Solo album number twenty-four for KRS-One, veteran hip-hop artist from New York. The project could continue the trend started with the honest mixtape "Street Light" and "Between da Protests", its best release in the last decade, but in essence this isn't good.
At first listen it doesn't even bother me too much and it just looks like a generic tape, but from the second, it becomes more difficult to digest. Drums, samples, rapping, everything sounds less good than the first listen and only "Achieving the Levels" holds up, somehow. This choice of still relying on amateurs for the choice of rhythms and guests, continues to prove deleterious, even for his discography in general, which suffers low blows year after year. The lyrics are quite mid, not rewarded by an uninspired performance and weak music.
The cover is curious: it's simple, there's the face of the author — on 24 solo LPs, you can count on the fingers of one hand the times his face isn't present in the cover — the author's name at the top and the title at the bottom, both in orange, a color that KRS has favored over the decades. The title is more cryptic than it should be: "Imam Cru 12"? Nah, according to KRS means "I am an MC, are you one too?" Wow. If it wasn't for the Hip Hop Golden Age staff, I never would have gotten there, ever. Not recommended, 4/10.
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