Big K.R.I.T. brings southern stylings to Green Key

It’s that time of year again — hello Green Key! As a re­sult, Pro­gram­ming Board’s Green Key con­cert is nearly upon us. Among this year’s list of per­form­ers, who in­clude Talib Kweli, Im­mor­tal Tech­nique, Kem­mik and DJ Enzo, is Def-Jam signee Big K.R.I.T.

Big K.R.I.T. has had dig­i­tal re­leases of two street al­bums in the last year, K.R.I.T Wuz Here and Re­turnof4eva, both gar­ner­ing crit­i­cal ac­claim for his bit­ing lyri­cism and trunk-rat­tling pro­duc­tion.

South­ern hip-hop has al­ways been tinged with in­dig­na­tion and re­sent­ment, as well as a sense of the need to prove your worth. This thread can be seen every­where from the epony­mous af­flu­ence of Cash Money, to the ex­per­i­men­ta­tion of the Dun­geon Fam­ily, to the care­free codeine-laden slow-mov­ing “Swang-n-Bang” of Swisha­house. Big K.R.I.T, hail­ing from Mis­sis­sippi, is earnest in putting his home state on his back, and is at his most amaz­ing when tack­ling con­crete, dif­fi­cult top­ics. He reg­u­larly probes so­cial is­sues and ironies, and this is dis­played best on “2000 and Be­yond,” from K.R.I.T. Wuz Here, where he de­tails so­cioe­co­nomic is­sues and in­jus­tices in the South over funky, soul­ful pro­duc­tion seem­ingly ripped di­rectly from a 70s blax­ploita­tion film. He raps, “Ain’t it crazy? Scared to have a baby, I can­not pro­tect it from the same streets that made me.” His drawl and de­liv­ery is rem­i­nis­cent of that of Pimp C, but show­cases a greater deft­ness and ma­neu­ver­abil­ity with his flow.

See­ing him live should prove to be quite a show, and cer­tainly won’t be some­thing any­one should miss.