KRS-One
Mohawk, Jan. 24KRS-One is nothing if not a man of extremes. Saturday night at Mohawk, the hip-hop pioneer unloaded his hits early, opening with the siren alarm of “South Bronx,” from Boogie Down Productions’ 1987 opus, Criminally Minded, and continued through the boom bap “Sound of Da Police” and “Black Cop.” Then the Teacher went to work, issuing a series of manic, radical freestyles that outlined the history of hip-hop, demanded a return to the light, and further convoluted the 9/11 conspiracy theories spun by Stop the Violence coordinator and direct support Hakim Green (“The New World Order just put on a black face”), all with the damning intensity of a fire-and-brimstone preacher. The rest of the showcase seemed like mere tryouts in comparison, as acts delivered a MySpace page’s worth of material while the venerable Bavu Blakes held court. West Texas-bred Dubb Sicks came across like a less slim and even shadier Eminem, with parental-control quality cuts such as “Mind in the Gutter.” Crew54’s G-Christ and Master of Self, on the other hand, made for a formidable tag team, recalling the Steiner Brothers in their prime: a two-man wrecking crew with distinctly Southern grit. The lone Houstonian, Mic Skills, won the crowd over with sheer drive and determination, but only Austin’s Zeale got licensed to ill. Backed by Kid Slice and pushing his new Rapid Ric-mixed Haterz and Robotz, the local phenom geeked out with a Mad Libs-esque freestyle and perhaps the best punch line of the evening: “I want to own it all like an apostrophe.”
This article appears in January 30 • 2009.