not speak on Doc because I wasn’t there for DJ Doc. I got aboard after Ghetto Music. I got on in ‘89, so I was at the studio a lot of times. I used to come from college and have some time off, so I’d go and hang out in the studio. I was in the studio when he did “Still #1″, but I didn’t even know what I was even looking at, so I’m not gonna comment on Doc. I know he was doin’ a lot of drum programming with Kris at that time, kinda the way that Ced Gee did with Scott [La Rock]. Scott had a lot of records and Scott knew the records he wanted, but Ced Gee is the one who hooked them up. Back then, it was the SP-12, Ced Gee was the only one that had one that anybody really knew! Ced Gee and Scott La Rock were real cool so Scott would have records and he’d be like “I wanna do this and this and this”, and Ced Gee would hook ‘em up. That’s how I understand it, but I wasn’t there. I think Doc was kinda the same with Chris in the early days, like “This is what I wanna do” and Doc would hook it up. Supposedly, D-Nice brought Kris the beat for “Still #1″ – the 45 – and Kris took it and slowed it down and they hooked-up the drums and made the record.

I’ve read about three different people who claim they did the beat for Biz’s “Just A Friend”.

[laughing] It’s a fine line on what you did. Were you an engineer? Or did you actually add sounds? If you added sounds that’s different to me then if I say “You’re the one who knows how to work this machine, so can you engineer this for me?” You’re still supposed to get credit, but it’s a little different if you added sounds and you can say “I did it”. For example, I gave Kris the drums to “Ah Yeah”. It was not like a credit thing – Kris came to my house one day and was like “Yo, I need some drums for this song I’m working on”. I was like “Yo, check out these drums right here”. It was like a Sly Stone record or some obscure record at the time, and I gave him the drums and he said “Aight, cool” and left. And next thing I know…”Ah Yeah!”, that song was out. Or like “Black Cop” – I did the drums for “Black Cop”, and then Kris did the reggae part – which at the time, I thought was wack – and we got in a big argument over that song and I stormed out the studio. I was like “Oh, this is so wack!”.

And then he used it for Mad Lion.

Then Mad Lion got on it and used it again! Of course I got no credit and no publishing, but I just did the drums and that was it. The same thing with “The Jam”, that record he did with Shabba [Ranks]. I gave him the drums for that record. That was my thing, drums were like my thing.

But drums are the record a lot of the time…

I don’t wanna say that, but…right. But I learned how to produce from Kris. I’m not gonna say “I changed his career!” or anything, I’m just saying that some things I was down with. “Hip Hop Vs. Rap”…that record was my music but Kris put it together. It’s a funny story with “Hip Hop Vs Rap” – I was working with Heather B on something in D&D, and I left my a bunch of discs in the studio by accident. So Kris was working on something else, and he came there later on and they was like “Your brother left these discs, give it to him”, and Kris was like “I’ll take it and I’ll give it to him when I see him”. Of course he took ‘em and put ‘em in and was like “Well let’s hear what it is”, you know what I mean? So about a week later, Kris comes to me and goes “Yo, you left this music in the studio and they gave it to me to give to you, but I wanna use some of it. I’m gonna pay you some money for it”, and I was like “What? Some money out the blue? Aight, cool! I don’t care – whatever!”. So he was like “Well I already finished the record”. He asked backwards! He put the drums in there, but the music was different loops that I had left in the studio. He put it together and it became “Hip Hop Vs. Rap”.

A lot of times that’s how songs will get done with Kris. He lets people that’s in the studio have input, for the most part, if respects you. Plus people wanted to help Kris make songs – you want Kris to rhyme on your beats! So you’ll come and be like “Listen to this, I just did this. Listen to that”. Kris would be like “Cool – I’ll rock it!” and he’d put it together and that’d be the end of it! And later on, you might say “Damn, I kinda gave him this record”, but that’s neither here nor there. I mean I can’t be mad that I gave Kris some drums when I stole his SP-1200! So we have a different relationship. If I feel like I needed some money for a particular record, I could come to him now and say “Yo Kris, gimme $3000″. I don’t mind if he came to me like “I need drums” or “Let me get this disk right here so I can use it for this thing right here”. I don’t really care, I mean he’s the one who taught me how to produce! And he taught me how to DJ too! So I’m not really sweatin’ that.

So you’ve been deejayin’ the last couple of years?

We still do shows. I do some shows with Kris, not all the shows with Kris. He moved to LA. He took a job with Warner Brothers back in ‘99, he was Vice President of Reprise Records or somethin’ for like a year and a half. So when he moved out to LA, then it started not becoming really time or cost efficient for me to fly out there or fly all these places every time we had a show. Then I started deejaying in clubs around New York, and I’m deejaying in spots now. I’ve been doing a lot of club deejaying, mostly.

Do you just play a bit of everything?

It depends on where I’m at. Some spots I’m at, if it’s like a real hip-hop crowd, then I can play all the good hip-hop stuff. I like to play all the classic stuff people know – Gangstarr, Tribe, BDP, Public Enemy – I like playing stuff like that. But sometimes I’ll DJ for young people that like “Laffy Taffy” or whatever – which I think is the worst record ever recorded, by the way. In the history of recorded music, I think that’s the worst song.

[laughing] What about “Chicken Noodle Soup”?

You know what? I’m gonna say “Chicken Noodle Soup” is even better than “Laffy Taffy”. At least it’s a little girl, and it’s a stupid little record – she’s not coming out trying to say she’s the next dope MC, so I’ll give her a pass. “Laffy Taffy” is grown men. But when you’re deejaying for 20 year-olds, you can’t really play “The Bridge Is Over” because they was like two years old when that record came out! They’ll stop and just look at you like you’re stupid, or they’ll come up to you and ask you “Can you play 50 Cent again?”

As far as your production, I remember one of the first records you did was “I Get Wreck” with Heather B. She had a nice style on that record.

I’m gonna pass that little compliment along to her. She’ll be very happy to hear that too. I just put out two sample records with different samples that Kris used over the years. I had a part one and two that just came out last year, called BDP Breaks. I put some obscure stuff that I only I know he used…I don’t know if it’s sold-out now or what – they pressed maybe a thousand each of ‘em. The guy is really stressin’ me like “Come out with more stuff”, That’s why I was gonna put out the unreleased KRS stuff and all the mixtape stuff that we did, because I think that’s stuff that people would really like to hear, like crazy old rhymes from 1992. Some of it is straight from a cassette – it’s that raw. You ever been to a store that sells all kind of different stuff? They’ll have like pants, little t-shirts and all kinds of stupid shit, and they’ll have a microphone. It’s like “Let’s buy that mic so we can take it home and play around”. It’s that raw sounding, but some of the rhymes are crazy. I have him doing a freestyle of “Criminal Minded” over “Funky Drummer”, that Red Alert was cuttin’ up, and some of the rhymes are different. That’s a tape I stole from when I was in school, like twenty years ago!

Have you got any video footage of old shows? I remember he did that Live Hardcore Worldwide.

He’s been meaning to do another one for years, and never did it. He has all this footage…you know, Kris loses stuff a lot. You ever know somebody who you say “Don’t give them that tape ’cause it’s gonna get lost”? Everybody’s got a friend like “Don’t lend them nothin’!” Kris is like that. Like the footage of the thing with PRT, that whole thing at that lecture. Actually, Heather B was filming that lecture, and then Kris took the tape and you never saw the tape ever again! He’s not real reflective like that. Say he got a DAT with some old song that he never did, he wouldn’t be like “Yo, people might want to hear this”. He’ll just be like “Oh that’s trash. I was a whole different person then. I’m on to something new now”. But I’ll be like “Yo, let me get it. I’ll hold it”. A lot of the breaks he’s used over the years on different records, I end up having them in my possession because he’ll just throw the record somewhere, and that’ll be the end of it!

That whole era, especially around the first few albums, that was just a good era in hip-hop, so hearing anything from that time is always good.

Believe me, I know. But it’s a real uphill battle with that dude. Right now, all he’ll talk about is “I got this next, new rhyme, and a new rhyme style. I’m tryin’ to get this new rhyme out, I’m not even trying to think about ‘86 or ‘89.” Plus I told him I was gonna put out all this old practice tapes stuff that we had, he was like “I don’t care”. Only thing he said to me was “Give me a copy so I can learn the rhymes again, so maybe I can do it in a show”. That’s all he thinks about. If it’s not pertaining to a show, he don’t care.

Did you get many good photos over the years?

You know who has a lot of photos? Willie D. I never really had a camera. You know what my problem was? I was really stealing a lot of the stuff. [I start laughing again] I never created my own. If someone had something, I’ll steal it. Like tapes or vinyls or equipment – I was that guy, as sad as it sounds. Willie D has a good picture of KRS and Rakim, and I’ve never seen a picture of KRS and Rakim ever.

What’s Willie D doing these days?

Actually he has some group he was trying to shop, I was just talking to him about three months ago. He lives in the Bronx and he has an interesting story too. He’s been rolling with Kris since before “South Bronx”, ’cause B-Boy Records was right next to his house. That’s how they met. He’s not really much one for interviews though.

I read somewhere that ICU and Jesse West are the same person?

No, Jesse West and ICU aren’t the same guy. Jesse West is from the Bronx, he used to be down with Puffy. He produced “Step Into A World”. I was in the studio when Jesse West came in, and he put it on and everyone was like “Yo, that’s the beat right there!” and I’m like “That’s ‘Champ’. That’s regular old ‘Champ’”. He chopped it, but I didn’t see the vision. I was like “It’s aight”, but then the next day Kris was like “Yo, listen to this singing part”. When I heard that over the beat, then I was like “Oh, now that’s hot!” That was one of our biggest songs, that was a huge song for us that year. I’m always the one in Kris’ ear going “You know what? This sucks”. You ever known that guy who doesn’t like anything? I’m always that guy. I usually agree with most of the things he says, but every so often he’ll tell me something and I’ll go “Hell no”, and then it will come to pass and it’ll work, and I’ll be like “Oh, shoot”. Like he told me that he can get people to jump in the air, in 1989. This was when “Pump your fist like this!” – everybody was pumping their fist, that was like getting hype. And Kris was like “I think I can get them more hype. I think I can get them to jump.” I was like “Hell no. Americans? They’re not jumping up and down!” Boy was I wrong! [laughs]

I’m the first person that told him he was a corny rapper, actually. This is in ‘81, when he first started rhyming. I was like 14, he was like 15, and he used to make tapes and they were horrible. Like “You’re the worst, man”. He used to be like “I’m dope!” – nah he didn’t use “dope”, I dunno, whatever the word was…”I’m the joint”, we used to say that…

“I’m funky fresh”

[laughs] Yeah. When “South Bronx” blew-up, I was the first person that was like “Yo, you did it!” I can’t believe that this guy – my brother, I mean we used to argue over socks – this guy has a hit record. There’s a record called “Crack Attack”, and that was Boogie Down Productions actual first record. It came out a little bit before “South Bronx”. They’re on the same B-Boy Records, and he had to do that record in order to do “South Bronx”. He didn’t even write it, he just did it. It did nothing, it was just terrible. The first time I heard “South Bronx” I was like “Yo, it sounds like you’re dissing Shan?” and he was like “Yeah!”, and I was like “Yo, MC Shan is dope! Do you know what you’re doing?” He was like [unimpressed] “He’s alright”. I thought he was crazy to diss MC Shan! I remember hearing “Kill That Noise” and seeing Kris, and I said “Yo, Shan answered you. You had a good career, man. ‘South Bronx’ was a good song, and I told you not to mess with Shan!”

So you thought Shan shut him down?

Kind of! ‘Cause that’s the only rhyme that I’d heard him do. I didn’t know he had the whole Criminal Minded album already in his head. I was still in school, so I used to see him every so often, like on the weekends or whatever, and “South Bronx” was a big hit, but as it died down “Kill That Noise” came out and I was like “Damn, it’s over for you. At least you were like a one-hit wonder, you did your thing”, and he’s like “I’ve got this record called ‘The Bridge Is Over’, and I’m like [condescendingly] “How does it go?” He’s like [does the piano riff], I’m like “Aww, that’s wack! It’s over!” He was like “I’mma do it tonight at Union Square. Come to Union Square and I’mma do it”.

I went with him and he did his show, and then he did “South Bronx” and people started going “Kill that noise! Kill that noise!”, like that. Shan had people there, and Kris was going “What y’all saying? Kill that noise? Oh yeah?” I was like “Ohh shit!” and he was like “Yo, I got this record called ‘The Bridge Is Over’ – hit it Scott!” And Scott threw on the beat, and everybody’s quiet, and then he goes “The Bridge is over! The Bridge is over! Budda bye-bye!” and the whole place went to the ceiling! He’s saying these rhymes, and no one had never really said people’s names in a record like that: “Magic – sucking! Shante’s good for fucking!” This is the first time people were hearing…people were stunned. They were going bazerk. People was yelling and screaming. That’s still my favorite record he ever made – because how I got it – and I thought his career was over, and I got it live at Union Square in front of a thousand people going crazy! Every time I hear that record, I think of that day. That was an incredible song. I didn’t know he had that in him. I don’t know if you’ve got any brothers or sisters…

I’ve got a younger sister.

Can you imagine your sister coming out with a hit? And then another hit? It’s unbelievable. KRS was a really weird child. He used to talk about poetry and metaphysics at fourteen. I was tryin’ to play basketball and be cool, and he was like on some other…he had no friends, he was just like a real weirdo.

Hanging out at the library and stuff.

Yeah, and he used to run away from home every few weeks, and the police would find him and bring him back…if you look back on it, you can see how he became KRS, because his confidence…he’s always been ultra confident, but he wasn’t dope! It wasn’t like he was a dope MC – not in ‘81! He was just a regular dude trying to rhyme. He used to go to my friends house and make tapes. My friend used to have a tape deck, but he had a dog. So every time he used to play the music, the dog used to bark. They’d make tapes, and Kris would be rhyming and there’d be music playing – like whatever the hot record is of the day, “Catch The Beat”. I remember they used to rhyme to “Catch The Beat”, T-Ski Valley, all the time. “Catch The Beat” would come on, he’ll rhyme over the instrumental, but the dog would be barking in the background!

So now he’ll come back home, be like “Listen to this”. And it’s him rhyming, some corny rhyme, with the dog goin’ “Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!” on the tape! [We both crack up with laughter] And I’m like “Yo, this shit is horrible! This is the worst shit I’ve ever heard in my life!” and he was like “You’re just jealous! You don’t know!” We’re like typical brothers, we used to argue all the time. So that’s why when “South Bronx” came out, it was like “Wow. You really can rhyme!” And then it was like “The Bridge Is Over” was a completely different style. It was incredible! It’s just amazing to see this guy come from running away from home to this big rap star. I still sometimes can’t believe it.

He changed the way people rhymed even, because everyone was trying to rap like Run-DMC.

Yeah! Imagine his ego and his confidence – he was so confident, that was like “I’m not rhyming like Run. I’m not rhyming like everybody else. I’m coming with this style”. He was almost a fool, you know what I mean? His style was dope, but it was almost like “Who do you think you are to say you’re not rhyming like Run?” But then when you heard the rhymes…see, I didn’t hear the rhymes until “South Bronx”. Then I was determined to steal tapes after that.

DITC Monday: My LA/Amoeba Trip

So two weeks ago I went on my 1st trip to La La land. The trip was for me and the wife’s aniversary(damn its been a year already) and also for our good friend’s birthday. We stayed over her mom’s place since it was in the city. We were right off 92nd and Figurora it was very hood …homely. I was good either way regardless.

We got in town at about 12pm. The first thing we did was ride the sunset strip. It was everything I pictured it to be: Lots of palm trees, lots of fly homes, and tons of tourists. We stopped to eat at the Roosevelt hotel and they had a deal where you design your own burger. I just kept it real gully and got avacado and pepper jack cheese cause that’s what nerds gangstaz eat. Apparently in Los Angeles Avocado is added to everything(no quarrels here).

(By this point you must be confused, surely Jae would not create a post about digging without any mention of any sort of digging what so ever right?)

After the Roosevelt the next stop was Ameoba records

Now this was pretty much one of the main things I wanted to do, matter of fact it was the only other thing I requested that was a MUST do(first being to see my family out there).

Upon 1st entrance if I could accurately describe it I would say its similar to when you were little and you 1st went here:

It’s basically its every thing you dreamed of in a record store aestetically. First thing I thought was wow this place is HUGE. Imagine Wal Mart with nothing but records. I was geeked to start my digging excursion.

Soul/R&B section:
Upon arrival I have to admit I was underwhelmed of there selection and even more underwhelmed at the prices. My man Amdex( http://www.myspace.com/amdex) did warn me that their prices were “High as a mug”. I had no quarrels with the proces so much as I did the fact it just felt like it had been ran through. I guess I understimated the fact it is pretty much a tourist attraction. Needless to say I didnt get anything in the R&B section. I ended up just getting The Blackbyrds-Unfinished Buisness.

The Jazz section:
This was where I spent most of my time. I had a bunch of records in mind I wanted and it was 80% jazz. The jazz section was cool. I was definately looking for some George Duke(Feel). I ended up getting 2 Billy Cobham Lp’s(BC, and I forget the other), and Lonnie Smith-Afrodesia.

Soundtracks Section:
I had the most sucess here. Although I walk out with many of these records, I came up on a bunch of stellar soundtrack selections. The most interesting was this french animated film ST( Sorry ill let you know once i flip it, I can’t tell yall everything lol) It was ridiculous. I did cop Sharky’s Revenge OST from the bargin bin.

Rock Section:
Now honestly Ameoba has the illest rock section i seen in a while.(#1 is Jerrys records in Pittsburgh that place should be called heaven) I noticed it definately was the biggest section in the store by far. I can understand this because I mean lets be real it IS in Hollywood. So I would say a majority of the people that come there are looking for Rock. I copped some Deep Purple,and Emerson Lake & Palmer.

All in all it is a beautiful place. Beautiful location and all, but honestly im more of a fan of the dirty dusty random spot. Its more of a spot to go to say you went but I am sure non celebs do REAL digging up there. Ill recomend it as a tourist but not if you are looking to go deep unless you are on a Rock mission.

Cam’ron-Cousin Bang Preview

This looks hillarious

DITC Mondays: Emerson Lake & Palmer-Trilogy

Label: Island
release: 1971

play time: 42:23

So this weekend I hit the crates. Got me a bowl of rasin bran and went into this great album. The 1st ELP album i copped was Tarkus. This was their 3rd album and one of their bigger albums they had. If you are familar with ELP you know what you are getting(insane keyboard,Drum and Guitar work w/ Keyboard kind of being the focus). This album does not disappoint in any way. It starts with The endless Enigma Part One. This is a trippy joint kind of sounds like something that would be played during a chase scene in a 70 action flick. Has a lot of deep piano and african drums.

Next song is Fuge. This is pretty much a piano and guitar fast paced jam session both killed it. It was short 1:57 more like an interlude.

The endless enigma part two went a little deeper than one this sounded more like a traditional ELP song. With the organ and the trademark synth. really good as well.

My favorite track is From The Beginning it is a master piece. It hit me at the right time since prior to playing this record I found out a good friend of mine was murdered. Struck me as kind of ironic considering the subject matter (purpose of being here/living). Great acoustic guitar in this one as well as lyrics.

Sheriff seemed like it contunued where endless enigma left off. Sam kind of feel to it production wise. I enjoyed it.

The song Hoedown actually cracked me up at 1st listen not because it was bad or even funny just because as I was listening I imagined Keith Emerson having a Sho-Nuff type glow illuminating around his body as he was playing this.  This is a staple of their show from what I understand as well. It is an insanely fun song. I was in my lab dosey doe’in around like a madman.

Trilogy is a piano balad a good change of pace. Emmerson is a master of the keys and its pretty much a beast. It has a broadway kind of feel to it. I could see it being in a toney award winning production.

Living Sin is a funky synthy joint. Real gritty very different from Trilogy. I wouldnt be surprised if Trilogy and Living Sin were supposed to be one song, with Triogy being the intro to it. Good song.

Abaddon’s Bolero is very trippy. Same sequence repeating but with diff elements added with each run. This song makes me realize how little chances are taken musically these days(at least on a commercial level). Good close to the album.

If you are unfamiliar with ELP please do yourself a favor and pick this up. Its a great album from a Great band.

Fav tracks: From The Beginning, Hoedown, Endless Enigma pt 2

Ozy Reigns-Exciting Times(Limited Edition)

http://www.zshare.net/download/57355689895eafc9/

1- Intro The Dragon – produced by C Dubb
2- Mr. Now – produced by D.R.U.G.S.
3- LivN – feat. Nefarious produced by Mr. Q
4- Maintain – feat Tay produced by Illastrate
5- Wants & Needs – feat. Dean Caine and Dat Boy Tragic produced by D.R.U.G.S.
6- Wack Break 1
7- Candy Apple Dream – by Lil Trey and Yong Fuzz
8- Soul Takeover – produced by Rock Most
9- Git Em Hi – feat. Stahhr and DT of Clan Destined produced by Illastrate
10- 93 BPMs – feat Naira produced by Illastrate
11- Descent
12- REIGN OF FIRE – produced by D.R.U.G.S.
13- Glow 2 – feat Mojo Swagger, Stanza and Fort Knox produced by Illastrate
14- Jook Joint – feat Dynas and Amdex of Clan Destined produced by Illastrate
15- Wack Break 2
16- U Already Slow – by Lil Trey and Yong Fuzz
17- OProlific – produced by Illastrate
18- ALB2 – feat. Tori Alamaze produced by Koda
19- From Zingtrark – produced by Koda
20- Dreamers – feat. Boog Brown and Dillon produced by D.R.U.G.S.
21- Runaway – with Dynas and Akir produced by Illastrate
22- Foolish – feat Mojo Swagger produced by DJ Shakim
23- Git Dowwwn – feat. Binkis Recs produced by Koda
24- Turkey Gravy Interlude – Principle Greesy
25- Oh Please! – feat. Clan Destined produced by Amdex
26- Space Travel/Our Time – produced by Jae Scott

This is my man Ozy Reigns’ exclusive online version of his EXCITING TIMES album. It is truly an amazing album. Features production from myself, Illastrate, D.R.U.G.S, DJ Shakim, Koda, Amdex, Rock Most and many others. My personal favorite tracks are “Get em hi” and “Glow pt 2”.Oz been on the grind hard lately. If you are in ATL  you can check him out at Cenci on July 27th. 

http://www.ozyreigns.net/

http://www.twitter.com/ozyreigns