After his commercial success with last album “Cadillactica” — one of rap’s best of 2014 — Big K.R.I.T.’s is following up with another free mixtape, “It’s Better This Way.” The album kicks off with an intro skit where K.R.I.T decides between two forks in the road, ultimately telling listeners how he is going against the grain of his usual work by saying, “I’ma do something different, I’ma go this way.”
The album’s cover art is a reflection of this, depicting K.R.I.T. with a knapsack slumped over his shoulder, facing a fork in the road. Signs pointing leftward read, “Regular,” “Follower,” “Ordinary” and “Pressure,” whereas the only sign pointing in the opposite direction reads the album’s title: “It’s Better This Way.”
K.R.I.T. delivers on his proclamation with the album’s first track, “King Pt. 4,” where he delivers an awe-inspiring reflection on his career to this point. He eloquently reconciles the conflict that plagues most underground rappers who try to transcend their platform: as artists try to reach their listeners in a thought-provoking way, they can only relate to audiences so well before ending up commercialized and losing the creative freedom that gave them their reverential status in the first place.
K.R.I.T. wonders out loud whether he is wasting time trying to change the opinions of people who indulge in materialistic, unsubstantive art as he himself slips into that same enterprise. Lines like, “Art is art no matter how you sculpt it / Mold it grow it, only to go unnoticed,” or, “I’m imprisoned to my mission,” show just how unreachable K.R.I.T. believes his ultimate goals to be. The listener is left to the rest of the album with the knowledge that K.R.I.T. is still driven to pursue his career aspirations despite being cognizant of their futile nature.
However, it would be a mistake to read this proclamation as K.R.I.T. departing from his typical subject matter. This project is still littered with the usual abundance of car stereo anthems, references to old-school southern rap and familiar hip-hop braggadocio, but K.R.I.T. doesn’t want fans to view this as a sell-out move. In an interview with the Charlotte Observer, K.R.I.T. talks about how liberating it feels to just be making the music he wants to make.
“You can’t never beat that,” he says. “To not have a record on radio and to make the music I want to make and work with the artists I want to work with, just being country and proud of it and still being able to get to No. 1. To be able to go to Australia and people know the music. I’m from Meridian, Mississippi. Everything is an amazing experience.”
K.R.I.T. seems to have transcended the problem he alludes to in the album’s opener. While he’s never been concerned with getting on the radio, K.R.I.T. isn’t bothered with micromanaging his message now. He wants to tell stories and show his civic pride through his music, truly believing his place in the underground is where he can make his greatest impact as a musician — even if not everyone is listening. “It’s Better This Way” is K.R.I.T. truly coming into his own as a rapper, adding to his plethora of fantastic mixtapes and showing that “Cadillactica” was no aberration.
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