As the "Blastmaster," Scientist, Poet, or Teacha, KRS-One has been an unstoppable presence in hip-hop for the past 40 years. Today, his Bronx rap group/collective Boogie Down Productions, or BDP, are known as some of the pioneers of “gangsta” rap through their 1987 debut Criminal Minded, and what is now termed “conscious” rap through their follow up LP, By All Means Necessary (1988).
While certainly not untrue statements, I sometimes feel the rush to quickly define and label the sub-genres BDP fit inside or helped to build can sometimes take focus away from some of the truly creative and powerful work the group produced, and in this case, the amazing lyrics put forth by KRS-One, whose name stands for "Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone."
In particular, BDP’s 1988 anthem “Stop the Violence” is not only one of my favorite songs, but is also a great example of how cutting edge KRS-One was, and continues to be, as a writer.
KRS-One embodies the heart of hip-hop
As of today, the phrase “Stop the Violence” may be best known in hip-hop not for the song by Boogie Down Productions, but for the Stop the Violence Movement, which was a collective of rappers who came together to denounce violence amongst black youth and the rap community, and to make clear that rap was not a violent form of music.
The Stop the Violence Movement included KRS, D-Nice, and Ms. Melodie as representatives of BDP, standing alongside the likes of Stetsasonic, Kool Moe Dee, MC Lyte, Doug E. Fresh, Just-Ice, Heavy D, and Public Enemy.
Seeing as it was named after a song from BDP, the group, and KRS-One specifically, are viewed as the leaders and organizers of the movement, at least in terms of the artists who were involved. On a personal level, BDP had been forever altered by violence due to the murder of Scott La Rock in August 1987.
Scott La Rock was not only the group's DJ and business mind, but also an important mentor and friend to KRS, who he met while working as a social worker at a Morrisania men’s shelter where KRS lived after having been on the street.
According to Patrick Goldstein’s November 1988 article “Is Hip-Hop Getting A Bad Rap?” for the Los Angeles Times, the main inciting incident for the Stop the Violence Movement on the broad scale occurred during the Dope Jam Tour, an anti-drug rap tour featuring the likes of Eric B. & Rakim, Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew, Kool Moe Dee, Biz Markie, Ice-T, and Boogie Down Productions.
On September 10th, 1988, the Dope Jam Tour came to Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale on Long Island. Due to a severe lack of security, or reliable security, a series of violent altercations took place, as KRS explains in Overcoming Self-Destruction: The Making of the Self Destruction Video (1990), produced by Video Music Box founder Ralph McDaniels for Classic Concept Productions.
The violent altercations included multiple attempted robberies at knifepoint, resulting in various injuries, and most infamously someone being stabbed and killed over their gold chain, I believe meaning 19 year old Julio Fuentes.
This tragic scene at Nassau Coliseum led some show promoters and venues to refuse or hesitate to book rap acts, as it added to a racist stereotype taken up by the media that hip-hop was connected to violence, specifically coming from kids in the black community.
At the time, this stereotype was possibly most associated with Run-DMC’s Raising Hell Tour, which was faced with a few outbursts of gang violence, most notably the incident at the Long Beach Arena on August 17th, 1986.
In the "Love Bought You Clothes" chapter of Questlove and Ben Greenman's Hip-Hop Is History (2024), the former recalls Run-DMC's historic placement on the cover of Rolling Stones magazine in December 1986, as well as the uneasy feeling he felt as a black fan when reading the cover story, which was determined to present the group as respectable middle class black guys that were not threatening to white America or to the white kids who were being exposed to their music.
The cover story framed Run-DMC's Hollis neighborhood as being cleaner and safer than Harlem or Watts, while also including a section where Run made clear that he had a good relationship with his very respectable father.
As you can probably tell, Run-DMC, as they entered the mainstream, were being forced to contend with racist stereotypes held by whites against the black community, and by association against a black art form such as hip-hop, which was still not even considered art by many who were still at that time barely familiar with it.
This was only being inflamed further by the incidents of gang violence on the Raising Hell Tour, which Run did address later to the Los Angeles Times, stating that the gangs who used their concerts to fight did not represent their fans or the hip-hop community, which was focused on having a good time.
Some time before Run's comments I believe, Tipper Gore, wife of then Senator Al Gore and a founder of the advocacy group PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center), focused on music censorship, gave the message that both heavy metal and rap appealed to maladjusted kids whose violent behavior was justified and supported by said music.
Again, I believe Gore's message, based on Questlove's description, was mainly meant as a warning to suburban white families.
About two years after the controversy over Run-DMC, the Dope Jam Tour's stop at Nassau Coliseum was following within this same trajectory of creating a stereotyped associated of hip-hop with violence. Similar to Run-DMC, Boogie Down Productions would take various steps to meet the controversy head on, both explaining that the rap community was not violent, while also making sure to lead black kids in a positive direction.
In the winter of 1988, BDP appeared at the end of Kennen Ivory Wayans’ I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), performing “Jack Of Spades,” a theme song celebrating Wayans’ character, Jack Spade, and his triumph over the villainous Mr. Big (John Vernon) and his minions, who were fueling a violent war over gold chains.
The film’s “gold chain war” was in part a comedic commentary on the same violence in the black community that the Stop the Violence Movement was formed to speak out against. “Jack of Spades” was later featured on BDP’s third album, 1989’s Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip-Hop.
Other than their appearance in Wayans' film was of course BDP's formation of the Stop the Violence Movement, which while it did feature KRS-One as the lead rapper involved, did not only find leadership from within the actual rap community.
The main organizers of the Stop the Violence Movement besides KRS were author Nelson George, then an editor for Billboard magazine, and Ann Carli, a lead in the A&R division of Jive Records, which BDP signed to after their initial release, Criminal Minded (1987), on B-Boy Records.
Once the previously mentioned artists had been assembled into the Stop the Violence Movement, they collaborated on their anti-violence posse cut "Self Destruction," released on Martin Luther King Jr.'s 60th birthday in 1989, with around 50 radio stations nationwide playing the song at noon as a tribute. All of the money raised by the single was then donated to the National Urban League, specifically their programs on violence in the black community and youth education.
A Harlem based music video for "Self Destruction" followed the single, directed by Lionel C. Martin of Classic Concept Productions, who co-founded Video Music Box with Ralph McDaniels, who himself provided production for the video with Sabrina Gray.
While the artists who performed on the song were of course in the video, others made appearances as well, such as Big Daddy Kane and the California based rappers Tone Lōc and Young MC, both on Delicious Vinyl Records at the time.
Though they weren't rapping on "Self Destruction," Tone Lōc and Young MC did perform on 1990’s “We’re All In The Same Gang” by The West Coast Rap All Stars, which had a music video directed by Ken Andrews and filmed at the Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts.
"We're All In The Same Gang" was essentially sending the same message as “Self Destruction,” but doing so with a collective of West Coast artists including Ice-T, King Tee, Def Jef, Digital Underground, N.W.A., Above The Law, Michel’le, J.J. Fad, MC Hammer, Oaktown's 3-5-7, and the Delicious Vinyl duo Body and Soul, comprised of Rose Hutchinson and Denise Barnes, or Sista Dee Barnes, perhaps best known as the host of the popular rap interview and music video show Pump It Up!
Now, I have spent maybe more time than necessary discussing "Self Destruction" and the larger Stop the Violence Movement, as neither of these directly relate to the previously released song "Stop the Violence," outside of the title.
According to KRS-One in Overcoming Self-Destruction: The Making of the Self Destruction Video, the song "Stop the Violence" began as a freestyle BDP would do during performances when audience members would get into potentially violent altercations.
Eventually, he decided to make a song out of it, and worked with a group called Jam Rock Massive, who provided the music on the initial version which they released as a bootleg I believe in 1988, though it might have been recorded the previous year.
In any event, KRS made a verbal agreement with Jam Rock Massive that he would give them credit if he ever decided to move forward with officially releasing and selling the record, and that they would make a deal at that point in the future.
However, since nothing was actually written down at the time, after he signed to Jive and continued working on what would become By All Means Necessary, he got back in contact with Jam Rock Massive and asked about using "Stop the Violence," to which they said they wanted a certain amount of money.
KRS didn't agree to whatever their desired payment or deal was, and as a result, he let Jam Rock Massive keep the original "Stop the Violence" and redid the music himself. This culminated in the most popular version of the song you might be familiar with.
In general, BDP's "Stop the Violence," like "Self-Destruction," tells the listener that violence has no place in hip-hop, warning black kids not to fall into the trap of perpetuating a dangerous stereotype. KRS proclaims that if "you want to go to the tip top, stop the violence in hip-hop, Y-O!"
As is typical of BDP's songs, however, the focus expands outward from violence in the black community. On a broader level, the song sees KRS give political and social commentary on various topics, essentially not just speaking out against violence amongst black youth, but broader levels of violence and corruption throughout society.
He criticizes the U.S. government and American culture's reliance on propaganda, which results in highly inadequate school curriculums for black kids in the inner city, essentially teaching them to celebrate presidents and other historical figures without actually gaining any deep understanding of their or their country's history.
Similar to Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon," KRS speaks on the deep inequality inherent in things like President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, which received billions in funding, while there was widespread poverty and drugs affecting millions of Americans, in many cases exacerbated by the cuts to social welfare programs made under the Reagan administration.
KRS also notes the lack of genuine concern or knowledge in the American public about humanitarian crises in African countries prior to U.S.A. for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa). I believe he is framing the group as a commercialized publicity stunt, though at the same time they certainly somewhat inspired the Stop the Violence Movement.
The '80s charity songs where singers came together in response to the famine in Ethiopia, like U.S.A. for Africa's "We are the World" or Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?," were kind of like a blueprint for "Self Destruction," though there was also "King Holiday" in 1986, which was celebrating the newly instituted MLK Day, and featured both rappers and singers.
In any case, the sociopolitical content on "Stop the Violence," and the more general focus on ending violence in hip-hop, are just a few aspects of By All Means Necessary that contribute to it being viewed as a pioneer of conscious rap, along with other albums of the era like Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988).
However, while I definitely agree that By All Means Necessary and "Stop the Violence" are politically conscious pieces of work, in my opinion one of the most powerful things that KRS says on the song is probably from the least "conscious" part. Though the majority of the song gives critiques of America through a sociopolitical lens, the final verse of the song actually goes on a bit of a tangent.
In the last verse, KRS-One stops the political commentary, instead boasting about the status of BDP as a celebrated and respected rap group, which is more in line with the generally boastful style hip-hop is known for to this day.
While he rapped the other parts of the song in his standard rapping voice, in this last verse KRS raps in a performed voice that uses English as well as some elements of Jamaican Patois. This is a style that employs singing, rapping, and toasting, and which KRS-One is famous for using, often while sampling Jamaican riddims and mimicking the vocal styles of reggae and dancehall artists like Yellowman, Super Cat, Dignitary Stylish, Tiger, and Carlton Livingston.
Prior to "Stop the Violence," KRS had used this style not just on BDP's "9mm Goes Bang," "Remix For P Is Free," and "The Bridge Is Over," but also in tandem with his frequent Fresh Records collaborator Just-Ice, specifically his 1987 song, "Moshitup."
Of particular importance to me, after boasting about his crew, KRS says the lines "Some people look at me and see negativity. Some people look at me and see positivity." To my understanding, this is more than likely in direct reference not only to negative stereotypes about black people, but also the notion that hip-hop, as a black genre, is violent.
As was discussed by various artists on "Self Destruction," there were people in the world who thought rap was violent, and they had come together both to condemn violence, and also to show that this stereotype was far from the truth.
This same effort to show rap's true colors was present in the comments made by Run of Run-DMC that I mentioned earlier, when he explained to the Los Angeles Times that the vast majority of their shows on the Raising Hell Tour were not violent in the slightest.
I would certainly say that KRS-One supports these messages, seeing as he made an entire song against violence in hip-hop. However, what I feel makes him so special in this instance is that "Stop the Violence" is not simply a song seeking to prove the inner goodness of hip-hop.
After KRS says "Some people look at me and see negativity. Some people look at me and see positivity," he follows with "But when I see myself I see creativity." As simple of a lyric as this may seem, I believe it completely shifts and potentially dismantles the dynamics surrounding the topic of violence in hip-hop back in the late '80s.
In every violent hip-hop related controversy I've discussed in this article, there is a recurring implication that hip-hop has to prove something about it's character to the outside world, mainly but not only to white America.
KRS-One recognizes this, hence why he says there are some people who think he is negative, while others think he is positive. One might argue it is better to be viewed as positive rather than negative, but in either case you are still being judged and evaluated by others. What you think of yourself is barely if at all of any relevance in this equation.
If the value and character of hip-hop was actually determined based on the opinions of others, in this case white America, hip-hop would cease to be hip-hop, and in my opinion would not be much better than minstrelsy. We'd essentially be saying that rap artists, specifically meaning black artists in this context, are required to perform for whites to prove their worth, which sounds ridiculous, and obviously is very racist.
Again, I believe KRS-One understands this, as he immediately switches his focus from how others view him, to instead say that regardless of their views, when he looks at himself he sees creativity.
As you probably know, the ability to create is what lies at the core of hip-hop. Despite New York City essentially forsaking various black and brown communities to live within worsening states of poverty in the 1970s, they still could not take away their ability to create, something humans are gifted with just on the basis of existing. Even though resources were scarce, hip-hop was built nonetheless from what was available. KRS-One, having himself been homeless, knows this on a personal level.
Long before white America knew or cared about hip-hop, the creativity of black kids was fortified within the art form. This did not suddenly become subject to change just because rap became known to mainstream whites in the 1980s, despite what many seemed to think.
Whatever Tipper Gore or anyone's view of hip-hop was could not matter less, as they will never have any bearing over what KRS-One or any hip-hop artists are intrinsically capable of as creators. In short, I would argue that the fact that KRS demonstrates this within such a fleeting lyric in a relatively lighthearted verse is a good example of just how great of a lyricist he is.