I might be committing blasphemy by not saying this is one of the best hip-hop albums ever made.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, this is a very good album. I just feel like albums such as No One Can Do It Better<\/i> and Long Live The Kane <\/i>are more deserving of the accolades commonly associated with By All Means Necessary.<\/i> <\/p>\n
This is the first album issued by Boogie Down Productions after the death of their DJ\/producer Scott La Rock, which essentially makes this a KRS-One solo album. There is a distinct difference in the content of this album, which tends to include more positive lyrics than its predecessor, Criminally Minded.<\/i> <\/p>\n
Although Criminally Minded <\/i>was by no means a negative album, the song title \u201c9mm Goes Bang\u201d would seem out of place next to By All Means Necessary<\/i>\u2019s \u201cStop The Violence\u201d. It seemed to be that KRS-One was deeply affected by Scott La Rock\u2019s passing and, consequently, so was his music. <\/p>\n
The whole album is filled with heavily sampled beats that basically just serve as a canvas for KRS-One\u2019s lyrical brushstrokes. In fact, \u201cYa Slippin\u2019\u201d practically robs Ritchie Blackmore, with the sampling of \u201cSmoke On The Water,\u201d but let\u2019s be frank: nobody buys BDP albums for their production.<\/p>\n
The highlight on this album comes in the form of BDP\u2019s best song ever, \u201cStop The Violence.\u201d It\u2019s equipped with an infectious chant so dope that Black Star used it for their track \u201cRE:DEFinition.\u201d \u201dStop The Violence\u201d marks KRS-One\u2019s perfect mesh of politics and hip-hop; the plea to \u201cstop the violence in hip-hop\u201d has not penetrated the likes of 50 Cent and Lil\u2019 Wayne, but still, KRS-One has affected the majority of the quality MCs out there in some shape or form.<\/p>\n
There are other very good lyrical performances on this album, including the intelligent \u201cMy Philosophy,\u201d the political critique in \u201cIllegal Business,\u201d the safe-sex anthem \u201cJimmy\u201d and the very poetic \u201cNecessary.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cNecessary\u201d is actually an excellent song and is an excellent closer to this very good album. KRS-One discusses the contradictions that exist in our society in an almost spoken word style, which KRS-One pulls off very well. I wouldn\u2019t mind hearing more of this type of song by KRS-One because his voice is so powerful; the slowed-up tempo allows for his vocal presence to shine.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The problems on this album are \u201cNervous\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m Still #1\u201d. The latter is pretty much just KRS-One screaming \u201cNEEEEEEEEEERRRRRVVVOOOOOUUUSSSSSS\u201d for four plus minutes. \u201cI\u2019m Still #1\u201d contains a lackluster lyrical performance from KRS-One and numerous shout outs from the MC.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
By All Means Necessary<\/i> has only 10 tracks on it, and when two of them are not very good and back-to-back it definitely affects the album\u2019s mystique. Yet the other eight make it fall just short of a classic. Again, this is not a bad album, so you hate mailers can relax. It’s just not the flawless classic some have made it out to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":28678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7903],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40166","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-boogie-down-productions","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40166"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40166"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}