I am very conflicted about Sex and Violence, the final LP from Boogie Down Productions before KRS-One rebranded & started releasing music under his own name the next year. On 1 hand, this album has some of the most problematic subject matter & messaging of any album KRS ever made. On the other, the music, energy & bars on this album are absolutely top-notch. Although some of the themes are hard to swallow today, this is an album I spent a lot of time listening to back in the day & I still uphold it, with reservations, as an overlooked classic from KRS.
I must acknowledge that when I mention problematic themes, I'm really only talking about 3 songs. Sure, I can take issue with a few others. "Drug Dealer" has some questionable sentiments about Black capitalism being what will save us, & "Who Are the Pimps" seems to be rooted in a rather naive understanding of how taxes work. Not to mention, Kris's critique of the tenets of the Nation of Gods & Earths might be well-reasoned, but it was pithily refuted that same year by Paris: "I ain't pro-human 'cuz all humans ain't pro-Black." But it's the sex trio of "13 and Good," "Say Gal" & "We In There" that makes it really hard for me to vouch for this album as a whole. "13 and Good" is a story song about accidentally having sex with a 13-year-old. As the song would have it, the part about the scenario that's most upsetting is not having taken advantage of a minor who legally cannot render consent, but instead the possibility of getting caught. Then the whole thing turns into a homophobic joke at the end when the girl's dad shows up & tries to blackmail the speaker into being his live-in concubine: "the price tag is your behind." More gay panic shows up in "We In There," which starts as a basic rap song dissing sucka emcees before it takes a 2nd-verse turn into a bizarrely elaborate prison fantasy involving the sucka emcee in question having his "ass [...] pumped by some f****t" while Kris masturbates to a picture of his sister. Finally, the entire point of "Say Gal," inspired by Mike Tyson's rape case, is to denigrate women who accuse high-profile men of sexual assault. He implies that there's no reason for a woman to go to a man's hotel room except for sex, & then declares "don't tell me you can wear what you want/'cuz nowadays most gal dress like a slut." You might be able to write off "13 and Good" & "We In There" as failed attempts at fanciful humor, but there is absolutely no defending the plainspoken bad messaging of "Say Gal." (Of course, all 3 of these songs are made even more troubling after KRS's comments defending Afrika Bambaataa against multiple men who accused him of molesting them when they were boys.)
I hate to be this guy, but it sucks extra hard because musically, "Say Gal" is a really good song. Kris delivers those awful lyrics in an aggressive dancehall toasting style over a sinuous self-produced beat. The reggae influence that was always present in BDP is probably most prominent on this album. He uses his dancehall style again on the title track, over a gritty beat by the great Prince Paul with a helplessly catchy bassline & about 5 different sample chops in the back end of the song. Album opener "The Original Way" starts by paying tribute to hiphop's roots in Jamaican sound system culture, before exploding into a grimy Kenny Parker beat with a reggae chorus from KRS and some take-no-prisoners rhyming by the criminally underrated Freddie Foxxx. The lo-fi production, muffled drums & mic clipping mimics the raw live sound of hiphop's early days, & the multi-part structure, culminating in a hype Kid Capri intro, makes this one of the best opening tracks to any rap album ever.
In addition to the title track, Prince Paul brings his inimitable hardcore nursery rhyme production style to the aforementioned "Drug Dealer" as well as "How Not To Get Jerked," a companion piece to A Tribe Called Quest's “Show Business,” that contains the immortal lines: “Understand, rap is rebellious music/Therefore, only the rebel should use it.” Prince Paul might be the most recognizable name on this album‘s production roster, but there is simply not a bad or even lackluster beat on this entire disc. It’s all dry funky drums, dusty horn chops, midnight blue bass & gang chants, mixed to be dark and gritty yet warm and inviting, like the steam coming from the open soup kitchen door on a winter‘s night in the Bowery. On a purely sonic level it might be the best sounding album KRS-One was ever involved in, so it’s a shame that there are 3 tracks that completely spoil the mood.
So is this BDP‘s lost masterpiece? That's where I'm conflicted. I do know that on a more mediocre album, 3 distasteful songs would not bother me so much. It’s only because of the lofty heights Sex and Violence reaches that the depths it stoops to are so disastrous. Take out those 3 tracks and you might have a 10/10 album, but it’s impossible to not know that they were ever there. So make of that what you will.
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