Shame on any self-respecting hip-hop fan who hasn't listened to the teacher and blast-master KRS-One's latest LP, Now Hear This. In fact, it's not enough to just listen to it. Now Hear This is another requisite comprehensive KRS album that must be discussed in as greatest detail as possible by as many people as possible. The South Bronx bred, Boogie Down Productions emcee, now fifty years old but no less the respected legend, has crafted another extraordinary hip-hop LP with super-charged, sociopolitical insight and theories with varied beats by a regiment of likewise extraordinary producers, Mad Lion, DJ Predator Prime, DJ Static, Hellmaf, MK Zoo, The Beat Miners, the man Kris himself and others. Interestingly, when it was released last year in November for online stream, some hip-hop websites featured and promoted it while others did not. Truthfully, they ALL should have, but hopefully, this review will help balance the disparities. So without further ado, let's dive into Now Hear This, KRS's first full length project since 2012's The BDP Album and an honest courageous musical-discourse from hip-hop's first really conscious emcee, a man who has never not had the balls to say the pressing thoughts on his mind.
Over the dancehall music of "Invaders," some lighter notes and styles intermixed throughout (and especially in the windup) but mostly what can be described as boom-bap in a bad mood, or boom bap with a bone to pick, KRS is absolutely incessant, and well he should be, in airing out the urgent societal grievances of our current world order. Though strong, epic and metaphor-heavy, his braggadocio, his creatively conjured lessons and grateful dedications to the art and culture of rap, like the "Sound Man" tribute to his audio-obsessed production crew, all refulgently highlight the gaps between his handling of real relevant topics addressing the problems in politics, business, race-relations, law enforcement and the criminal justice system, mainly in America. His sentiments and emotions may feel uncomfortable and may seem controversial going along, but the path toward enlightenment has never been a road easily traversed, but if you come out on the other side still at attention, you will definitely be a more dignified well-informed human being for it.
In "Drugs Won," the first big "bump in the road," Kris rails against the U.S.'s veiled anti-drug culture and its incarceration-happy consequences, showing that the "war on drugs" in the red, white and blue has always had shady ulterior motives. In "You A Millionaire," Kris vituperates the financial elites with lines that expose their surreptitious ways, like in the following anecdote about an earlier point in his music career: "corporations of all sorts wanted mass enslavement, program directors got the music but didn't play it, they knew about the movement but still chose to betray it." At about the midway locus, "American Flag" sees KRS remark that right now, the American flag shouldn't be admired anymore than the Confederate American flag because both are symbolic of a racist, oligarchic and classist social-system. This of course comes in light of recent bans on the Dixie flag after the Emanuel AME Church shooting of last year.
After that and before his "Invaders" masterpiece, Kris raps more about racism, police indecency and the fight for a comfortable life, but it is in "Invaders" where the next significant front takes place. There, he revisits the events in which the land of the United States was stolen from the Native Americans, the aboriginal inhabitants, by European colonists centuries ago and opines that Hispanics like Mexicans and other Latin Americans have more of a right to the U.S. mainland than some of its occupiers of late, heavy stuff and radically revolutionary at once but a rightfully vigorous shake that should wake up the citizenry dead set on thinking that "this land is your land" and "this land is my land." "It's All Insane To Me," the last of the most meaty socially realized joints, knocks on more traits of America's backward society: poorly kept, underfunded schools and a corrupt overloaded prison industrial complex for example, and with it, Kris encourages us to give ourselves an independent, uniquely tailored education instead of or in addition to the scripted course of indoctrination we receive in standard mainstream curriculum.
In reality, KRS-One does not wish for a race war or a clash of colors. He does advocate for major changes in America ("From The Beginning Again"), but his driving force and inspiration are compassionate and humane. "More Love" is his solution. Some other subjects and talking points he hits on are longevity, duty, originality, individualism, modesty and privacy. KRS-One may not have the most cutting-edge beats or radio airplay, but he does have wisdom, profound wisdom, something not enough rappers harness and even fewer present properly - in that real, old school, tell-it-like-it-is fashion that KRS mastered decades ago, back when he was a younger buck cutting wax and spraying cans with Scott La Rock, D-Nice, Kenny Parker and Ms. Melodie in the '80s. Now Hear This is just awesome, excellent post-B.D.P. work by Kris, a shining example of pure, unblemished and unadulterated hip-hop for the seasoned heads, those who are new to the music and everyone in between. KRS-One makes only that dope raw rap-goodness. His hip-hop is a temple through which only the best influences pass. Listen close to these decrees before he comes out next time to speak.
