HYPETRAK: Big K.R.I.T. - King Remembered in Time

Big K.R.I.T. has heard the phrase “next big thing” as it relates to his burgeoning hip-hop career for some time now. With his latest mixtape 4evaNaDay getting solid spins and reviews, 2012 is looking like it could be the year that K.R.I.T. finally does live up to those lofty expectations. HYPETRAK recently sat down with him in the Def Jam offices in New York City. Choice excerpts appear below while you can read the entire interview here.

For the people who don’t know, can you break down what K.R.I.T. stands for?
K.R.I.T. stands for “King Remembered in Time,” it’s just a humble way of saying that I’m going to be on top of my life, on top of my music and it’s a saying that motivates me to live up to each and every day.

So what’s in store for Big K.R.I.T. in 2012?
Well we just dropped 4evaNaDay March 5, and we’ve just started hitting the road to perform it. So just the tour, and after that we’re thinking about dropping Live from the Underground in June. So it’s all working it’s way piece by piece for this album.

Mississippi has its solid foundation in blues and jazz music, but not so much on the hip-hop genre. How were you able to get tapped into the hip-hop scene and get your music heard?
Mississippi has a strong presence in blues and jazz, however having an underground hip-hop network was very difficult as you can imagine, so I eventually went to some bigger cities nearby like Birmingham and Atlanta to promote my music at the time. I will say though, with any artist trying to come up, you have to go outside your comfort zone in order to get your music heard. I mean it’s dope to represent where you’re from but you still need to go somewhere else and represent too.