In becoming the new face of Mississippi hip-hop, it is extremely difficult to argue that Big K.R.I.T. hasn't been able to live up to the lofty expectations behind his acronym. Outside of Kanye West, very few hip-hop artists have received more critical acclaim as a rapper and producer from various hip-hop "crowds" than Big K.R.I.T. With a slew of successful mixtapes and a Def Jam album under his belt thus far, his impressive catalog can match, if not altogether surpass, that of any celebrated rapper that has come out in the past 5-10 years. However, none of that matters to Krizzle. He makes it abundantly clear that he wants more and shows an adamant refusal to slack off with his latest mixtape, King Remembered In Time.
The thing that I appreciate most about any K.R.I.T. mixtape or album is that he attempts to make something for everybody. He's got songs like "Shine On" (featuring Bun B) and "Serve This Royalty" for the pimps and players. (Both songs respectively use dope samples: Billy Paul's "I See the Light" and Cody ChestnuTT's "Serve This Royalty".) He serves up thumpers like "My Trunk Pop" (featuring Trinidad Jame$) and "How U Luv That" (featuring Big SANT) to rattle trunks from Mississippi to Atlanta. Along with Wiz Khalifa and Smoke DZA, he puts the high-and-mighty ballers in their place on "Only One"--a song to which I dig the beat (reminds me of something 8Ball & MJG would jump on circa '98 or '99) and the comically-catchy hook. He goes uptempo on "Good 2getha" featuring Ashton Jones, whose vocals truly go good together with K.R.I.T.'s. He even shows you that every superhero needs his theme music with "King Without a Crown"--a hard-hitting, signature K.R.I.T. beat set over a sample sounding like it's straight out of a Blaxploitation film where his flow may be at its most impeccable on this mixtape:
K-R-I-T, one more time for the folks that didn't know/Two more times for the folks that didn't listen, three more times for the folks that said growth/Wasn't possible for a country boy, like they could spit, like they could flow/Shawty, everybody wanna be a rapper, but everybody out can't do a show...
Simply put, he proves that he's on a short list of newer school artists that have enough range to avoid being completely one-dimensional. At the same time, he makes it clear that he's going to do it his way.
However, if you're anything like me, you appreciate it most when K.R.I.T. gets introspective because that's when he shines the best--and he has plenty of soul food to satisfy that hunger. "Purpose" kicks off the mixtape with spiritual and revolutionary ferocity: "Stand up and be counted for, raise your fist as glory speaks/Heaven's what I'm dying for, I swear the devil's at war with me/I deal with life accordingly, one day at a time/And that kingdom we all searching for, I pray one day we find." "Meditate" brings light to the age-old issue of people often alcohol as a means to escape real life:
How can I stop when I’m too far gone/To get back where I came from/I was searching for some answers at a bar with some dancers/And I found out there really ain’t none/And the bottom of my glass is just as empty as my lesson/Count it with my friends and my loved ones...
A hip-hop-jazzy number in "The Banana Clip Theory" begins the most consistently salient portion of King Remembered In Time as he muses about the irrational thought processes one goes through before resorting to gun violence: "When they touched my queen, they didn't know what we had was love/And it'll never be the same 'cause you'll throw it in my face just because/So I pop my trunk once again/For her heart, I'll defend/And I'll let it rain on them." He perfectly transitons and calls on assistance from 9th Wonder and BJ The Chicago Kid on "Life Is A Gamble" featuring a superb Marvin Gaye sample of the same name in which he delivers clever insight of making dangerous decisions:
Russian roulette table, I gotta bet safer/You gotta know when to fold your cards when you ain't able to/Reach into that dash when that jackal up and flashed that/Brass like "give me all you got or that's your a**"/That's all that it would took, the house got me shook/Cause ain't no point spread, but God doing books...
"WTF" (with "a punch line of 'what the f*** we gonna now'") finds him in storyteller mode via a poem about getting into questionable dilemmas like hustling and dealing with a married woman. Set over a melancholy but gorgeous string sample, two lines jumped out: "My heart's too cold to warm your soul/My eyes are too cold to see your goals when I can barely see min
Right before the closeout song, he submits the extremely-noteworthy "Bigger Picture"--arguably the most soulful and conceptually creative track on the entire mixtape. K.R.I.T. continues to display his penchant for choosing great samples for backdrops ("Stormy" by The Meters in this case) as he offers playful but reflective lyrics:
I call your phone, you don't pick up, you text me, too late to come back/You say my art ain't even half the way it used to look/The colors that I chose to compose my last/Masterpiece wasn't worth the cover of a book/I listen as you rant on 'bout Rembrandts and/Van Goghs that I used to show you was so pure at heart/Now all the pictures that I draw lately perfect my/Need to be basic and all that shading tears your world apart...
Now whether he intended it to be this way or not, the beauty of songs like these is the potential for open interpretation. "Is he talking to a woman, or is the woman just a metaphor for something else?" Either way, it's clearly one of the best executed songs and could've easily been my favorite.
However, among so many quality songs, the quintessential "brain sticker" is the main single, "R.E.M." On the strength of a great hook and melody sampled from James Blake's "The Wilhelm Scream", K.R.I.T.'s lyrics bring it all together: "In a room full of tight stares/Was LFU a dream or a nightmare?/How dare I rap about my real life/Good Lord I gave my all, but this don't feel right/Jiggaboos'll minstrel you, but never me/Blackface my black face could never be." If there is any one track that speaks the most in a "native tongue" to me on King Remembered In Time, it's this one. Even though Live From the Underground--his Def Jam debut--had a warm reception and gained him even more fans and supporters, he believes that he didn't deliver his absolute best and insists that he's going to raise his own loftily-placed bar. Whether we're talking artists or just the average person pursuing a dream but realizing the associated pitfalls and conundrums, it's hard not to appreciate his candor and ability to be reflective, accountable and willing to remain hungry while being simultaneously confident and humble.
With that said, even kings have moments where they're not always as regal as we've come to expect. K.R.I.T. has a rare moment of weakness with "Talkin Bout Nothing"--a so-so lyrical contribution over the most out-of-place, average beat on the mixtape. However, it's a mere bag of shells compared to the rest of the project. Still being relatively new to the game, K.R.I.T. admittedly has more soul searching to do as an artist and as a man because judging from the tenor of this latest outing, he fully understands that a complacent person is a replaceable one. Nevertheless, in a rap game full of self-proclaimed kings and even more court jesters, King Remembered In Time is one example of how he's cementing a strong foundation for his kingdom to reign with a lasting, meaningful authority.
(To download this mixtape, please visit http://www.livemixtapes.com/mixtapes/21536/big-krit-king-remembered-in-time.html; to follow Big K.R.I.T. on Twitter, please go to https://twitter.com/BigKRIT; and to visit his official sites, please visit http://bigkrit.com and http://bigkrit.defjam.com.)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to enthusiastically chime in or RESPECTFULLY disagree.