Izm is a New York/Jersey street term for marijuana, but, as far as Channel Live and KRS-One are concerned, smoking it seems to also be a metaphor for showcasing your rap skills. With that, The Blastmaster easily outsparks his pupils over a boom-bap beat he apparently produced himself. “Switch me; mix me; somebody get me,” he warns, “Don’t let me rip out my clothes like Bill Bixby.”
my rating : 4 of 5
1994
1988
2020
2020
2020
KRS-One refers to this as his twenty-third album. I don’t know. It depends on which ones you count. Not that it matters much when you’ve been dropping them for this long. KRS-One; remember he started with Boogie Down Productions; is a real pioneer in the world of rap music. The fact that he’s still doing it all these years, decades, later is a testament to his love for hip-hop, which he uses not just to boast about his own rap skills but to Teach his students (fans) about the ways of the world, particularly when it comes to society and race.
Today’s lesson has to do with Da Protests that peaked with the 2020 killing of George Floyd at the hands, or knee, of Da Police, which the race-obsessed automatically attribute to racism, even when the cop is black. The Teacha is no exception; PowerPoint the Ghetto Music album cover; but he deserves some credit for calling out democratic politicians and the media for being the hypocritical opportunists they are. “Black Lives Matter now; they all wanna use it,” he observes, “What we seeing is the corporate co-optive of another black movement.”
Boom is one of too many songs dampered at the breaks though. The album actually starts off surprisingly fresh because the first two songs showcase the “lyrical legend”; he indeed still has the skills to outrap most of these “young’uns”; without any (stale) hooks to bring them down. Perhaps he should do a whole album just rapping to the beat, which he sort of just did at his Block Party with Kid Capri. The Invaders isn’t included again, which is a relief, but at least that’s a good song; something that’s been a rarity on KRS-One albums for a long time.
my rating : 3 of 5
2020
2020
This is KRS-One’s first album since leaving Jive; the major record label he’d been with since By All Means Necessary, which the “contradictory” Teacha also held a gun on the cover of. What this Koch debut brings is what sounds like a much lower school budget compared to his previous set, I Got Next, which included as a bonus song a remix with Puff Daddy.
There are no guest rappers here, but The MC is lyrically as “fresh” as ever. What’s stale are some of these beats and hooks. What Kinda World, Get Your Self Up and Krush Them are particularly banal. The Lessin is a good one though and the Sneak Attack title song is a banger. The album also ends with two standouts; False Pride and The Raptizm.
my rating : 3 of 5
2001
1989
1990
This is a song about graffiti; probably my least favorite aspect of hip-hop culture. KRS-One is an advocate as he raps from the perspective of an artist with “25 cans in my knapsack… putting up my name with a fat cap.”
He goes on to shoutout Phase 2, Stay High, Presweet and other popular “writers”. The appeal is still lost on me, but I do like the song. That’s mainly because of the beat and the way the rapper flows onto it like a mural.
my rating : 4 of 5
1995
