KRS-One & Buckshot
Survival Skills
By Luke Fox

It's not enough to have Brooklyn's Buckshot and the Bronx's KRS-One swap verses for an entire 14-track set. No, the leaders of two of the greatest East Coast hip-hop movements ever ― Boot Camp Clik and Boogie Down Productions ― had to recruit an all-star supporting cast. Talent abounds on both the beats (Black Milk, Moss, Marco Polo) and the rhymes (Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch, Slug, K'naan). When was the last time Mary J. Blige ("The Way I Live") appeared on an indie rap record? The presence of 14 guest vocalists makes Survival Skills sound like a compilation, and a Buck/KRS collab would have been twice as relevant a decade ago (ditto for Kris's 2007 link-up with Marley Marl). Yet both veterans wield their unmistakable voices, spraying wisdom on fatherhood ("Think of All Things"), individuality ("Robot") and the upper-class/lower-class divide ("Hear No Evil"). On "Clean Up Crew," the duo turn a borderline corny concept into a banger by flipping a closet full of sanitary metaphors in an effort to scrub the rap game clean of its sticky film of whack juice. Even Heltah Skeltah's Rock sweeps in with a nice little The Fresh Prince of Bel Air allusion: "I clean house like Jeffery." Throughout, the ethereal boom of KRS's "my word is gospel" enunciation is balanced nicely by Buck's more subtly intricate rhyme patterns. The result: an album that's hard but not ignorant.

Did you ever critique each other's rhymes? You probably can't tell KRS-One to go rewrite his verse.
Buckshot: No, I would say that to Kris in a heartbeat, but I didn't have to. I've been with a lot of good rappers and known rappers and said, "We gotta do something else." What we did do was say, "That ain't working. Get that whole song out of here." We had two songs we threw out. One of them wasn't whack; it just wasn't fitting the concept of the show. And that's what the whole KRS-One/Buckshot album is based around; it's based all around one show. If you could sit in the crowd, you will hear the show that you want to watch.

So you'll be touring in support of this album?
That's what's the whole thing is about. Me and Kris are show-hungry. We love doing shows. Travelling is a different thing but when we get onstage, that all makes up for it.

What's the most important skill one needs to survive in hip-hop in 2009?
Everything is taking a transition. In hip-hop today you need patience, discipline and obedience. Those are the three elements. You gotta keep yourself around people that are smarter than you and better than you at what you want to do. That's what will make you become better. (Duck Down)
Annotations of an Autopsy - The Reign of Darkness
Blessure Grave - Judged By Twelve, Carried By Six
Magnetic Fields / Laura Barrett
Hillside Inside Featuring Owen Pallett, Ani Di Franco, Basia Bulat, Bahamas, Hawksley Workman
The Golden Filter / LA Riots / Junior Boys
Hollerado - Record in a Bag
Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way of ORwarriOR
Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise
Watson Twins - Talking To You, Talking To Me
Buzzcocks - Another Music In A Different Kitchen / Love Bites / A Different Kind Of Tension
Sade - Soldier Of Love
Yukon Blonde - Yukon Blonde
Steve Kaldestad - Blow-Up
Galactic - Ya-Ka-May
Gil Scott-Heron - I’m New Here
Dawn Of Demise - A Force Unstoppable
Janine Stoll - Melancholia
Stygian - Fury Rising
Shining - VI — Klagopsalmer
The Kandidate - Until We Are Outnumbered
Troll - Neo-Satanic Supremacy
Meshuggah - Alive
Dark Fortress - Ylem
Massive Attack - Heligoland
Fear Factory - Mechanize
Reckless Kelly - Somewhere In Time
Arsis - Starve For The Devil
DevilDriver / Suffocation / Thy Will Be Done / Goatwhore
Asobi Seksu
James Blackshaw / Gary Higgins
Lil Wayne - Rebirth
Light This City - The Hero Cycle
Lightspeed Champion - Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba - I Speak Fula
Georgia Anne Muldrow - King’s Ballad
Droids Attack - Must Destroy
Hot Chip - One Life Stand
Ellen Allien / Various - Watergate O5
Through The Eyes Of The Dead - Skepsis
Pierced Arrows - Descending Shadows
Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe 2: Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls and the Systematic Dehumanization of Cool
Pawel - Pawel
Children Of Celebrities - Stereo Bang Bang
Midlake - The Courage Of Others
Guns N’ Roses
Julie Doiron / Attack in Black
Tegan and Sara / An Horse
Nouvelle Vague
Arch Enemy / Exodus
Between the Buried and Me / Cynic / Devin Townsend Project / Scale the Summit
Fucked Up - Couple Tracks
Magnetic Fields - Realism
Strong Arm Steady - In Search of Stoney Jackson
Harvey Milk - Harvey Milk
Basia Bulat - Heart Of My Own
Ihsahn - After
Living Sacrifice - The Infinite Order
Ihsahn - After
Steve Earle / Joel Plaskett
Scuba / Various - Sub:Stance
Make Me Young - Make Me Young
Taking Dawn - Time To Burn
Postdata - Postdata
Woodhands - Remorsecapade
Buraka Som Sistema / Various - Fabriclive 49
Beach House - Teen Dream
Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring
Various - Born Again Funk
Wetdog - Frauhaus!
Coolzey - The Honey
Rel!G!Ion - Revelations 1
Buraka Som Sistema / Various - Fabriclive 49
Chicago Underground Duo - Boca Negra
Cars & Trains - The Roots, the Leaves
Morton Feldman / Milton Babbitt / Phoenix Ensemble - Clarinet Quintets
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