KRS-One speaks on his militant mentality that fueled the making of the now legendary album Criminal Minded alongside the late producer, Dj, and close friend, Scott La Rock.

“This may sound arrogant, but it’s the truth and it’s honest. We knew exactly what we were doing when we made this album. If you notice, all the away up to Return of the Boom Bap — I stopped doing it after Return of the Boom Bap — I used to say things like, ‘We will be here forever! Forever and ever!’ I used to always speak into the future: ‘I got rhymes for the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s.’ This was the ’80s. So yes, as a metaphysician, as a philosopher, you know what you are doing. We didn’t make mistakes. We still don’t. That’s why the albums are out the way they are. I say that humbly. I don’t say that with no arrogance; ‘Yeah, we knew what it was.’ No, we didn’t. What we knew was hip-hop. We knew if we came out with what our people wanted to hear, that’s just what it is. It wasn’t on the radio, there’s no videos for it. We just said what we knew the block wanted to hear at the time. We knew we were changing the game.”