I was this close to doing something I might regret. What had been a lazy Sunday morning in bed, catching up with the wacky adventures of my fabulous and far-flung friends, had turned into an anxiety-laden exercise in unfollowing assholes who had surreptitiously taken over my feed. The Cambridge Analytica shitstorm had just made landfall; Austin, Texas, was under attack from a bomber; and ho-lee fuck were the terrible hot takes flying every which way. I’ve done a pretty good job of eliminating racists, sexists and homophobes from my day-to-day life, so why let friends-of-friends’ toxic opinions into my digital existence? I could just drag that little icon to the trash. Or give in to the impulse to just throw my damned phone against the wall.
But then there was a moment of joy that cooled my jets, and I’ve got Big K.R.I.T. to thank for it. It wasn’t anything deep or insightful — it was just a product endorsement, really, but it was a co-sign that reminded me it’s not only big-mouthed bigots who have the power to speak out. It was a cheeky video of NBA superstar and totally rad dude LeBron James jamming hard to K.R.I.T.’s latest album 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time while decked out in various articles of the Mississippi-born rapper’s merchandise. It was a ray of happiness beaming across the void of darkness and horror, and it came from K.R.I.T.’s triumphant return to the game.
While it wasn’t the longest hiatus in rap history, a year is a mighty long time to be quiet after more than a decade of near-constant releases. K.R.I.T., born Justin Scott in 1986, came of age in an era in which every MC and producer was expected to release every half-formed thought and lukewarm beat to feed the internet’s eternal and unwavering hunger for new content. At the height of the Obama years, when music blogs were at their peak, it seemed like K.R.I.T. was on a new cut every other day. What set him apart from the rest of the pack was that he could maintain the marathon pace set by the Lil Waynes of the world while sustaining a level of quality that never dipped below pure fire. His own distinctive Southern sound was clearly related to Outkast and UGK, but could never be labeled derivative.
K.R.I.T. landed a deal with the legendary Def Jam Records, and his 2014 LP Cadillactica helped spread his reputation to the world outside the blogosphere. But he announced that he’d left Def Jam on July 6, 2016, the day after releasing his #12for12 freestyle mixtape on the web in a dozen-songs-in-a-dozen-hours binge. It was definitely not a portent of future silence, at least to this critic. But suddenly, the flood ceased. It marked the start of a long period of disengagement from the machine, time that K.R.I.T. put to very good use.
In October, he made his comeback with 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time, his strongest, most creative work to date, released as a double album on his own Multi Alumni label. It’s one of the most important hip-hop records in recent memory, thanks in no small part to K.R.I.T.’s insistence on crossing the void again and again. He’s come out of some dark places, but he keeps going back to tell what he learned there, how it’s led him to reorient both his public persona and his personal goals.
Disc 1 starts with the track “Big K.R.I.T.,” which lays out his vision for his professional life, and the songs that follow touch on the struggles he’ll go through to get there. Disc 2 begins with “Justin Scott,” a lush, kaleidoscopic funk instrumental that dissolves into a cacophony of voices telling him what he needs to do to get on the radio, after which he opens up about depression, anxiety and alcoholism, talking about the pressures of being a celebrity in a way that’s as in-touch with the non-celebrity experience as you can get.
The album is about what goes on in your head, but what goes on in your heart and the rest of your body, too. The rapper-writer-producer sings the praises of the simple, visceral thrill of trunk-rattling bass frequencies on “Subenstein (My Sub IV).” He contemplates the complications of modern life in “Mixed Messages” — including how he loves “social networks for music, but the negativity will make you break down,” which hits so close to home that it’s scary. On Disc 2, with tracks like “Higher Calling” (featuring R&B ace Jill Scott) and the “The Light” (featuring contemporary jazz icon Robert Glasper), K.R.I.T. provides the Sunday morning counterpoints to the Saturday night strip-club anthems on Disc 1. It’s a dichotomy that he’s perfected during his hiatus from the hustle.
K.R.I.T. has never been a rapper you could sum up in a snapshot (unless you count that LeBron clip). There is no one moment, topic or sound that really captures what he’s about — he’s more like a flipbook, in that you need to take in all of the art in rapid succession to really get a grasp on what the dude is doing. And when you do, as you will when you sit down with this album or squeeze into the Cannery on Thursday, you’ll get enough perspective that even social media can’t bring you down.
