Lawrence Parker aka KRS-One arrives at his album number five in five years under the name Boogie Down Productions, which now means almost nothing more than a synonym to refer to Parker himself: he arrives at the album with the line-up now reduced to himself, Willie D and his brother Kenny Parker, according to the same liner notes of this record, excluding D-Nice, his wife and all other associates.
It's the last album signed with the name of the group, the least considered by the public and critics among all those published, rightly so: KRS has no more ideas and is tired, very tired. He just wants to make some money to give his part to the guys who remain loyal to him and then move on to a solo career: look at the cover, it's obviously scandalous, but it's not in the typical style of KRS, this cover is raw and confusing and simplistic, totally meaningless.
Even the rapper himself, pictured on the back cover, doesn't seem to understand neither the cover nor what he went on to realize here, almost trying to hide from shame. He can be partially understood, coming from four excellent records, all consecutive, wasn't easy. Prince Paul, Pal Joey, Kenny Parker, KRS and a few other BDP affiliates provide the production, making skeletal and elementary boom bap rhythms. KRS takes care of all sixteen cuts, leaving space only for BDP affiliates Sidney Mills & Willie D uncredited guests on "We in There", and the only accredited guest, Freddie Foxxx.
The first tune mirrors many features present in the rest of the record: lean slow syncopated drum machine, basic-cheap rhythm, meager funky boom bap, KRS syncopated smooth delivery showing reggae influences, while Freddie Foxxx has a decent flow. The first part of this album is pretty solid, thanks to competent lyrics from KRS and a slow, syncopated hardcore delivery with which he easily overpowers these beats and delivers his best tunes.
When after about a quarter of an hour, Freddie Foxxx is called back to help KRS, you realize it's not all right: the track is pretty good, boom bap funky, Parker's hardcore slow syncopated delivery, Foxxx good too, but in the next cut KRS slips. Many artists are slipping in the same period, some younger than others in a discographic way, and none have held up as high as KRS-One for so many years: nonetheless, his "13 and Good" sexual song is bad and has nothing to do with it, nothing not only with the rest of the album, but also with the rest of KRS's past and future career.
The record recovers well and holds up to the end, but his choice remains out of my understanding, he had nothing to prove to anyone coming from four excellent socio-conscious records. Here, he maintains purely socio-conscious themes, against drugs, some battle rap, braggadocio choices and more or less all positive ones. So when the pro-rape track "Say Gal" arrives, well, at that point I don't know what to say anymore: KRS doesn't go beyond De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, which coincidentally are both greeted by the brother in the outro of this same track, well he's no worse than them, but he's not better either. How does a political and / or socio-conscious and otherwise positive record, performed by an artist who is considered a hip-hop veteran if not a legend at this point, have two similar disastrous senseless "fillers"?
Without these two cuts, the album would have just under one hour of length, but it would have been more acceptable: instead, it surpasses the hour without excuse, fifteen cuts without skits and interludes, it remains quite irregular, supported by the funky production wobbly due to the cheap axes, and reggae delivery by KRS, which is never inspired, basically, despite some almost random technical flares. In the title track he resumes himself, the beat is honest, funky with excellent samples and a pounding drum, but he delivers in reggae and hardcore style, slow, almost shouting, a clear sign that here he was at the limit of his psycho-physical abilities. The commercial flop of the record was easily foreseeable, which facilitated KRS's choice to start his own career as a solo artist, definitively closing Boogie Down Productions.
Highlights: "Duck Down", "Drug Dealer", "Build and Destroy", "Sex and Violence".
Rating: 7/10.
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