"Here I am, eighth album, [and] I had to ask myself: what the fuck am I going to say or do?" he said in a 1997 interview with Rap Sheet. "In this world we live in, one's only as good as his latest and greatest feat."

Since 1993's Return Of The Boom Bap, KRS-One had been enjoying one of Hip-Hop's most acclaimed second acts. That was the first album he'd released under his own name, after carrying the Boogie Down Productions torch since 1987. Everything he'd dropped over the course of those five years had been under the B.D.P. moniker, but since he'd freed himself from his previous legacy, KRS-Mach 2 had established himself as the torchbearer for classic Hip-Hop, whether it was fashionable in the flossy mid-to-late 90s or not. His eponymous 1995 album was a gold-selling high water mark for the rap vet; hailed as a classic by critics, buoyed by the stellar production of DJ Premier, Clark Kent and, per usual, KRS himself. For the follow-up, KRS would lean more heavily into his own bonafides as a producer while reaching back into Hip-Hop's heritage to push his sound forward.

On the heels of KRS-One's success, the rapper founded the Temple of Hip-Hop organization in 1996. "Our existence has served as an actual balancing force within Hip Hop’s cultural image in world history," the Temple of Hip-Hop declares. KRS envisioned the organization as a congregation that would maintain the true ideologies of Hip-Hop culture. In many ways, it was the latest evolution of KRS-One's ongoing approach to Hip-Hop music as voice to the community's ills; after all, he'd launched movements like Stop The Violence and H.E.A.L. (Human Education Against Lies) previously; and the Temple reflected his shift from more overtly "political" sermonizing to more spiritual and holistic sensibilities.

"I have a deep belief in the universal life people call God," KRS would say in that same Rap Sheet interview. "In Hip-Hop, I'm a co-creator. I tap into a creative energy and form it any way I see fit. I'm in music, so I form it up in music; but if I was a carpenter, I would've been hammering."

The Temple of Hip-Hop advocates for Hip-Hop and presents itself as a preservation society. "In 1994, we realized that rap was something that was done, while Hip-Hop was something that was lived," it reads on the Temple's official website. "We realized that Hip-Hop was far more than just a music genre, that it was a collective urban consciousness that produced not only the expression of rapping, but also breaking, deejaying, graffiti writing, and beat boxing.

"Through much debate and observation we realized the term 'Hip Hop' never actually enters the physical world, and that it (Hip Hop) only becomes physical when we become it. This led to the 'I am Hip Hop' philosophy in 1994 and the establishment of the Temple of Hip-Hop in 1996." The spirit of the temple would inform the subtext and the themes of KRS-One's I Got Next.

On album single "A Friend," KRS extolls the virtues of true friendship and loyalty over lush strings and piano sampled from the intro of Luchi De Jesus' version of "Round Midnight." The Showbiz-produced track remains one of KRS-One's best; and the music video is part love letter to NYC, with visuals set at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library and on the A train; as cameos by everyone from Redman to Doug E. Fresh to Kool Herc and Grandmaster Caz pepper the proceedings.

"We wanted the simple shit that was done in such a new way, it drove the chorus," Kris explained at the time. "Let me say also, I'm totally against the way that record was done." "I'm not into covers and do-overs. I'm a creative person. However, a lot of people hadn't even heard the (original) record before, so I think it's some new shit. But this is KRS-One keeping up with the times. And I guess it rocks two different heads."

Puff Daddy was dominating popular culture at the time, and his approach had redefined rap's mainstream. KRS would collaborate with Puffy on a remix for "Step...," and admitted it was an attempt to capture a younger audience that didn't know this "'Bridge Is Over' guy." In just the two years between KRS-One and I Got Next, an entirely new audience had emerged. And it wasn't necessarily just a younger audience in age; there were a lot more R&B fans listening to rap music on what had been R&B-dominated Black radio just a few years earlier. There was also a much larger audience of southern rap fans who were pulling attention away from the kind of Bronx-driven boom bap KRS was known for.

Though it had been in his approach for virtually his entire career up to that point, Hip-Hop as an ethos becomes most explicitly part of KRS-One's raison d'être on I Got Next. And his commitment to preserving the original essence permeates the entirety of the project. "The MC" echoes the feel of a live KRS show in it's intro, as the rapper opens things referencing Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh while making it clear that isn't cut from the same Versace-laced cloth that many of the bigger names topping the rap charts. Redman and Angie Martinez ride shotgun for the bouncy "Heartbeat," a throwback that samples the Treacherous Three classic "Feel The Heartbeat," complete with block party energy and sound effects.

Redman shows up again on "Blowe," a lyrical showcase that gives both legends ample room to shine. "Come To da Party" features R&B vocalizing, but soon descends into unfiltered boom bap as only KRS brings it. A song like "Over Ya Head" would come to be a bit of a double-edged sword for KRS-One: declaring his supremacy as an emcee and thinker had been part of his persona from Day One. But many fans and critics were beginning to balk at Kris Parker's singular brand of enlightened cockiness. In an infamous 1996 interview, The Notorious B.I.G. reportedly dismissed KRS for his arrogance.

"Naahhh…I don’t like KRS no more ’cause he just think he’s too dope," Biggie was to have said. "He let his ego take over his shit and that’s what brings him down. When he was like that (shouts “Blow it to yourself”), when he was like that, then he was a ten. But now, ‘I am Hip Hop’!!! Eat a dick nigga. Eat a muthaphukkin dick!"

"And even when it's not a good year, his brew is much better than the bargain basement swill that destroys your liver and churns your intestines," THE SOURCE wrote in a 1997 three-and-a-half-mic review of the album. "KRS-One's albums, BDP or otherwise, have always remained pertinent and inventive. Overtly and overly genre expanding tendencies notwithstanding, I Got Next stands to be just as relevant. Even without a scholarly cut of the likes we've come to expect from the Teacher, this may still be the most mandatory mind music for the next millennium."

I Got Next, like its predecessor, would attain gold status, and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard albums chart. Even in a rap climate that was more focused on pop crossover and platinum sales, there was still a sizeable audience for what KRS-One had to offer. The dark "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" is one of the grittier moments on the album, but aside from the moody DJ Muggs-produced banger, KRS-One's lyrical focus is mostly on the love of the culture that he'd been championing for more than a decade at that point. Knowledge still Reigned Supreme, as the decade near its end, Kris Parker sought to push forward by reaching back.

"The concept of this album is the celebration of Hip-Hop," KRS told Rap Sheet in '97. "I tried to do an album in production style, where it sounds like old Hip-Hop, but with a new twist to it. Everything we did on that album, every direction I gave the boys, was to think the part..."