DJ Kenny Parker

KRS-One‘s younger brother and long time BDP producer/DJ Kenny Parker recently provided a first-person perspective of what happened at the PM Dawn bumrush from BDP‘s perspective:

Robbie: You guys must have felt like Prince Be deserved to get his ass kicked?

Kenny Parker: Actually, it didn’t start out that way. The plan wasn’t to attack Prince Be at all. The climate at that time…we had just finished doing the Sex & Violence album, and over the past year, year and a half before that, people had been taking little subliminal shots at Kris. No one came out like “KRS – you suck!”, nobody really came out like that.

Ice Cube had that little comment.

Yeah, that really started the whole thing, when Ice Cube said, “Some rappers are heaven sent/but Self Destruction don’t pay the fuckin’ rent!” That line kinda pissed Kris off. “Self Destruction” was his baby – the concept, gettin’ all the rappers together – the whole thing was his baby, and Ice Cube just came out and dissed. Later, Ice Cube came out and said he ain’t really mean it like Kris took it. I don’t really know what other way he coulda meant, but that’s what he said.

He might’ve just meant that positive records don’t sell. It’s hard to say though, in retrospect.

In retrospect, I’m gonna say “whatever” to his answer. He also said on his first album: “I’m not a rebel or a renegade or none of that crap, I’m a N-I-double-G-A”, and everyone knows Kris says “Rebel, renegade, must stay paid”. So you hear all stuff like that and you’re like “OK, this guys dissin'”, but Kris didn’t really…I remember him being a little pissed, but he didn’t really say “I’m gonna answer Ice Cube”…actually, you know what? That’s a lie. We started doing a song about, say, Ice Cube, a response to that, but we never finished it. It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things and then it was like “Ah, this is wack. You know what? Forget this”. Now moving along, then X-Clan made “Fire and Earth”.

Where they were talking about “We’re not down with the humanists”.

Yeah, and that’s around the same time that Kris was coming out with Human Education Against Lies, that was his new thing. “I’m a humanist” – that was his new stance, and X-Clan thought that he was a sell-out. So that little subliminal thing was going on too. Aight, cool. So dude’s are sayin’ their little somethin’, whatever. So Kris went and made “Build and Destroy”. That song was absolutely an answer to X-Clan. So then when Kris was doin’ a interview, he heard about PM Dawn. A writer say “So how do you feel about PM Dawn dissin’ you?” and he was like “I don’t know what you talking about”. The guy repeated what he said in the article, so Kris was like “Damn! Now I got a dude like PM Dawn tryin’ to diss me! And he said my name! What’s goin’ on? OK, now I’m gettin’ pissed off”.

So now that was the climate. It just so happens that maybe two weeks or a week after he heard this, I found this flyer at some party, and it was the MTV party. I think it was Leaders of the New School, Nice & Smooth, Supercat and PM Dawn, and I think somebody else was on the bill. And I came to Kris with the flyer, we were in the studio, and I said, “Yo, PM Dawn got this show!” So he was like “You know what? I’m gonna go there and I’m gonna challenge him right there on stage. I’mma throw on a couple of my records, hype up the crowd, them I’mma challenge him to battle me right there.” That was the initial mindset. “I’m gonna go up there, and I’m gonna be like ‘KRS One’s a teacher, a teacher of what?’ I’m gonna show you right now”, and that’s that. That was the initial mindset that we talked about – me, Kris and Willie D. The show was five days later, so we was like OK, some of us is gonna go down to the place and we was gonna meet a couple of other people, and we was gonna go in. So I think the initial people that went down there – Freddie Foxx was supposed to meet us, but he never showed up – it was me, it was Kris, it was Willie D, it was ICU, it was Just-Ice. I don’t remember if K-Def was there, but I know Larry-O was there – I’m gonna say both of ‘em were there, but I’m sure Larry-O was there.

So we initially got there – there was, say, nine of us – initially went to the club. Now Kool Kim was sayin’ twenty dudes came on stage with all hoodies and black shirts on. It wasn’t even that organised, like we were all gonna wear the same clothes or whatever. We just hooked-up and we went. Kris actually had a hoody on that day, ’cause I remember he came in the club – we came in there early – and Kris doesn’t usually hang out in clubs unless he’s trying to get on and rock – so for him to just come to a club and hang-out was out of his norm. I remember he came there, we sat in the corner by the stage and he had a hood over his head and he was just chillin’. We chilled there for about two hours.

Was he wearing the hood so no one would recognize him?

Yeah, he was tryin’ to be on the low. We was just chillin’ there with the crowd, but you couldn’t really see him. But the stupidity was, I was just there chillin’! So people that knew me, they’d be looking to see Kris! [laughs] So it was really stupid, that was the stupidity. A couple of guys we knew were in there and they’re like “Yo Kris, what’s goin’ on?” and he’s like “Yo, PM Dawn tried to diss me! I’m gonna run-up on his set”, so they was like “OK, we’re down”. So now nine or ten became fifteen. Then we saw Naughty By Nature – Treach and ‘em – and we was like “We’re gonna run-up on stage”, so of course Treach is down, and of course they was deep as hell, so now fifteen becomes twenty-five! I’m not gonna say Naughty was down with us to rush PM Dawn, but if Kris is like “Yo, I’m goin’ on stage, it’s about to happen”, then Treach is like “Whatever, I’m wit’chu”. That’s how I recall it, I don’t wanna put words in Treach’s mouth. And Latifah was there too.

So we had two plans. The first plan involved me – to get control of the DJ both. “By any means necessary – Kenny, you get control of the booth”. That was it, that was the only real plan we had. And Kris says “When I get the mic, you throw on “Still #1′”. So that was the plan. So I had a couple of guys with me, we went to the DJ booth around twenty minutes before PM Dawn was meant to go on. I had never even seen him, I didn’t even know he was in the place. Clark Kent was deejaying, so I went up there and I said to Clark: “In about ten minutes I’m gonna need the turntables for a second”, and he was kinda reluctant. I guess he thought like I was tryin’ to get on his set – like he was the DJ for the night and because it was a packed crowd, I just wanted to get on. He had a look like “C’mon man, I’m deejayin’ up here!” So I was like “Look, something’s about to happen, Kris is about to run on stage. I need to be set-up and I need to be ready.” He was like “Aight, cool”, and he wasn’t deejayin’ at that moment ’cause there was shows goin’ on. So we chilled. I think Leaders went on first, then there was a break and I’m like “Is PM Dawn goin’ on?” Then PM Dawn comes on stage and starts doin’ his show – and nothing happens! So I’m like “Aww man, Kris backed-out. He’s not gonna do it”. I remember I had “Still #1″ on a big acetate, ’cause there was no instrumental of “Still #1″ on wax. It’s really hard to cue-up those acetates – I had to keep checking to see if it was ready, ’cause you have to really move it to get it started. In my mind I’m like “Yo, this acetate is gettin’ on my nerves! What is Kris doin? Is he gonna do it? What’s goin’ on?”

Then all of a sudden, “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” comes on, and PM Dawn starts doin’ his thing, and then you see Kris comin’ up – there was like a ramp comin’ up the stage – and you see people comin’ up the stage, so I start cuing up. Now let me say this – Kris actually never hit PM Dawn. I think that’s like a big misconception. The guy who actually did – I’m not gonna repeat his name – but there was one guy in our crew, his attitude was like “I’m wylin’ out!”. Right when we came in the club, he said to Kris “Whatever happens Kris, make sure you bail me out”, and we all started laughin’. So they rushed the stage, and PM Dawn’s music…he had a DJ up there, but the music wasn’t on his turntables – it was on a DAT – coming from somewhere else, maybe the side of the stage. So Kool Kim said he heard a “Rrrrrippp!” and the music go off – that’s not what happened, he wasn’t even on turntables! So that’s not true either. So this guy with us takes the record off the turntable and smashes it, but the music is still playin’. I guess whoever saw what was goin’ on stopped the DAT. PM Dawn had some girl dancers up there – this guy pushes one of the dancers into the crowd – hard! And I remember she tried to sue Kris a few months after that. While this guy’s doin’ this, Kris comes up. PM Dawn is not knowin’ what’s goin’ on – imagine, he’s in show mode and his music stops – and Kris grabs the microphone, so they both have it. Like a tug-of-war for a second, and then Kris pushes him and takes the microphone in his hand. Right at the same time, the guy who pushed the girl into the crowd punches PM Dawn in his face – POW! Then he punches him again – POW! In the face, twice. Then, if I recall, Just-Ice pushed him off [the stage] and Prince Be fell into the crowd. I don’t remember dudes jumping him and beating him up. The crowd in the front backed-up when he fell – you couldn’t really see what was goin’ on, it looked like a robbery. Then Kris has the mic and he goes “BDP is in the motherfuckin’ house!” and then everybody was like “Hooo!”, the whole crowd was like that, and right at that moment I threw on “Still #1″ [does the horn part]. It was over! People was jumping up and down and they was goin’ crazy and screamin’…it was like a riot!

Clark Kent turned to me and he said “Yo, that’s the greatest thing I ever seen in my life!” Where I’m at is across the room, upstairs on the second level, looking down. That’s how the DJ booth was set-up. When Clark Kent said that, I remember bending down to get “The Bridge Is Over” out of my bag, and when I came to cue it up, Clark Kent had already left the DJ booth, went downstairs and ran across the crowd to climb up on stage! I think Queen Latifah was on top of a speaker, just whylin’ out. Everybody was goin’ crazy. So I threw on “The Bridge Is Over”, and then Kris was – Kris was supposed to rhyme, too! If I threw on the song, he was supposed to do the rhyme! But it was just so wild that he never even rhymed! He was just goin’ “Jump! Jump!” and everybody was just goin’ crazy. All I remember him doin’ was “The Dawn is over, the Dawn is over!”, like that. I think the third record I threw on was “Duck Down”. That hadn’t even had a video or nuttin’, I think that was really new when I threw it on. Kris was just talkin’ shit. He was goin’ “What?! What?! Anybody that try to diss BDP! What?!” He wasn’t even rhymin’! I remember seeing T-Money, it was his party, and he was up up stage, jumping around. The stage was packed now! The wack part was that later on, when all the flack came, T-Money was like “Ahh, man, that was bullshit. Kris messed-up my party!” I knew that he worked for MTV at the time, but I thought that was bullshit that he said that, ’cause I saw him goin’ crazy on stage.

So out of the corner of my eye, I saw security come rushing in, onto the left side, but then when they saw it was Kris and they saw it was like a party-like atmosphere, they just stopped – they was just looking. I guess they thought something happened, but when they ran in it was like a show, almost. Now Kool Kim said that PM Dawn was rocking the party? Let me set the scene for you real quick – this is a party with LONS, Nice & Smooth and Supercat – now a party that those people would be rocking…PM Dawn wouldn’t rock in that setting. His record might’ve been number one in the country at that moment, but in that setting I don’t think he was rocking. What happened was, there was a lot of record company people there from Island. When he came out, they was clapping. His people were clapping, but it wasn’t like the whole crowd was lovin’ him ’cause it wasn’t that type of crowd. Actually, Clark Kent was playing some new Das-EFX stuff on a reel-to-reel. When I went up to the booth I asked him what he was playin’, and he said, “This is my group, Das-EFX”. It wasn’t “They Want EFX”, it was somethin’ else, actually I think it was somethin’ that wasn’t on the album. So in a place where you’re playin’ Das-EFX reel-to-reels and Leaders of the New School is performing, I just don’t see PM Dawn ripping like Kool Kim said. I saw a handful of people that looked like record company reps there that was rockin’, but there was like a thousand people there! It wasn’t all those people rocking to PM Dawn. I’m gonna say “No” to that.

After all this happens, Kris rushes out. Kris is gone. He told his wife “When I go up on stage, bring the car ’round, so as soon as I leave out the building I can jump in the car”. But somehow she didn’t leave off the stage until after he was already rocking, so she was late bringing the car ’round. So when I came outside it was just me and another guy. She was all upset, goin’ “Where’s Kris?” and I’m goin’ “I don’t know, he was supposed to be with you!” So she was like “You gotta go back in there and look for him”. The crowd was so wild that they started fighting amongst themselves – that part that Kool Kim said was true – they was so wild, it looked like you could throw raw meat out there. They were so savage…like somehow they just turned on each other and started fighting! When she said “Go back in” I was like “Go back in? Oh my god!” So I go back in the party, it’s a mess. There’s no more music, it was like a riot to me. I saw the Awesome Two – Teddy Ted and Special K – and they looked at me and they was like “Yo, are you alright?” and I’m like “Yeah, I’m fine! I’m cool!”

After that, I didn’t see Kris, I left and we went back to a meeting spot where we were always gonna meet-up, on Christopher Street somewhere, in the Village where he used to live. When I got there, he was outside talkin’ to Just-Ice and they was all laughing. So we got in the car and we went to his house in Jersey. It was just me and him after this whole thing, and we was up half the night, just talkin’ about it. It was like ‘Can you believe how wild it got?” It wasn’t even supposed to be that, but it just became that. I think it was just a classic case of “entourage gone wild”. [laughs] Ultimately, Kris is responsible because it is his people, and he is the absolute leader. Everybody follows what he says and does, in our crew at that time. But they just blacked-out. When they just got up there and started, they was just outta control. They just took it upon themselves. I’m not tryin’ to defend Kris, but he actually didn’t hit him! Kool Kim said he took the microphone and was hittin’ him on the head and you could hear it through the speakers – that’s bullshit. That absolutely did not happen. He just had the mic in his hand. the people that was really involved was KRS, Just-Ice, maybe ICU and this other guy. Those four guys were absolutely involved, and everybody else was just up there.

Boogie Down Productions - The Kenny Parker Show [Edutainment, Jive, 1990] - UnKut

Kenny Parker: So the next day, Jive Records calls up and they’re like “The press wants to talk to you, Kris. Come down to Jive”. When we got there, the mood was really somber. Everybody was upset, and I remember seeing Busta Rhymes – I guess he was there with Tribe [Called Quest], I dunno what reason Busta had to be at Jive that day, but he was there – and he was like, “Yo, you are the greatest!” He was hugging Kris, and he was shaking him so hard he was crying! Busta was crying tears, and he was hugging Kris and he was shaking him so hard that they knocked over a computer off of somebody’s desk and break it on the ground! [I burst out laughing] At this point they had done “Scenario”, so I guess Jive didn’t really care, but they broke a computer that day. [chuckles] It was just the illest thing, ’cause it looked like a classic video: sucker MC’s rhymin’, super MC comes along and knocks him off and starts rhymin’. It looked like that.

Jive was like “every press in the country and overseas wants to know what happened”. It was MTV, it was all Europe press, every magazine…everybody was like “What happened? Why did you do this?” And I think that’s where the problem started. When Kris said “PM Dawn tried to diss me so I went up there and showed ‘em who the Teacher is”, that’s when all the backlash started. And let me say for the record – the backlash was enormously negative for him. ENORMOUS! You know how people say “All publicity is good publicity”? I’m gonna say “No” to that. I think Kris would’ve been better off saying, “Yo, I was just there and it was wack, and I was drunk and we just went up there and I just wanted to livin’ up the party!” He might’ve been better-off saying that then “PM Dawn tried to diss me so that’s why I went up there”. Because then it became: “Hold up, you’re the guy who made ‘Stop The Violence’. You’re a hypocrite. You’re a fraud!” And from that point on, people started saying “Kris is a hypocrite. Says one thing and does another”.

I think Kris is two kinds of MC’s. He’s a battle rapper, and he came-up battling, and he’s had a lot of numerous battles that people know about – and don’t even know about – AND he’s also a conscious rapper who tries to talk about upliftment of our race, the government, and things goin’ on. I think there’s no way you can be both without being contradictory, in my opinion. The problem Kris has had over the years is that when he starts talking about the government, about “Black man rise up”, people start saying “Yo, he’s too preachy. Edutainment was too preachy. Whatever happened to Criminal Minded? Why won’t he make ‘9MM’? Why won’t he rhyme like that?” Then when he makes battle records, then the “conscious” people go “Oh, he’s contradictory. How’s he talkin’ about snapping a MC’s neck? He’s supposed to be talkin’ about ‘Stop The Violence’!” The problem is that Kris would’ve had to leave one of those behind. Either he would’ve had to say “I’m not a battle rapper. I ain’t making those kind of records ever again”, or he would’ve had to say “I’m a battle rapper. I’m not making conscious records ever again”. Every album he has, he’ll do both. He’ll talk about things things going on in society, then he’ll make records talkin’ about how he’ll crush an MC.

I don’t have a problem with that, personally.

I don’t have a problem with it either, but in his career I’ve noticed that either which way he goes, the other side is gonna call him contradictory. That’s the price that he has to pay for being both. Knowing Kris, he really is both! He really likes battling and he write rhymes about rappers, even though he has no beef with them. He’ll just write a song about somebody and then just never use it. He’s just that kinda guy. And also he likes to talk about the government and Malcolm X – he’s that too. If you look at By All Means Necessary…that record “Stop The Violence” – everybody points to that, but on that same album on “My Philosophy”, he says “KRS-One is the kind of guy who lead a crew/right up to your face and diss you!” That’s there in clear English! No one hears that part, they just hear “stop the violence”, so if he takes a run-up with a crew they gonna say “Where that come from? He’s not like that!” when he’s tellin’ you “Yeah, I am!”

The biggest thing that hurt Kris with that PM Dawn thing is not even the incident, but it’s that Source article. That article caused us so much drama that year. The year of ’92, into ’93, was like “damage control year”, from that Source article.

He was callin’ out names big time in there.

Yeah, there’s two things in that article that caused us a lotta problems. One is that Kris was like “You know what? I’m tired of everybody. I’m tired of X-Clan, I’m tired of Ice Cube, I’m tired of PRT!” I don’t remember what Poor Righteous Teachers did that pissed Kris off. X-Clan I remember, and Ice Cube – I can’t remember for the life of me what Poor Righteous Teachers did! [laughs] Everyone that he mentioned in that article at some point that year tried to step up, and we had to deal with them. Also the second part that was a big thing was when Kris said “I am hip-hop”. That is the biggest polarization of his audience…and I think that’s a big misconception, because Kris says “I’m hip-hop. I’m not doing hip-hop – I am hip-hop. We ALL are hip-hop. We’re writing hip-hop as it goes along. There’s no rules! It’s not like a basketball player in the NBA and you have rules that you follow in the game. The hip-hop game – we’re writing the rules as we go along – so we ALL are hip-hop! I’m hip-hop, you’re hip-hop. We’re not doing it – we ARE it.” Even in that article he said “It’s not just me. Treach is hip-hop too.” But no one heard that part. They just heard him say “I’m hip-hop and I’m the greatest of all time!” and people was just like “This dude has lost his mind”. The funny thing was, I heard Vinny from Naughty By Nature said he was mad at that statement, and Kris said Treach was hip-hop!

He was just mad ’cause Kris didn’t say his name as well!

[laughs] Maybe! Vin is my man and I love Vinroc, but it got back to us that Vinny was mad too. Over the years a lotta people was mad. Biggie Smalls was mad over that! Biggie Smalls was like “How can KRS-One say he’s hip-hop? That’s bullshit”. But I think everyone’s missing what he was saying. Between him saying he’s hip-hop and him saying he’s stepping to the other rappers – yo, that hurt us. I think Kris lost half his audience that year. All the albums Kris had done prior to Sex and Violence went gold. At that time, Kris usually sold around 600,000 records or so, on the average. Sex and Violence sold like 300 [thousand].

Maybe that was because it was such a hardcore album – it was just raw.

I think that was part of it, but it was such a negative backlash. Every magazine you opened up: “KRS-One is a sucker. He’s a phony!”. I think a lotta people were like “You know what? Fuck him!” That whole year of ’92 was damage control. Now the thing with X-Clan – that was turning into some big deal. It was getting back to us – we had mutual people that knew both camps – that “Yo, they said this” and it would go back them “Yo, Kris said this”, and it was gonna be a big deal, and Afrika Bambatta called a meeting up in Bronx River. He was like, “This is not good. I’m cool with both groups, and both of y’all are really talking about the same thing. We can’t have a divide and conquer situation going on”. So Afrika Bambatta calls us up to Bronx, and I remember that X-Clan had brought guns up there – they thought it was gonna be like an ambush or something. Willie D, who’s down with us, is president of a chapter of five in Zulu Nation, so we have a real close affiliation. So if dudes from Brooklyn is coming all the way up to Bronx River to have a meeting with some dudes that got beef that are down with Zulu Nation – they must’ve thought it was an ambush or some drama. Security that was there was saying that X-Clan had guns and the whole nine, they told ‘em to leave the guns outside and come inside.

I didn’t know they rolled like that.

I didn’t know they rolled like that either! So we had the meeting, and everything was squashed. By the time “Build and Destroy” came out that beef was already squashed. Kris was like “I’m down to squash the beef with X-Clan, but let me say my piece though. Then we good”. Here’s the third thing that caused us a lotta beef – he said something about the 5%ers that article too. 5%ers was furious! Kool Kim said “KRS did say nothing when 5%ers and King Sun was gonna fuck him up!” First of all – King Sun is our people from back in Latin Quarters days. We know King Sun really well. So King Sun came to one of our shows, and he was mad over the whole article and he wanted to talk to Kris about it. I don’t know if he actually got to talk to Kris, but he had a long conversation with Willie D about it. I wasn’t there at that moment, but Willie D told me after the fact that King Sun was mad, but he didn’t come there on some “Yo! I’mma punch Kris in the face!”. He came in on some “Yo, Kris. Why you say that? What’s the deal?”, and they squashed it up. But let me say, the second part is – people, you can’t just roll-up on us like that either. It’s not like “OK, I feel like punching KRS-One in the face. Here I go, I’m just going down to the show”. It wasn’t really like, because we had people with us too. You know what I mean? We had a show and a bunch of 5%ers came to our show too, and they was waitin’ outside and there was like thirty of ‘em, and they was mad as hell around this time too. But one of the leaders of their group knew Will – again – and they came upstairs and they talked to Kris and somehow they smoothed it out and it was all good.

All these little things were happening, week after week, after that article. I don’t know if this is true or not, but somebody told us that Lord Jamar from Brand Nubians was trying to organise all the 5%ers in hip-hop against KRS. I heard that he went to GURU, he went to Rakim, and they was like “Nah, Kris is our man. We’re not getting that deep with it”. But it was brought to our attention that Lord Jamar was trying to do this. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it came to us like that.

So a week or so after this article comes out, Kris has a lecture in Jersey, and this is one of the first times I ever went to one of his lectures. All of a sudden, someone stands up in the crowd and goes: “You’re wrong, Blackman! You’re wrong!” So they shine the light on him and it’s Wise Intelligence from Poor Righteous Teachers! So first people was like “Shut up! Shut up! Sit down, he’s doing a lecture!” but Kris was like “Nah nah nah, let him say his piece!” So they get back and forth into a little debate. It was like ten minutes! I guess PRT’s stance was more like X-Clan’s: “How you gonna call yourself a humanist? You’re selling-out the Black race”. If I recall, that was kinda his stance. And this is on film – Kris has the tape! I don’t know what he did with it, but it was on tape though.

So were they yelling at each other?

Wise Intelligence was in the crowd – he was about maybe ten or fifteen rows back from the podium, so was yelling and Kris was talking on the mic – but it was heated! I remember getting mad because the whole time the other dude – Culture Freedom – he’s heated, he’s pacing back and forth. So finally Wise Intelligence goes” “You said in The Source that we were soft. What about PRT is soft?” to Kris. And Kris says “That guy right there!” and he points to Culture Freedom. [we both laugh] Right when he said that, I grabbed the microphone and I said “This debate is cool, but Culture Freedom if you’ve got problems we can settle it!” I remember saying it, and everybody jumps down my throat [in an official-sounding voice] “No! No! No! This is a college! This is intellectual!” You know, like “Get the fuck outta here” basically, to me! After I said that, then it was like “Aight, everything’s cool”. We did a show in Trenton a week later, right in their neighbourhood. When we got out the limo they was all standing outside, but it was just “What’s up” and we kept it moving. They was upset over that article but it wasn’t like they was gonna rush us. We travelled kinda deep a lot of the time, people don’t really know that. BDP crew was a lot of people at that time, so you couldn’t just run-up on KRS.

I think there’s a misconception in hip-hop that there’s an unwritten rule that back in the day all battles was on wax, and the rule was that everything was kept on wax. That was not the rule! It just so happened that it was like that, but the other crews had CREWS! So you didn’t want to run-up on them. For example, Eric B. & Rakim had a CRAZY crew! A NOTORIOUS crew!

Rich Porter and all them.

Yeah! All those dudes that was on the back on the album – those dudes were serious! Now if you was like “You know what? I wanna battle Rakim. I’ll run-up on Rakim” it wasn’t like that! You couldn’t just run-up on Rakim like that! Same with Big Daddy Kane. He was running with all those Brooklyn dudes – Hawk and all them guys. As a matter of fact, a lot of the fights that used to go on in Union Square and Latin Quarter was these Brooklyn dudes that used to run with Kane!

And they’d be fighting guys from the Bronx and different neighborhoods?

Yeah, they was always fighting guys from the Bronx. They was always fighting Chris Lighty and the Violators! [laughs] Back then, Chris Lighty was a Violator and he was a thug. You couldn’t even run-up on Red Alert! You think Red Alert is just the coolest guy in the world, and I love Red Alert – that’s my brother – but back in the day, if you ran-up on Red Alert like “Yo! Play my record!” you was gonna have problems! You follow me? Kane had a crew, BDP had a crew, Rakim had a crew…even Chuck D. If you ran-up on Public Enemy – those Security of the First World, the S1W’s was serious! They weren’t just marching around!

They knew kung-fu and shit!

Yeah! Professor Griff was a black belt in karate! Professor Griff will whip your ass! [laughs] Because dudes had respect – plus everybody was cool with each other – like KRS, Rakim, Kane…all these people were friends. But it was a mutual respect and dudes had crews. It wasn’t like a fear thing, it wasn’t like you were scarred of their crew, but you knew “If I step to Kane, there’s gonna be a problem”. People always thought battles was just on wax. Like if MC Shan had of decided “You know what? The ‘Bridge Is Over’ was a little too personal. I think I’m gonna kick KRS-One’s ass!” [I start laughing] If the Juice Crew had thought “We’re coming for KRS”, it wasn’t that simple. There would have been a nice little skirmish! I’m not saying we woulda won or lost, I’m saying that it would’ve been a problem. I think a lot of people just think rap was just like “Yo, we’ll battle, and that’s it. It’s just cool, cause nothing’s ever gonna jump off. We’re just gonna battle and that’s the code!” That was not the code! The code was dudes was getting robbed and beat-up and all kind of shit was going on, and if you ran-up on somebody tryin’ to battle them, chances are their entourage – “entourages gone wild” – chances are, not the rapper but the people that’s with them, is probably gonna kick your ass!

Or even steal your equipment.

Yeah, even back in the day with Flash and all them, they had a crew! You ran-up and try to steal Grandmaster Flash‘s turntables – you got a problem! And Zulu Nation? Forget about it! Don’t even THINK about stepping to Afrika Bambatta! That’s the last thing on earth you want to do. And Bam is the coolest guy and he talks about peace – Afrika Bambatta is one of the coolest guys I ever met. Don’t run-up on Zulu Nation and Bambatta. And because everyone had crews, I think that kept a lotta battles from not being battles. Plus you’ve gotta understand, back in the day if you lost a battle – your career was over! It’s not like now. Now dudes will make a couple of diss records on a mixtape and then they keep it moving. If Kane had of tooken out Rakim in a battle? Rakim was over! His credibility was over. I think that had a lot to do with it as well – dudes had a lot to lose.

But back to that PM Dawn incident…if Kris knew in hindsight? He wouldn’t have went to that thing at all. People say “Why didn’t he step to Ice Cube? Why didn’t he step to these other people like he stepped to PM Dawn?” After that PM Dawn incident and the amount of heat that Kris got – he wasn’t in the position to step to nobody! He had to really chill after that. After that thing, you probably coulda said anything you want about KRS for like a year, and he might’ve had to eat that, because there was so much flack. I can’t even begin to describe to you…everywhere we went…we went overseas to promote the album – nobody was even talking about “You have a new album out”, nothing. It was “PM Dawn!” People was talking – we needed a translator – we was in Japan, we didn’t know what they were saying, it was just “Duh duh duh duh PM Dawn duh duh duh duh!” We was like “Ohhh shit!” 90% of the time I was standing right next to Kris, so I saw all of the drama. If you was there at the club at that time? Then you was with it. If there was a thousand people there – 900 of them was like “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen”. But after you read the [Source] article, if you wasn’t there and you just read what people said and the you read Kris saying “I am hip-hop”…people was just like “Fuck him!” And you know what else? MTV was like “You know what Kris? You’re banned from MTV forever!” Cause it was their party and PM Dawn was their guy!

How long did that last?

Kris’ attitude was like “You didn’t play me records anyway, so fuck MTV!” was always his stance anyway. But they didn’t play no KRS records until “Rapture (Step Into A World)”. That was in ’97, so it took about five years for MTV to get past that. Kris was always an underground rapper anyway, but MTV was furious. That incident hurt Kris more than it helped him, in my opinion. But it happened.

Still to come: The third and final part of this interview, where Kenny talks about his production work and massive collection of BDP demo tapes…. - UnKut

Kenny Parker: So the next day, Jive Records calls up and they’re like “The press wants to talk to you, Kris. Come down to Jive”. When we got there, the mood was really somber. Everybody was upset, and I remember seeing Busta Rhymes – I guess he was there with Tribe [Called Quest], I dunno what reason Busta had to be at Jive that day, but he was there – and he was like, “Yo, you are the greatest!” He was hugging Kris, and he was shaking him so hard he was crying! Busta was crying tears, and he was hugging Kris and he was shaking him so hard that they knocked over a computer off of somebody’s desk and break it on the ground! [I burst out laughing] At this point they had done “Scenario”, so I guess Jive didn’t really care, but they broke a computer that day. [chuckles] It was just the illest thing, ’cause it looked like a classic video: sucker MC’s rhymin’, super MC comes along and knocks him off and starts rhymin’. It looked like that.

Jive was like “every press in the country and overseas wants to know what happened”. It was MTV, it was all Europe press, every magazine…everybody was like “What happened? Why did you do this?” And I think that’s where the problem started. When Kris said “PM Dawn tried to diss me so I went up there and showed ‘em who the Teacher is”, that’s when all the backlash started. And let me say for the record – the backlash was enormously negative for him. ENORMOUS! You know how people say “All publicity is good publicity”? I’m gonna say “No” to that. I think Kris would’ve been better off saying, “Yo, I was just there and it was wack, and I was drunk and we just went up there and I just wanted to livin’ up the party!” He might’ve been better-off saying that then “PM Dawn tried to diss me so that’s why I went up there”. Because then it became: “Hold up, you’re the guy who made ‘Stop The Violence’. You’re a hypocrite. You’re a fraud!” And from that point on, people started saying “Kris is a hypocrite. Says one thing and does another”.

I think Kris is two kinds of MC’s. He’s a battle rapper, and he came-up battling, and he’s had a lot of numerous battles that people know about – and don’t even know about – AND he’s also a conscious rapper who tries to talk about upliftment of our race, the government, and things goin’ on. I think there’s no way you can be both without being contradictory, in my opinion. The problem Kris has had over the years is that when he starts talking about the government, about “Black man rise up”, people start saying “Yo, he’s too preachy. Edutainment was too preachy. Whatever happened to Criminal Minded? Why won’t he make ‘9MM’? Why won’t he rhyme like that?” Then when he makes battle records, then the “conscious” people go “Oh, he’s contradictory. How’s he talkin’ about snapping a MC’s neck? He’s supposed to be talkin’ about ‘Stop The Violence’!” The problem is that Kris would’ve had to leave one of those behind. Either he would’ve had to say “I’m not a battle rapper. I ain’t making those kind of records ever again”, or he would’ve had to say “I’m a battle rapper. I’m not making conscious records ever again”. Every album he has, he’ll do both. He’ll talk about things things going on in society, then he’ll make records talkin’ about how he’ll crush an MC.

I don’t have a problem with that, personally.

I don’t have a problem with it either, but in his career I’ve noticed that either which way he goes, the other side is gonna call him contradictory. That’s the price that he has to pay for being both. Knowing Kris, he really is both! He really likes battling and he write rhymes about rappers, even though he has no beef with them. He’ll just write a song about somebody and then just never use it. He’s just that kinda guy. And also he likes to talk about the government and Malcolm X – he’s that too. If you look at By All Means Necessary…that record “Stop The Violence” – everybody points to that, but on that same album on “My Philosophy”, he says “KRS-One is the kind of guy who lead a crew/right up to your face and diss you!” That’s there in clear English! No one hears that part, they just hear “stop the violence”, so if he takes a run-up with a crew they gonna say “Where that come from? He’s not like that!” when he’s tellin’ you “Yeah, I am!”

The biggest thing that hurt Kris with that PM Dawn thing is not even the incident, but it’s that Source article. That article caused us so much drama that year. The year of ’92, into ’93, was like “damage control year”, from that Source article.

He was callin’ out names big time in there.

Yeah, there’s two things in that article that caused us a lotta problems. One is that Kris was like “You know what? I’m tired of everybody. I’m tired of X-Clan, I’m tired of Ice Cube, I’m tired of PRT!” I don’t remember what Poor Righteous Teachers did that pissed Kris off. X-Clan I remember, and Ice Cube – I can’t remember for the life of me what Poor Righteous Teachers did! [laughs] Everyone that he mentioned in that article at some point that year tried to step up, and we had to deal with them. Also the second part that was a big thing was when Kris said “I am hip-hop”. That is the biggest polarization of his audience…and I think that’s a big misconception, because Kris says “I’m hip-hop. I’m not doing hip-hop – I am hip-hop. We ALL are hip-hop. We’re writing hip-hop as it goes along. There’s no rules! It’s not like a basketball player in the NBA and you have rules that you follow in the game. The hip-hop game – we’re writing the rules as we go along – so we ALL are hip-hop! I’m hip-hop, you’re hip-hop. We’re not doing it – we ARE it.” Even in that article he said “It’s not just me. Treach is hip-hop too.” But no one heard that part. They just heard him say “I’m hip-hop and I’m the greatest of all time!” and people was just like “This dude has lost his mind”. The funny thing was, I heard Vinny from Naughty By Nature said he was mad at that statement, and Kris said Treach was hip-hop!

He was just mad ’cause Kris didn’t say his name as well!

[laughs] Maybe! Vin is my man and I love Vinroc, but it got back to us that Vinny was mad too. Over the years a lotta people was mad. Biggie Smalls was mad over that! Biggie Smalls was like “How can KRS-One say he’s hip-hop? That’s bullshit”. But I think everyone’s missing what he was saying. Between him saying he’s hip-hop and him saying he’s stepping to the other rappers – yo, that hurt us. I think Kris lost half his audience that year. All the albums Kris had done prior to Sex and Violence went gold. At that time, Kris usually sold around 600,000 records or so, on the average. Sex and Violence sold like 300 [thousand].

Maybe that was because it was such a hardcore album – it was just raw.

I think that was part of it, but it was such a negative backlash. Every magazine you opened up: “KRS-One is a sucker. He’s a phony!”. I think a lotta people were like “You know what? Fuck him!” That whole year of ’92 was damage control. Now the thing with X-Clan – that was turning into some big deal. It was getting back to us – we had mutual people that knew both camps – that “Yo, they said this” and it would go back them “Yo, Kris said this”, and it was gonna be a big deal, and Afrika Bambatta called a meeting up in Bronx River. He was like, “This is not good. I’m cool with both groups, and both of y’all are really talking about the same thing. We can’t have a divide and conquer situation going on”. So Afrika Bambatta calls us up to Bronx, and I remember that X-Clan had brought guns up there – they thought it was gonna be like an ambush or something. Willie D, who’s down with us, is president of a chapter of five in Zulu Nation, so we have a real close affiliation. So if dudes from Brooklyn is coming all the way up to Bronx River to have a meeting with some dudes that got beef that are down with Zulu Nation – they must’ve thought it was an ambush or some drama. Security that was there was saying that X-Clan had guns and the whole nine, they told ‘em to leave the guns outside and come inside.

I didn’t know they rolled like that.

I didn’t know they rolled like that either! So we had the meeting, and everything was squashed. By the time “Build and Destroy” came out that beef was already squashed. Kris was like “I’m down to squash the beef with X-Clan, but let me say my piece though. Then we good”. Here’s the third thing that caused us a lotta beef – he said something about the 5%ers that article too. 5%ers was furious! Kool Kim said “KRS did say nothing when 5%ers and King Sun was gonna fuck him up!” First of all – King Sun is our people from back in Latin Quarters days. We know King Sun really well. So King Sun came to one of our shows, and he was mad over the whole article and he wanted to talk to Kris about it. I don’t know if he actually got to talk to Kris, but he had a long conversation with Willie D about it. I wasn’t there at that moment, but Willie D told me after the fact that King Sun was mad, but he didn’t come there on some “Yo! I’mma punch Kris in the face!”. He came in on some “Yo, Kris. Why you say that? What’s the deal?”, and they squashed it up. But let me say, the second part is – people, you can’t just roll-up on us like that either. It’s not like “OK, I feel like punching KRS-One in the face. Here I go, I’m just going down to the show”. It wasn’t really like, because we had people with us too. You know what I mean? We had a show and a bunch of 5%ers came to our show too, and they was waitin’ outside and there was like thirty of ‘em, and they was mad as hell around this time too. But one of the leaders of their group knew Will – again – and they came upstairs and they talked to Kris and somehow they smoothed it out and it was all good.

All these little things were happening, week after week, after that article. I don’t know if this is true or not, but somebody told us that Lord Jamar from Brand Nubians was trying to organise all the 5%ers in hip-hop against KRS. I heard that he went to GURU, he went to Rakim, and they was like “Nah, Kris is our man. We’re not getting that deep with it”. But it was brought to our attention that Lord Jamar was trying to do this. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it came to us like that.

So a week or so after this article comes out, Kris has a lecture in Jersey, and this is one of the first times I ever went to one of his lectures. All of a sudden, someone stands up in the crowd and goes: “You’re wrong, Blackman! You’re wrong!” So they shine the light on him and it’s Wise Intelligence from Poor Righteous Teachers! So first people was like “Shut up! Shut up! Sit down, he’s doing a lecture!” but Kris was like “Nah nah nah, let him say his piece!” So they get back and forth into a little debate. It was like ten minutes! I guess PRT’s stance was more like X-Clan’s: “How you gonna call yourself a humanist? You’re selling-out the Black race”. If I recall, that was kinda his stance. And this is on film – Kris has the tape! I don’t know what he did with it, but it was on tape though.

So were they yelling at each other?

Wise Intelligence was in the crowd – he was about maybe ten or fifteen rows back from the podium, so was yelling and Kris was talking on the mic – but it was heated! I remember getting mad because the whole time the other dude – Culture Freedom – he’s heated, he’s pacing back and forth. So finally Wise Intelligence goes” “You said in The Source that we were soft. What about PRT is soft?” to Kris. And Kris says “That guy right there!” and he points to Culture Freedom. [we both laugh] Right when he said that, I grabbed the microphone and I said “This debate is cool, but Culture Freedom if you’ve got problems we can settle it!” I remember saying it, and everybody jumps down my throat [in an official-sounding voice] “No! No! No! This is a college! This is intellectual!” You know, like “Get the fuck outta here” basically, to me! After I said that, then it was like “Aight, everything’s cool”. We did a show in Trenton a week later, right in their neighbourhood. When we got out the limo they was all standing outside, but it was just “What’s up” and we kept it moving. They was upset over that article but it wasn’t like they was gonna rush us. We travelled kinda deep a lot of the time, people don’t really know that. BDP crew was a lot of people at that time, so you couldn’t just run-up on KRS.

I think there’s a misconception in hip-hop that there’s an unwritten rule that back in the day all battles was on wax, and the rule was that everything was kept on wax. That was not the rule! It just so happened that it was like that, but the other crews had CREWS! So you didn’t want to run-up on them. For example, Eric B. & Rakim had a CRAZY crew! A NOTORIOUS crew!

Rich Porter and all them.

Yeah! All those dudes that was on the back on the album – those dudes were serious! Now if you was like “You know what? I wanna battle Rakim. I’ll run-up on Rakim” it wasn’t like that! You couldn’t just run-up on Rakim like that! Same with Big Daddy Kane. He was running with all those Brooklyn dudes – Hawk and all them guys. As a matter of fact, a lot of the fights that used to go on in Union Square and Latin Quarter was these Brooklyn dudes that used to run with Kane!

And they’d be fighting guys from the Bronx and different neighborhoods?

Yeah, they was always fighting guys from the Bronx. They was always fighting Chris Lighty and the Violators! [laughs] Back then, Chris Lighty was a Violator and he was a thug. You couldn’t even run-up on Red Alert! You think Red Alert is just the coolest guy in the world, and I love Red Alert – that’s my brother – but back in the day, if you ran-up on Red Alert like “Yo! Play my record!” you was gonna have problems! You follow me? Kane had a crew, BDP had a crew, Rakim had a crew…even Chuck D. If you ran-up on Public Enemy – those Security of the First World, the S1W’s was serious! They weren’t just marching around!

They knew kung-fu and shit!

Yeah! Professor Griff was a black belt in karate! Professor Griff will whip your ass! [laughs] Because dudes had respect – plus everybody was cool with each other – like KRS, Rakim, Kane…all these people were friends. But it was a mutual respect and dudes had crews. It wasn’t like a fear thing, it wasn’t like you were scarred of their crew, but you knew “If I step to Kane, there’s gonna be a problem”. People always thought battles was just on wax. Like if MC Shan had of decided “You know what? The ‘Bridge Is Over’ was a little too personal. I think I’m gonna kick KRS-One’s ass!” [I start laughing] If the Juice Crew had thought “We’re coming for KRS”, it wasn’t that simple. There would have been a nice little skirmish! I’m not saying we woulda won or lost, I’m saying that it would’ve been a problem. I think a lot of people just think rap was just like “Yo, we’ll battle, and that’s it. It’s just cool, cause nothing’s ever gonna jump off. We’re just gonna battle and that’s the code!” That was not the code! The code was dudes was getting robbed and beat-up and all kind of shit was going on, and if you ran-up on somebody tryin’ to battle them, chances are their entourage – “entourages gone wild” – chances are, not the rapper but the people that’s with them, is probably gonna kick your ass!

Or even steal your equipment.

Yeah, even back in the day with Flash and all them, they had a crew! You ran-up and try to steal Grandmaster Flash‘s turntables – you got a problem! And Zulu Nation? Forget about it! Don’t even THINK about stepping to Afrika Bambatta! That’s the last thing on earth you want to do. And Bam is the coolest guy and he talks about peace – Afrika Bambatta is one of the coolest guys I ever met. Don’t run-up on Zulu Nation and Bambatta. And because everyone had crews, I think that kept a lotta battles from not being battles. Plus you’ve gotta understand, back in the day if you lost a battle – your career was over! It’s not like now. Now dudes will make a couple of diss records on a mixtape and then they keep it moving. If Kane had of tooken out Rakim in a battle? Rakim was over! His credibility was over. I think that had a lot to do with it as well – dudes had a lot to lose.

But back to that PM Dawn incident…if Kris knew in hindsight? He wouldn’t have went to that thing at all. People say “Why didn’t he step to Ice Cube? Why didn’t he step to these other people like he stepped to PM Dawn?” After that PM Dawn incident and the amount of heat that Kris got – he wasn’t in the position to step to nobody! He had to really chill after that. After that thing, you probably coulda said anything you want about KRS for like a year, and he might’ve had to eat that, because there was so much flack. I can’t even begin to describe to you…everywhere we went…we went overseas to promote the album – nobody was even talking about “You have a new album out”, nothing. It was “PM Dawn!” People was talking – we needed a translator – we was in Japan, we didn’t know what they were saying, it was just “Duh duh duh duh PM Dawn duh duh duh duh!” We was like “Ohhh shit!” 90% of the time I was standing right next to Kris, so I saw all of the drama. If you was there at the club at that time? Then you was with it. If there was a thousand people there – 900 of them was like “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen”. But after you read the [Source] article, if you wasn’t there and you just read what people said and the you read Kris saying “I am hip-hop”…people was just like “Fuck him!” And you know what else? MTV was like “You know what Kris? You’re banned from MTV forever!” Cause it was their party and PM Dawn was their guy!

How long did that last?

Kris’ attitude was like “You didn’t play me records anyway, so fuck MTV!” was always his stance anyway. But they didn’t play no KRS records until “Rapture (Step Into A World)”. That was in ’97, so it took about five years for MTV to get past that. Kris was always an underground rapper anyway, but MTV was furious. That incident hurt Kris more than it helped him, in my opinion. But it happened.

Still to come: The third and final part of this interview, where Kenny talks about his production work and massive collection of BDP demo tapes…. - UnKut