KRS-One

Released: May 20, 1997

Songwriter: KRS-One

Producer: KRS-One

Anybody in here right now with tape decks turn em on
And put em on record, I'll give you a second
I want to add authenticity to your tape
So when it's sold out in the street
You all can know this was a real party

These are poems circulating throughout the nation
Everybody's bad and everybody's tough
But how many people are intelligent enough
To open up their eyes and see through the lies
Discipline themselves, yourself to stay alive
Not many
That's why the universe sent me today on this stage
With this to to say
The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer
And in the final hour many heads will lose power
What does the rich versus the poor really mean?
Psychologically it means you got to pick your team
When someone says the rich gets richer
Visualize wealth and put yourselves in the picture
The rich get richer, cause they work towards rich
The poor get poorer, cause their minds can't switch from the ghetto
Let go, it's not a novelty
You could love your neighborhood without loving poverty
Follow me, every mother, father, son, daughter
There's no reason to fear the New World Order
We must order the whole new world to pay us
The New World Order and the old state chaos
The Big Brother watching over you, is a lie you see
Hip-Hop could build it's own secret society
But first you and I got to unify
Stop the negativity and control our creativity
The rich is getting richer, so why we ain't richer?
Could it be we still thinking like niggas?
Educate yourselves, make your world view bigger
Visualize wealth and put yourselves in the picture!

The legendary MC from the South Bronx, New York, Lawrence “KRS-One” Parker has been steadily rapping since 1985. His name stands for “Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone”.

KRS came to rapping only by chance. In the Something from The Art of Rap documentary, he recalls watching an MC cypher when suddenly “a dude” randomly picked him out of the crowd and made fun of him. Feeling compelled to defend himself, KRS performed a little freestyle which impressed the crowd and eventually kicked off his rapping career.

His breakthrough onto the hip hop scene began with “The Bridge Is Over” – an answer record to the popular Queens rapper MC Shan’s song “Queensbridge”. From 1986 to 1992, KRS-One fronted the groundbreaking hip hop group Boogie Down Productions, scoring six top 20 hits on the US Rap Chart. In 1993, he began a solo career spanning three decades, racking up six more top 20 Rap Chart hits with “Sound of da Police”, “MCs Act Like They Don’t Know”, “Step Into A World” and “Men Of Steel” also achieving mainstream pop success on the Hot 100.

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