Hip-Hop Albums of the Year

05 July, 2021

KRS-One — Maximum Strength (Two Thousand Eight)


In 2008, Lawrence "KRS-One" Parker no longer has anything to prove in hip-hop, but he still wants to prove something. More than twenty years after his debut with his group, in just one year he releases three LPs that are one worse than the other, they all sound like amateur mixtapes: taking a selection of the best tracks from these records would make a decent, generic EP. Production is mainly done by Duane "Darock" Ramos, along with James Desmond, Ser Kenoe, Dirt and Oh No. There are no guests in these twelve tracks and over half an hour of material.

At 43 y/o, Parker continues to preach, tackling political and socio-conscious issues with a pen that is running out of ink and a less incisive style of rap than in the past. The end result is much better than his previous record, and it wasn't difficult, but it's still not a good tape: rhythm selection is still a problem for this Bronx MC. The album starts off well with a good boom bap rhythm for "Beware", but the rest of the chosen beats are very simple, cheap, amateur, sunk by hooks ("Let Me Know" boasts one of the worst of the season), and it's not lifted by some good samples either. KRS reserves its ode to New York for one of the songs, and is one of the most forgettable hymns dedicated to the Big Apple.

In order to sell as many copies as possible, he decides to title the album with the same name as an LP that he should have released with Jive around 1999, and which was then shelved: released by Koch, he keeps some hype and regains the charts one of the last times in his career, nevertheless, it's far from its most memorable efforts, not recommended. 4.7/10.

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