KRS-One: Return Of Da Boom Bap (2LP) [JIVE]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set spreads the album's heavy, bass-loaded beats across four sides. It reached No. 5 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and made The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums list in 1998.

This edition

• 2LP set

About the album

After years as the voice of Boogie Down Productions, KRS-One finally put his own name on the cover, and he brought some serious help. Sessions at D&D Studios and Battery Studios in New York lined him up with Gang Starr's DJ Premier, Kid Capri, Showbiz and Norty Cotto, and the result is boom bap at its most muscular: big drums, deep bass and hooks that stick.

"Sound of da Police" is the anthem, its siren-call hook built on a Grand Funk Railroad sample, and it still shakes any room it's played in. "Outta Here" looks back on his life in rhyme, "Black Cop" first turned up on the CB4 soundtrack, and "P Is Still Free" landed on Menace II Society's. "Stop Frontin'" floats on an Ahmad Jamal "Poinciana" sample, "Higher Level" closes on Gene Page's "Blacula," and Kid Capri and Ill Will drop in along the way.

Robert Christgau called it his best, writing that the music had finally subsumed the lyrics, with hooks that left you hungry for more. KRS-One reckons it has sold more than 300,000 copies. He also titled his own record as a return, at a moment most rappers would still call a debut, which takes a certain confidence.

Also at Kops: more KRS-One on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B

Tracklist

Listen

On Jive (cat# 19958413871), a reissue of the 1993 album.