Return of 4Eva was a new-school, rearview-checking masterpiece of Dixie rap, but that 2011 mixtape remains the pinnacle of Big K.R.I.T.’s young career. That’s not to say the Mississippi native hasn’t turned out some major highs over the past couple years: his “Money on the Floor”, Freddie Gibbs’s “Rob Me a Nigga" and T.I.’s “I’m Flexin’” are just three examples of why K.R.I.T.’s been one of the most vital young forces in rap both on the mic and as a producer. It’s just that, even after the debut proper Live from the Underground, K.R.I.T.’s yet to deliver the irrefutable classic-- his Ridin’ Dirty, his The Diary-- that Return seemingly promised was on its way.
Despite the mixtape's major features (Bun B, Wiz Khalifa, Future), its interesting risk-taking (there’s a James Blake sample on “REM”), and the music's spit-shined mastering job that recalls Rick Ross’s triumphant Rich Forever, the new King Remembered in Time doesn’t try to deliver on that promise. Instead of feeling like a definitive pinpointing of the spot K.R.I.T.’s at right now, King sounds more like a checkpoint halfway between where he’s been and where he wants to go.
As the beats go, the tape is one of the boldest of the year, with samples ranging from Blake’s “The Wilhelm Scream” to Cody ChesnuTT’s “Serve This Royalty” and enough instrumentation (live or otherwise) to embarrass a Musician’s Friend catalog. But what distinguishes King from other K.R.I.T. releases is that there’s nothing quite as earth-splitting as “Country Shit” or “Money on the Floor” here; half the tracks hardly even have drums, and the ones that knock at all aren't about to devastate anybody’s trunk. “Talkin Bout Nothing” is a variation on the lingering California ratchet sound, the piano that runs through “REM” goes great with Blake’s haunted croon, and the drips of horns and guitars on tracks like “Banana Clip Theory” and “Meditate” are perfectly sensual. Point is, K.R.I.T. is searching for ways to write hooky, immediately gratifying music without having to concoct something so aggressive as a sheer banger. Which is admirable, but King proves that he hasn’t quite figured it all out yet.
If there’s been one knock on K.R.I.T., it’s that he’s goofy as a rapper, a guy who might have grown up agreeing with the East Coast’s collective reservations of Southern rappers but could never argue with the latter party’s commercial success. His humble-hedonist persona is an appealing one, but no new folds to the temperament are presented here, which ultimately implies that K.R.I.T.’s abilities as an MC might be lagging even further behind his production abilities than they have been in other cases. If he’s able to even out his skillset-- which is still, as the dude Robin Van Der Zee might put it, very unique-- his still-immense potential could be fully realized. For the time being, K.R.I.T. has some catching up to do if he doesn’t want to go down as a guy who peaked too early.
