The Business of Edutainment

I don’t know if any of these are actually valid reasons to hold up Edutainment in the same light as earlier Boogie Down Productions like Criminal Minded (1987) or By All Means Necessary (1988), but all of this flies through my mind while I’m in the middle of the sprawling 1990 release.

There are a great many spoken word pieces, which separates this disc from the first two releases from BDP, but sits it in the same realm as Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip Hop (1989). Also, as on that earlier disc, KRS One seems to be investing himself in his Jamaican heritage – you’d know where his parents are from if you’re familiar with the first two discs.

But on the title track, which sounds like a Skatalites instrumental, KRS One is able to move from pontificating on the importance of religiosity and the ingenuity of Jesus to what rap should be. Even a few tracks prior to this, on “Breath Control,” KRS approximates toasters inna dancehall style. What’s more it works.

All of that just further proves that hip hop is directly descended from Jamaican music, but I guess knowing that Kool Herc hails from the island is probably proof enough.

Something that I oddly enough never noticed is that on “Dee Jays,” which could be a Jamaican reference again, there’s a cavalcade of guest rhymers. And probably the strongest verse comes from Heather B.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that track without realizing who it was. But for some reason, today, when her voice kicked in, it immediately summoned images of the first Real World season. Yes, I watched that – I was eleven.

Her career in the rap world, for whatever reason, never took off in the way that it should have. As strong a rapper as Bahamadia is today, it sounds as if Heather B was that almost twenty years ago.

In 1996, Heater B. put down her debut full length and unfortunately, no one really paid attention. She followed with a new single a few years latter, but wasn’t able to get another full length released until the 2002 Eternal Affairs.

Whatever her fate has been, she is part of an overwhelmingly important discography – so regardless of her solo record sales, she should know that she still impacted the music that she clearly loves so much.