Review Summary: Return of the Boom Bap means just that, it means return of the real hard beats and real rap.
This album was overlooked in 1993 because it was compared to the sounds of WU-TANG’s 36 chambers, Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Mauraders, or even Cypress Hills Black Sunday. Noticeably all groups, probably reflecting fans thirst for more diversity and sociability in rap. Yet, what rap groups gain in sound they usually sacrifice in a cohesive and deep message- as every band is obviously made up of a number of members who have different opinions and tastes. Whereas a solo artist’s message is much more cohesive but can sound too plain after a while.
In Return of the Boom Bap KRS-ONE wasn’t able to match WU-TANG’s sound, but he was able to make an album that was multiple times more meaningful than 36 chambers that still has a good sound on most songs. In this album KRS-ONE alternates from smooth jazz raps to incredibly rough hardcore tracks (see below). Most artists would group these very different sounding tracks at separate parts of the album, but instead KRS alternates, making the album harder to listen to from start to finish but sending a certain message throughout the album that KRS-ONE clearly didn’t want to sacrifice for the sound. This overall message is only really understood at the last song of the album, where the messages of the other tracks are brought together in a concise final track. Somewhat like what Pink Floyd did on Dark Side of the Moon’s last track Eclipse.
The root message is to get back to hip hop’s roots. This might sound unoriginal and uninteresting but that is before you hear KRS-ONE’s history lesson on the hip hop movement throughout this album, hear him prophetically describing all of the world’s major problems almost 20 years ago in 1993, and listen to him coherently lay out a plan for how hip hop can be used to bring justice to the world. The way he does this and makes it entertaining is so impressive it’s beyond words, and is why this album is a classic. This kind of hip hop is probably how kids will be taught in the future; no one in history has been able to match KRS-ONE’s combination of education and entertainment.
THE SMOOTH TRACKS
2. Outta Here
4. Mortal Thought
6. Slap Them Up
8. Mad Crew
11. Return of the Boom Bap
13. Stop Frontin'
14. Higher Level
THE ROUGH TRACKS
3 Black Cop
5. I Can’t Wake Up
7. Sound of Da Police
9. Uh Oh
10. Brown Skin Woman
12. P is Still Free
OVERALL BEST TRACKS (Sound and lyrics):
Mortal Thought
Slap Them Up
Mad Crew
Stop Frontin
Higher Level
EYE OPENING TRACKS:
Sound of Da Police
Uh Oh
Brown Skin Woman
Higher Level
