KRS-One, Scott La Rock and B-Boy Records

By: Hua Hsu

Before they were legends, they were just two dejected young men trying to get back to the Bronx.

In 1986, nobody was checking for Boogie Down Productions, another of the seemingly endless queue of aspiring would-be rappers and party-animators who blanketed New York City. KRS-One and DJ Scott La Rock -- names that would become part of hip-hop history by year's end -- were just two guys named Kris Parker and Scott Sterling. Kris was the kid with the attitude, Scott the barely-older dreamer and social worker who had plucked him from a homeless shelter. One day, the pair trudged back north after failing to convince Tommy Boy Records of their worth. It was only the latest indignity, as every label in town had rejected them. They walked all the way back from Manhattan because they didn't have enough money for the train.

As KRS later explained in Brian Coleman's excellent oral history of '80s hip-hop, Rakim Told Me, it was a fateful walk. Crossing the Willis Avenue Bridge, Scott found an ad in the newspaper for an upstart, do-everything entertainment company called Rock Candy Records and Filmworks. They fished through their pockets, found some change and a pay phone, and called. As Scott got directions to their office, Kris scribbled a B-boy character holding a radio. That sketch became the logo for B-Boy Records, the label Rock Candy entrusted them to found.

Boogie Down Productions' rise would become one of the most important cultural moments of the late 20th century. After the unfortunate murder of Scott La Rock in 1987, KRS would blossom into one of hip-hop's most vigilant (and, at times, controversial) innovators, reinventing himself time and again, co-founding the Temple of Hip-Hop -- which helped get the United Nations to recognize hip-hop as an international culture --and influencing generations of fans and artists. Given how important they've become, it's easy to overlook the quality of KRS' early records: sloppy and grim, they tore apart the fabric of what hip-hop had been. Instead, they worked by their own blueprint -- one that would, over the decades, influence everyone from N.W.A. to Mos Def.

Often regarded as the starting point for hardcore or gangsta rap, BDP released their debut album, Criminal Minded, in 1987. It contains no weak songs. The still-thrilling "South Bronx" was the opening salvo in a high-profile squabble with MC Shan. It was an answer song to Shan's "The Bridge," which KRS interpreted as positing Queensbridge as hip-hop's birthplace, though Shan''s lyrics never say that outright. "The Bridge Is Over" -- built on KRS' tipsy piano interpolation of Super Cat's "Boops" -- was the nail in the coffin, attacking Shan, Marley Marl, radio DJ Mr. Magic (who had rejected an early KRS/La Rock single as "wack") and others by name.

Throughout Criminal Minded, there's a desperation to KRS' delivery, a precise but never forced boom that outlines his verses with authority; even on first listen, tracks like "Poetry," "Elementary" and "Super Hoe" sound like rough-hewn classics. Most importantly, KRS and Scott played around a bit with convention. "Dope Beat" was built on a ferocious AC/DC riff; "P Is Free (Remix)" was a masterful, stuttering hybrid of rap and dancehall; and "9mm Goes Bang" infused BDP's hardcore image with a bit of singsong. eMusic also carries the BDP collection The Best of B-Boy Records, which is essentially Criminal Minded plus some early, non-album cuts. Among them is "Say No Brother (Crack Don't Do It)," a forgettable anti-drug song that Rock Candy asked the pair to record for their first-ever single.

Also of interest is Blast Master Tapes: The Best of the B-Boy Sessions, -- essentially 1991's cobbled-together Man and His Music, with a wealth of bonus singles, rarities and alternate mixes. Blast Master Tapes features rarities such as two early Scott La Rock singles, the electro-influenced "Success Is the Word" and "Advance" (for which a young Kris was paid with "a pair of blue Air Jordans -- I was happy and satisfied"). It's also interesting to listen to the various dubbed-out alternative versions and "BDP Medley" tracks, relics from an era when brutal scratching and mixing were par for the course. It also features contributions from other members of BDP's extended family, most prominently D-Nice's "D-Nice Rocks the House" and "Scott Made Me Funky."

B-Boy would have ensured its place in history on the strength of Criminal Minded alone. But 20 years later, B-Boy's lesser-known releases capture a varied and in some ways lost moment in the sound of hip-hop's young adulthood. With Kris and Scott dictating the label's direction -- B-Boy's execs were better at drafting up shady contracts, not keeping wise to the sound of the streets -- B-Boy issued a series of great but confounding singles. Many of these are collected on the brilliant multi-artist Best of B-Boy Records (not to be confused with the BDP collection mentioned earlier). If Criminal Minded is the era's hands-down winner, then this collection highlights a lot of the luckless should-have-beens.

With its finely chopped James Brown drums, the Busy Boys' frenetic and wiry "Classical" is one of the era's great forgotten productions; meanwhile, Philadelphia's Jewel-T wins the hour's L.L. Cool J-sound-alike contest for his brutal, brash "I Like It Loud" and "Rock Nice." Unfortunately, the collection omits the dub version of the latter: "Rock the Grossfade." (The B-Boy staff was famous for sending records off to the factory with typo-filled sleeves.) The Brothers put their tonsils up against Biz Markie's on the excellent, obscure beatbox battle track "You Can't Win," and the surprisingly great Sean Baby and Ninja D try and popularize something called the "KG Dance." Also featured are Levi 167 and Castle, two peripheral BDP members who would fall under the spells of drugs and crime, respectively. (eMusic also features another KRS associate, Just-Ice -- check out 1989's The Desolate One for an album-length amplification on KRS' ragga-rap style.)

We also have three albums from B-Boy's heyday. Troopers (Cold Crush Brothers), by Kay Gee the All & Tony Crush, both formerly of the Cold Crush Brothers, is an uneven update of their more sing-songy early '80s party style; it's somewhat forgettable. Tall Dark and Handsome's self-titled debut (which features the trio in matching red, black and green tracksuits) is a something-for-everyone effort that ranges from snoozy slow jams to anti-drug screeds (the fierce "We Don't Need Crack"); it's essential for the rousing hometown anthem "The Bronx Is Back." The best of the bunch is JVC Force's Doin' Damage, the classic debut from a Long Island trio fascinated with the possibilities of sampling. While they didn't quite set the world afire like their labelmates BDP or Long Island followers De La Soul, JVC's early singles -- "Stylin' Lyrics" and the blaring classic "Strong Island" among them -- are wondrous dispatches from a time when all it took was a little vision, some luck and the initiative to pick up the phone.