My favorite rapper came to Miami last night and it was everything I expected and more. Big K.R.I.T. (King Remembered In Time) brought his Pay Attention tour to the art district at an outdoor venue called LMNT.
K.R.I.T. is from Mississippi and is well known for his Southern style, in-depth lyrics, and producing almost all of his own instrumentals. With 5+ complete albums of high quality music, he has definitely earned his respect in the hip hop community. I went to the concert last night expecting him to sound decent and for the crowd to know at least a couple songs. I got way more than that.
The southern MC performed for about an hour and played songs from every one of his albums. Not only did the crowd know a few songs, they sang every single song at the top of their lungs which is something I rarely see at a concert. Usually one or two super fans know all the words, but I’m talking EVERY person in the crowd was singing the words…LOUD.
After his first song K.R.I.T. showed us some of that Southern love he raps about. He told everyone to crowd around the stage and disregard the barriers so he could get close to us and feel the energy. The security guards just moved out of the way and didn’t have a problem with it at all. It really made the show twice as good knowing the person on stage wants to be close to his fans. K.R.I.T raps extremely fast on a lot of his tracks so I expected him to stumble on lyrics at least 2 or 3 times, since he isn’t a veteran of the live music world yet, but he didn’t fumble a single word all night and I could understand every word he was saying. Anyone who’s been to a hip hop show knows that isn’t always the case.
The set list blew away my expectations. He started out with 2 older songs and then went straight into “Cadillactica,” the title track from his newest album. He played “King Of The South,” which is my personal favorite off the new LP, as well.
Smoke DZA and Rico Love came out to perform their songs with K.R.I.T., but my favorite moments of the evening came during the last two songs. After taking a 5-minute break to let the DJ rock the crowd with some old 3-6 Mafia songs, K.R.I.T. came back out and announced he could only do 2 more songs because of a noise ordinance. I expected him to do highly energetic songs and get the crowd going crazy. Nope.
He played “The Vent”. It’s one of the deepest songs he has. He made everyone put a light in the sky for anyone who has lost someone and performed a hip hop song I never expected to see in concert. The crowd’s positive reaction was amazing. Truly a great live music moment. Just when I thought that he couldn’t kill it any harder, he goes into the final song of the evening, “Mt. Olympus.” If you’ve ever heard the song you know that he raps at light speed for the majority of the track and just thinking about reciting the lyrics makes me want a glass of water. He performed every single word at the top of his lungs and didn’t slip up once. Not to mention he did the entire last minute of the song acapella. Take a listen to Mt. Olympus below:
I was worried seeing my favorite rap artist live might make me like him less because rappers for the most part don’t sound very good live. I am an even bigger KRIT fan after last night. I’ll be buying every album he releases in the future and attending any concert I can. I hope to see him with a full band one day.
