If you couldn't tell by now, Big K.R.I.T. is from the South. Mississippi to be exact, a place where people drive old-school Cadillacs, wear gold grills in their mouths, drink moonshine, and say things like "Aww, sookie sookie now." We know this because K.R.I.T. (an acronym for "King Remembered In Time") takes great pains to remind us of where he comes from, and what goes on there, every chance he gets. His outsized pride borders on a sense of persecution.
There's a short list of rap superstars who've truly broken through in the past 10 years, and they are mostly Southern artists. The buzz and eventual hysteria for rappers like Lil Wayne, T.I., Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane and most recently Rick Ross make it hard to process K.R.I.T.'s making the "We make it cool to be Southern" claim, a slightly altered version of something Master P said way back when No Limit Records was still a formidable label and not just panegyric reference for a Supreme hat. There's an army of disgruntled New York rappers (and their more submissive counterparts) who'd argue that it hasn't been cool to be anything but Southern since crunk infiltrated the club scene. K.R.I.T., however, seems to think he hasn't found the traction he deserves because people don't respect his aesthetic. This couldn't be further from the truth. The real problem is that they've seen it before and in many instances in much more potent incarnations.
K.R.I.T. is a very competent rapper whose production style borrows just a little too much from his influences. His sampling chops are stellar but he leans on bluesy bass guitar lines like a crutch. Live From the Underground, in fact, plays like a medley of disparate and once-innovative phases that Organized Noize developed when producing for OutKast. K.R.I.T. begins the album aping Big Boi's "SpottieOttieDopaliscious" monologue from Aquemini for his "LFU300MA (Intro)". The album's title track is rustic, like something that could have appeared on Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik or Goodie Mob's Soulfood. "What U Mean" has the intergalactic bounce of something from Aquemini, and the solemn "Don't Let Me Down", which may or may not borrow a chorus melody from the heart-wrenching Beatles song of the same name, sounds like you could tuck it somewhere into the end of Stankonia.
In all fairness, one could do far worse than to idolize 90s-era Organized Noize production. And it would seem those most appreciative of K.R.I.T.'s nostalgia are the people who were around to experience it the first time, including album guests 8Ball & MJG, Devin the Dude, and Bun B. Despite a penchant for rapping over any and everything anyone sends to his email, Bun turns in a surprisingly inspired verse. K.R.I.T. too is as agile as ever, himself an anomaly, a producer worthy of rapping over his own production. But it would serve him well to reach outside of his comfort zone, as rich as his influences may be.
Musically, it's been two very long years since K.R.I.T. broke the scene with Krit Wuz Here, years that have included veritable masterpieces of innovation in both album and mixtape form. Krit Wuz Here itself displayed a great deal of promise, but both its earliest criticism and applause came from the same exact place. We'd heard it before. Live From the Underground shows that not much has changed with Big K.R.I.T. over the past two years. He's still an exceptional rapper with a befitting production style who can make some very good music. It's just that, at this point, good isn't good enough.
