Big K.R.I.T. Is Good At Separating Business And Music

Told You So

With his sophomore album, Cadillactica, finally in stores, BIG K.R.I.T. is staking his claim for the title of King Of The South.

Interview Dan Rys

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in the Winter 2014 issue of XXL Magazine, on stands now.

It’s been more than two years since Big K.R.I.T. made his Def Jam Recordings debut with Live From The Underground, an eclectic album that flew largely under the radar. Since then, the Mississippi native has been hard at work on his followup, Cadillactica, eager to show his growth and how much he’s learned since his first go-around. With the album finally out, Krizzle discusses his evolution as a producer, his label situation and what’s next for the future.

XXL: Why did it take you so long in between albums?
Big K.R.I.T.: Because it’s always been quality over quantity. To me, it was about taking as much time as possible to make sure it’s all the way right how I want it to sound. I wanted to be able to come off the road and finish the album and work with producers and things of that nature. And that calls for a lot of time to sit down and create.

Is this a concept album?
Yeah, it’s a concept in the sense of me continuing the story from the beginning of K.R.I.T. up until now. I really wanted to explain to people where the Cadillac came from that crash landed on the Live From The Underground cover, which was, basically, underground music crash landing into mainstream America. And then telling the story in reverse. Where the ideas come from, just creatively creating a planet to explain it all. And on this planet I can sonically go anywhere I want to go, and the content can be what I want it to be.

How do you feel like you've evolved as a producer?
Getting into the habit of not only clearing samples early, understanding what I’m clearing, keeping up with things of that nature, but wanting to create music from scratch without samples. A lot of the melodies that I created, working with other musicians has enhanced [them] and it gives it a different kind of feel. Like, I can’t play the guitar or piano classically, but I can sit down and tell somebody what I want. And me working with the right musicians, they can bring those kinds of ideas to life and create the kind of music that, Lord willing, people will sample. And how to not mix the business with the music. Business can easily bleed over into the creative, and that’s when the music can become aggressive, or it’s not coming from the right place. That’s never what I want to happen to my music.

How's your label situation with Def Jam?
I think they understand now more than ever that creatively it’s always gonna be slightly different than what may be going on. But I’ve built the foundation as far as my supporters, my fan base, so the music speaks for itself. And when it came to Cadillactica, I think they just kinda let me do me, work with the people that I wanted to work with and stood behind that. And then being able to have the type of team that I have, we’re all self-sufficient. We move and make it easier to put things together, because the way we move still kinda feels independent.

Is that freedom something different than what you had on Live From The Underground?
I still had it then, but I was still learning the business, too. I was unfamiliar with rollout plans, for real; with a mixtape, you put it out, you drop it, you shoot videos for it and that’s that. But with a major label album you’ve got deadlines, you’ve got dates, so you just gotta adjust. But that’s why I’ve been working on this project this long, that’s why I kinda left the road a little bit in order to create and not worry so much about deadlines. Get samples cleared earlier, because all that is extremely important. You don’t ever want to have a song ready to go off the album and you can’t clear the sample. I dealt with that on Live From The Underground and I vowed not to deal with that again.

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