No. 22: KRS-One

In a way, it's fitting that Lawrence Krisna Parker, better known to the world as KRS-One, is ranked right next to LL Cool J, because they're pretty similar cases:

Extremely important contributions to the growth of hip-hop in its early stages and golden years? Check.

Failure to contribute anything meaningful in the last decade or so? Check.

Outsized egos that have managed to survive, or even thrive, through years of humbling nothingness? Check.

Just like LL, KRS-One legitimately seems to believe that he is unquestionably the greatest emcee of all time. And just like LL, he was almost undoubtedly in the top 10 as recently as the late 1990s. But both have seen themselves passed up by younger, hungrier rappers who took the foundation laid by the pioneers and built on it (before today's bubblegum hit-poppers destroyed it all anyway).

KRS deserves credit for laying the foundation, though.

His best work came as the lead voice for Boogie Down Productions, a conscious collective that debuted in 1987 with the classic LP Criminal Minded. At the time, the group consisted of KRS-One and his DJ, Scott LaRock — but Scott was killed shortly after the release of Criminal Minded, and KRS would reform the group with his brother Kenny Parker, D-Nice and Ms. Melodie (who was married to Kris for four years).

When will my poisonous product cease? I used to be ill...

Though BDP's first album brought the most acclaim, some of the best work KRS ever did came with the second incarnation of the group, particularly on the slept-on Edutainment. KRS drops knowledge like a motherfucker on such cuts as "Blackman In Effect," "Beef" and "Material Love." His last album with the group, Sex And Violence, proved that he still had the edge, particularly on "Duck Down" and the statutory rape anthem "13 And Good."

(Yes, I just introduced the term "statutory rape anthem." Embrace it.)

In 1993, KRS-One began his solo career, originally following the same blueprint* that had made BDP so respected — hard beats, hard rhymes, no bullshit. Return Of The Boom Bap brought a little bit lighter feel, thanks to such songs as "I Can't Wake Up," but it was still vintage KRS.

(* — Ignorant Jay-Z fans, take note: BDP used "The Blueprint" in an album title first.)

By the later part of the decade, however, commercialism had started to take over hip-hop, and even Kris proved that he wasn't immune to the money grab. On 1997's I Got Next, he stains an otherwise strong album by capping it with a remix of "Step Into A World" that featured the guy we had all recognized as the Anti-Kris — Puffy. Suddenly, the guy who had slapped down sellouts for years was one of them:

The scholar/gets the dollars/while you other scholars just holler
With no dinero/you're zero...

And like that, karma grabbed KRS-One's career and threw it off a cliff. His next album, Maximum Strength, was reportedly so wack that Kris decided to release it only in Japan, and none of what he has done since has managed to generate so much as a blip on the Radar Of Good Shit.

Thus, a legend slides all the way down to No. 22. But as with LL below him, the fact that more than a decade of wackness didn't drop him out completely is evidence of how strong KRS once was.