Get To Know H.E.R.

Finally, the last of the new albums for this week. KRS-One brings us his second album of the year, Maximum Strength. Originally, this album was supposed to be a release of an unreleased project of the same name. However, somewhere along the way I suppose they scrapped that idea and decided to just give new material because the single from that unreleased album is nowhere to be found on the tracklist. Now, new KRS albums usually don’t impress me much and as far as I’m concerned he hasn’t released anything great since his eponymous solo album. That being said, his previous release this year, Adventures In Emceeing was a good notch above the rest of his newer efforts and my faith in KRS was restored at least a little bit. With that, let’s begin this review and hope that Adventures was the start of a revival in the legendary emcee’s career.

1. Beware - No self important rap intro here, the album starts right off. The hook sucks, but the song itself is alright. So far, so good.

2. Pick It Up - I love how the hook doubles as an advertisement for his cds. Anyways, whenever the Teacher preaches, I’m conflicted. On one hand, some of the stuff he says is sad but true. On the other hand, he spits as much propaganda as he does truth and comes off as a promoter of pseudo intelligence. This track, for the most part however, falls into the former.

3. All My Men - I know I’ve heard that bass line somewhere before. This is gonna kill me for the rest of the day.

4. Straight Through - I’ve always thought that KRS had the least technical skills out of the four NY G.O.A.T.s (KRS-One, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap) and that shows on this track. At least he always had a message though right?

5. Rockin Til The Morning - Skip worthy. I think that lyrics are the most important part of hip hop now but that doesn’t mean the beat can suck. This beat seriously makes me want to fall asleep.

6. The Kool Herc - A dedication to the original hip hopper, it’s decent enough. Even if you don’t like it it’s ok, because the track is barely over a minute long.

7. Busy Bee Shout Out - An interlude, which means skip it.

8. New York - The production is pretty good for a post 2000 KRS album. It’s a slower paced song, but it’s definitely worth listening to. A good enough ode to the greatest city in the world.

9. Hip Hop - There are a good number of tracks out in the world named hip hop, and for the most part all of them are pretty damn good. This track does a good job living up to its predecessors.

10. Let Me Know - If you can get rid of those weird, annoying electronic sounds on the hook, this track would be pretty damn dope. As it is now, it’s just pretty dope.

11. Nah - It’s nothing special and the beat gets on your nerves about 30 seconds into it.

12. The Heat - Another track that suffers from subpar production. Man, especially as a last track, this is killing me.

Final Score: 7.0

It’s not the worst KRS-One album to have come out in recent years, but it’s also not close to the best. The biggest problem with this album as you can guess is the production. That 7.0 is largely credited to the lyrics. KRS, if you happen to read this, please get back to working with Primo on a more regular basis I heard that Criminal Minded 2008, it’s probably the best thing you’ve released all year and guess what, it was produced by DJ Premier. Still, the album wasn’t a complete waste of time, and there are a couple of bangers to be found. At least it was better than Tha Carter III right?