KRS-One is a total personification of Hip Hop. He is not only one of Hip Hop culture's most productive stars, he is also among its biggest supporters. Aside from being one of the few artists to complete their record deal, he is also one of the few artists to continually use his music to explicitly help other individuals and causes. While those 21 and up have no excuse not to know KRS, there is a whole new generation of Hip Hop fans that couldn't tell the difference between KRS and their local bus driver. It's part of a sadness and frustration that grips KRS-One, who determinedly wants to step up and be a recognized leader for Hip Hop culture now, and in the future. He is just waiting for the right time, for wide-scale acceptance, and for due respect before he takes the reigns and steps to the forefront of Hip Hop leadership.
Perhaps a first step is Hip Hop Lives, his new album with Marley Marl. The record is an unapologetic explanation of Hip Hop culture, and KRS-One's place in it. I was able to talk to KRS shortly before the album dropped. In part one of this two part interview KRS talks about his new album, gets metaphysical, and derides those to criticize Hip Hop without doing their research. Check it out.
SoundSlam: I wanted to start this interview by talking about Hip Hop lives. I read your statement about it. You said it's not necessarily a response to Nas' Hip Hop Is Dead, but is meant to contribute to the discussion, and that you and others are trying to preserve Hip Hop's original intent of artistic excellence, peace, love, unity, and safely having fun. Let's take a young kid, maybe 9 years old, just starting to think for himself or herself and is really into Hip Hop music. Do you think that the music they are most exposed to, and that is shaping their understanding of what Hip Hop is right now, is that communicating the messages that are part of Hip Hop's original intent?
KRS-One: Yes. Hahaha, that's really it. I think the 9 year olds will get it...It's not so much that there's something that they need to get. It's the movement itself, it's the fact that Hip Hop is beyond music. It's not a music genre. Rap is a music genre. But Hip Hop's got skateboarders, graff writers, DJs, Emcees, and we all seem to share the same feelings. If we get passed our races, classes, and who we claim to be politically in society, we can all just meet on skill, on artistic skills. But somehow we can all get along with each other. This is Hip Hop. The 9 year olds, the 14 year olds, they see it. They know that we need more change. I think our children are smarter than we think.
SoundSlam: I'm a teacher, and I used Hip Hop to teach self-fulfilling prophecy recently. I asked the kids if they thought that Hip Hop artists giving their albums names such as Ready To Die, putting a lot of negative thoughts into their music, does that go into a self-fulfilling prophecy and is that some of the reason that negative things are happening? You have a song "Kill A Rapper" on your new album that kind of speaks towards that. What are your thoughts on that subject?
KRS-One: Well, the subject points to the power of the spoken word. The things you speak eventually come back to you. We put an album out called Criminal Minded, Scott La Rock was murdered. Slick Rick puts out Adventures of Slick Rick and he puts out "A Children's Story." "Race up the block doing 83, crashed into a tree near university." That whole rhyme happened to him, everything happened to him, which was the cause for his deportation in that whole Slick Rick thing in the 90s. Biggie puts out Ready To Die then dies. This is all speaking to the spoken word. We're speaking about Metaphysics, or what is called metaphysics today.
I would say that we have to now upgrade our knowledge of this science, this science of mind. The upgrade of knowledge is this: it's not what you say that comes back to you. It's what you intend which comes back to you. If what we said came back to us, you'd have all kinds s**t going on in your life. But it's not what you say, it's what you intend. It's your being. It's the reason why when people pray sometimes they don't see their prayers answered. The prayer's not answered because the intent is not in alignment with what they think they want. You may say you want a new Mercedes Benz, but if you don't even have a garage to put it in, you stifle yourself right there. Your mind is really on other things, you're just wishing, that's what I should say. You're not visualizing, you're not drawing in. Now, when we were doing Criminal Minded, we were criminals, no doubt. We were young and rebellious, and I was a graffiti writer, so you know what that was about. Scott La Rock, he wasn't a criminal. He was a social worker that deals with criminals, and would deal with all the thugs. So yeah that album then became its manifestation. But, I then put out By All Means Necessary and mimicked the Malcolm X [phrase], then The Blueprint ghetto music with the cop standing over us with the stick. Are these self-fulfilling prophecies, or are they documentations of time, documentations of our age and time? When we were doing it, we did it as documentation for the age and time.
Scott La Rock used to wear a little gold gun around his neck. I always found that interesting. Me, I was never with it, never a part of it. My intent with "Kill A Rapper" is not to have KRS murdered, or for that matter, have any other rapper murdered. The intent of the song is to solve the crime. It's said sarcastically. 'You want to get away with murder, kill a rapper/ Because it doesn't seem like the investigation's going to go any further.' The song is not about what I'm going to do for a rapper. I think if I put that out, I think that would be questionable as a meta-physcian. [If] I'm saying, 'you want to get away with murder? Let's kill a rapper. Let's get these rappers, let's get these... I'm like, this is the way you kill rapper, you got to ill a rapper.' That might be dope actually, that might be hot... 'this is the way you kill a rapper, you got to kill a rapper, I'm the illest rapper' some ill s**t. That was not my intent. My intent was, why the hell is JMJ's crime not solved? Now, just to show you about the spoken, news flash just came out as I released that record and of course there's no way that I could possibly line this up with what's going on with JMJ's murder. Metaphysically, I put my record out. I questioned the death of rappers, unsolved murders of famous rappers, and then a press statement comes out saying they found the killers of Tupac and JMJ. I don't believe this of course, but the news is starting to change. It's not 'Kill A Rapper.' It's 'we're going to solve these crimes.' New people are starting to come out of the wood work now that were in hiding before. One of the stories was that Randy Allen, who was JMJ's friend, who was a suspect in the murder is no longer a suspect. He now emerges from his hiding after four years and does a big interview somewhere, I think it was allhiphop or whatever where he's talking about what happened. And this is right after my song is out. Now of course I would never take any credit, I can't prove this physically. But to answer your question about the spoken word, this is how I see this song affecting Hip Hop and my own life.
My intent is justice. My intention is not violence, my intention is justice. So my intent is what you really got to pay attention to. A lot of police worked this year with KRS. I may not like that. I may be drawing myself into something that may be a little uncomfortable for me. A lot of police work, a lot of police officers are going to come to the table saying, 'we agree. This is bulls**t. If you got $10,000, $20,000 or $500,000 maybe, we can solve this crime. We'll find somebody and get some answers.' I don't know. It may come to that. The police chief of Philadelphia has already called me up and said that he wanted to deputize me as an outstanding citizen of Philadelphia and this kind of thing. It's not over and this song, as with others, will draw a karmic response to KRS regardless, and I am always aware of that. When I was writing the song "Kill A Rapper" I was aware of that too. As a matter of fact, not just "Kill A Rapper," my battle lyrics in general. I have hundreds of other rhymes that talk about chopping a rapper up and sometimes they do get used. But I tell you, it's the intention of your heart.
SoundSlam: Staying with the Hip Hop Lives theme do you think that the pioneers of Hip Hop music and culture, and the older emcees now are being recognized as necessary listening or people that need to be consulted by not just fans, but even corporations and organizations that use Hip Hop to further their own causes?
KRS One: Principle 8 of the Hip Hop Declaration states if you're going to use, exploit, or represent the term Hip Hop and its elements that you should hire a specialist in the culture. Now we leave that vague because although the certified Hip Hop specialist is certified by the Temple of Hip Hop because that's our term, Hip Hop cultural specialist, we give degrees on that term. But we leave it vague because anyone, if studied, can turn themselves into a Hip Hop specialist. You shouldn't just have to come to the Temple of Hip Hop for that. If you're knowledgeable of Hip Hop you should be able to grab your job anywhere. You probably need some creditable certification, but if you just have knowledge, what most people are being hired on now, you should be alright. I think corporations and Hip Hop are getting their just do. I think one of the triumphs right now of Hip Hop when I was coming up, say 80's and 90's, we weren't getting our just due. We were getting exploited. Now we are the executives that are signing the checks, and we're the artists getting the checks. So even though there's still some exploitation going on, the exploitation is happening within Hip Hop itself now. Now we can cure it because it's not outside of our community anymore. We've taken over those outlets that were exploiting us and exploiting our resources. I think we are getting our just due in that sense. The question now is, 'what do we do that we're in the same spot, same position?' Do we play the same game? Or do we try to advance the game even further where it works for everybody?
SoundSlam: You made the distinction between 'hip hop' and 'Hip Hop.' You said, 'hip hop' is dead, but 'Hip Hop' is not dead. How do the two relate to each other, and is it possible that 'hip hop's' death can lead to 'Hip Hop' culture's resurgence?
KRS One: Yes. We don't disrespect any of the spellings of Hip Hop. There's actually three spellings that we teach. The first spelling is Hiphop. That's Hip Hop as consciousness. That's what we called the behavior, that's what we call the collective consciousness, the shared idea that is called Hiphop, the behavior.
Then you have Hip Hop. That's the culture. That's the common use of the term Hip Hop. That's breaking, emceeing, graff writing, DJing, beat-boxing, street fashion, street language, street knowledge, street entrepreneurialism, this is our definition of Hip Hop. That's the culture, the living of it, the doing of it. Actually, it's consciousness in action.
Then you have hip hop. That's the product. That's Hip Hop's products. That's CDs, t-shirts, vinyl records, even people if they allow themselves to operate under this spelling. If you operate under hip hop you're basically calling yourself a product. At times we do become products. When I'm contracted to perform on stage I am a product. They're purchasing the KRS product to deliver a certain service, in that instance I can be referred to as hip hop. KRS One performed hip hop. KRS One sold his hip hop CDs. But most of the time KRS and artists like me, those who live the culture, refer to ourselves as Hip Hop, that's the standard spelling of the culture.
SoundSlam: Currently, Hip Hop's lyrics are coming under a new wave of criticism. It's not new. Even back in your song "My Philosophy" almost 20 years ago, you said, 'See I'm telling and teaching real facts/The way some act in rap is kinda whack/It lacks creativity and intelligence/but they don't care cause the company is selling it.' It seems like they're still making the same criticism, and people are still passing the same buck. 'Don't blame me, you buy it.' 'Don't blame me, the record company puts it out.' What's changed now? Do you think this new wave of criticism will do anything, and if so, why not 20 years ago when you said that the first time?
KRS One: This is my frustration right here. That there are people who claim to be journalists, claim to be scholars, claim to be intellectuals, professionals I should say, who make these statements about Hip Hop and its lyrics with no research whatsoever. If you really research the history of Hip Hop, you will see that Hip Hop itself is fighting against this. KRS did a battle with Nelly and the center of the battle was Nelly was like, 'get the f**k out of here with all the preaching s**t.' And I'm like, 'No. Get the f**k out of here with that b***h, h* s**t.' Now, this is my frustration. I did put out a Stop the Violence Movement. Why isn't anyone referring to it?..I was part of All In The Same Gang with Mike Concepcion, and Dre, and Eazy E and them. We all did our thing in the 90s, why are we being ignored? I wrote a book called Ruminations. It wasn't a best seller, but a lot of Hip hoppers got the book. You can get it if you want it. Why is my book not being read by these so-called scholars that want to know about the meaning of the word n***a, or what Hip Hop feels of its own expression to the world, what we are fighting? I wrote about all of this in my book Science of Rap, which came out in 95, in Ruminations that came out in 2003. All of lyrics speak to I'm not a player, I'm not a pimp I'm not a thug. All of my records point to this for 20 years. And I'm the loudest voice on top of that. Who doesn't know KRS and what he stands for? Even sometimes when I even contradict my own public image, the crowd is the first one to say 'that's bulls**t Kris. You're supposed to be the Stop The Violence Movement. You're supposed to be the philosopher.' That was the criticism with Nelly. I'm like, 'I'm getting into this battle.' Cats were like, 'that s**t is stupid. Why would you even want to do that Kris?' This was some of the criticism I was getting. If all of this is going on why are all these people still ignoring us?
I think they're ignoring us because of the sensationalism. They're further killing us. We're already killing ourselves, and they're shooting at us too. They want the ratings. While we're on our way out they want the ratings a well. But Hip Hop is indestructible. We're going to prove that with the album Hip Hop Lives. If you have anything to say about Hip Hop and it's lyrics, come listen to this album. We use the word n***a in the album. We got motherf***ker in the album. We got s**t, f**k and whatever in the album. But so does the new Bruce Willis movie. So does the latest s**t they're pushing on HBO. So this is American language. There's the lexicon of our communication in the United States. Why is there a problem?
SoundSlam: You said, 'so does the new Bruce Willis movie, so does this...That's American language and entertainment.' People might say, 'why isn't 50 Cent's album viewed the same way as a Bruce Willis movie, they're both fiction, they're both entertainment?' Do you think that Hip Hop artists' claims of keeping it real all the time, and saying 'this is what I do' is the catch they keep getting caught on and why it's not looked at as another form of fiction? An actor can act in a really violent movie. Robert DeNiro, no one thinks that he's a killer, but he's played vicious killers in movies but he has his own person. A lot of Hip Hop artists like Cam'ron on 60 Minutes the other day, say 'this is how I really act, my music is real.' Do you think that adds to people being up in arms about the language or subject matter and why it's not viewed as just entertainment?
KRS One: Yes, but that argument goes even further than that. Let's look at it this way. Hip Hop is not a music genre, it's a real culture. Bruce Willis doesn't say that he really sees dead people, whoever the actor is, is an actor, and it's clear this person is an actor. But Hip Hop, this has been my argument again for 20 years. We are the only group of people that have to answer to our artistic expressions. That my friend is a culture. That's not a music genre, that's a real group of people. R&B artists can sing about 'you, me, she, what we gonna do...' It's me you and your wife and the R&B woman who sings the song can go into a supermarket with her husband and the people at the counter will ask for her autograph and say, 'I love that song.' They wouldn't think she acted that way, she's with her husband and her children. There's no way that she's really doing that. That's R&B, Jazz, same way, Blues is a little different. Blues cats were really living they're s**t, no doubt. Hip Hop is the same way. Blues was in a time when African Americans weren't politically powerful yet so Blues had to remain a music genre even though Blues, the actual term Blues, is pointing to a feeling, pointing to something beyond music. It's a culture of people that feel this way. Hip Hop is a culture of people. So, people are up in arms when Cam'ron says 'this is how I really get down.'
You shouldn't be up in arms, you should say, 'Ok, where's your leadership at? You guys are a group of people that are into a whole lot of s**t that we don't like. Where's your leadership? Who leads this culture? We need to talk to that person.' There are people who hold themselves out as leaders, Russell's one of them. KRS is another, Afrika Bambataa is another. But who are we really going to respect as the leader? Do we form a council? What does the leadership look like? What does it really look like for Hip Hop? Every time I step forward to offer leadership I've been shot down by my own community, first African American then Hip Hop. So I formed my own society called the Temple of Hip Hop. All the people who are not afraid of KRS, or not trying to explicitly diss him and want to preserve the culture of Hip Hop, they joined the Temple of Hip Hop. Our society is made up of professionals doing very well in life. Not everybody of course, but most of our membership is doctors, lawyers, architects, transportation people, cops, all kinds of people, but they're all professionals. The one thing we have in common is our love for Hip hop. We're willing to assist each other in the preservation of Hip Hop. Eventually, we would hope that if you're pulled over by the cops you could say Temple of Hip Hop and the cop is also down with the Temple or realizes what that means and looks at you in a different way.
SoundSlam: I'm in a similar organization called Hip Hop Congress.
KRS One: Yess! Hip Hop Congress no doubt. We consider Hip Hop Congress great allies. No doubt, Hip Hop Congress! But see, here it is, if Hip Hop keeps ignoring its grassroots organizations, then you're going to have these dumb**s arguments like this. You can't say Hip Hop is only what you see on television when there is a Hip Hop Congress all across the United States, and in the University and College system. Why are you ignoring Hip Hop Congress? Why aren't you asking them questions and putting them on Larry King Live? Why you're not asking those that are really organizing? Because of one answer, we're going to shut it all down. One answer, it's called advertisers. That's going to shut it down. The radio don't want to hear that s**t because that's where their money's coming from. Advertisers don't want to hear that s**t because now we're shutting you out from the community. Then what happens? We take real power. Now we're going to tell the advertisers what's hot and what's not. We're going to be the gate keepers of our community. KRS, I hold myself out as one of those leaders. But I'm not really respected yet. That's also part, not of my frustration, but of my sadness for Hip Hop. It's the sadness, it's like the same way Jesus must of felt while hanging on the cross. Forgive them father, they know not what they do. I came to help and all you wanted to do was diss, and diss to your own demise. Don't you realize the Romans got us all hemmed up here? No one realizes that.
This is how society's are started. This is how secret societies are started. People like myself who see the light and organizes with others who see the light. And we allow the rest of the darkness to fall around us. It's a sad state of affairs. It's not a happy thing, it's not a cheerful thing. I would love to step forward and represent Hip Hop as a whole. I do anyway just out of my spirit, but I mean really draw up a contract with Russell, with Bam, with Puffy, with Jay-Z. Jay-Z called for a council. I'd like to draw up the contract on a council. They say, 'alright KRS, you're the leader of Hip Hop culture. What's going to be the agenda?' I'd f**k that s**t up and I'd have the justice department on their knees. We'd have health insurance. I'd free political prisoners. We'd be out of control. But, I got to wait. I just got to wait until Hip Hop itself matures and says, 'now we need this.' I hope they don't kill Mumia before that. I hope they don't kill H. Rap Brown before that. I hope our children get a chance to be B-boys and B-girls, and DJs, and graff writers, and emcees without having to go to prison for it before it's all over. That's what I would hope, but there has to be a level of respect. If you kills the Christ, you are the one who misses out.
Be on the lookout for PART 2 of this interview coming on Friday!
