40 Fun Facts About Big K.R.I.T.

Big K.R.I.T.'s stage name is a backronym, also the title of his 2013 mixtape, for what phrase?

King Remembered in Time was fitted to the letters afterwards. He first rapped under a longer name and cut it down to four letters before giving them a meaning.

Which string instrument did Big K.R.I.T. play at school, learning to read music long before he made beats?

Cello was his instrument from elementary school through junior high. He has said that being able to read music helped him enormously once he started producing.

Unable to afford beats, a young Big K.R.I.T. made his own on MTV Music Generator for which console?

PlayStation owners got the music sequencer in 1999. He has said he was young, had no job and could not pay for beats, so he taught himself to make them on it.

Which sport did Big K.R.I.T. hope to play professionally before he sold his first beat in the 11th grade?

Baseball came first: he threw a no-hitter to win a state championship in Biloxi. Selling a beat in high school showed him he could earn from music straight away.

Which blues legend, then in his eighties, recorded a guest spot for Big K.R.I.T.'s 2012 debut album?

B.B. King guests on Praying Man, near the end of Live from the Underground. He was 86 when the album came out, some sixty years older than the rapper who produced it.

Big K.R.I.T. wrote Mt. Olympus a day after which rapper named him in a 2013 verse on Big Sean's Control?

Kendrick Lamar called out eleven rappers by name on that verse. K.R.I.T. held his reply back until April 2014, reasoning that an instant answer would not have helped him.

Big K.R.I.T. was born in which Mississippi city, the hometown of country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers?

Meridian was built around railways and manufacturing in eastern Mississippi. K.R.I.T. has said he grew up in the heart of its ghetto and stayed out of trouble by throwing himself into music.

In which room of his grandmother's house did a teenage Big K.R.I.T. record his first songs?

The kitchen became his studio after a local producer handed down some recording equipment, giving him the means to record his own songs for the first time.

Big K.R.I.T. says the title of his 2014 album Cadillactica names what kind of place, standing for his mind?

A planet he invented, Cadillactica is where he says the soul and funk in his music come from. It is the home of the car that crash-lands on Earth on his debut album's cover.

After twelve freestyles in twelve hours in 2016, Big K.R.I.T. announced his split from which major label?

Def Jam had signed him in 2010 and released his first two studio albums, both of which entered the Billboard 200 at number five. He put out his next one independently.

What is Big K.R.I.T.'s birth name, which also titles one disc of his 2017 album 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time?

Justin Scott is the second disc, which opens with a track of the same name. The first disc is titled after his stage name and opens the same way.

Which Atlanta rapper joined the 2011 remix of Big K.R.I.T.'s breakout single, whose video was partly shot in Texas?

Ludacris joined a Texas veteran on the remix, which was nominated for Best Collab at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards. Its video was filmed in Mississippi, Atlanta and Port Arthur.

Big K.R.I.T. produced and guested on I'm Flexin', a 2011 comeback single by which rapper just out of prison?

T.I. made it his first release after an 11-month sentence. It gave K.R.I.T. his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, where the song reached number 66.

Which magazine put Big K.R.I.T. on its 2011 Freshman Class cover beside Mac Miller, Meek Mill and YG?

XXL picks around ten rising rappers for the cover each year, and a place on it is credited with giving many of them their first taste of fame. The 2011 class ran to eleven.

Which hip-hop group featured Big K.R.I.T. on Make My, the lead single from its 2011 album Undun?

The Roots made Undun a concept album that tells one fictional man's short life in reverse. Make My came out a month ahead of it.

Big K.R.I.T. guested on Kush & Orange Juice, the 2010 mixtape by which Pittsburgh rapper he later opened for?

Wiz Khalifa took him out on the Waken Baken Tour that November. The pair were still working together in 2022, on the joint album Full Court Press.

Which rapper put Big K.R.I.T. on the 2013 posse cut 1 Train and called his verse the favourite?

ASAP Rocky pieced the six guest verses together himself and chose their order, wanting a posse cut that felt like a 1990s original.

Big K.R.I.T. plays the church organ in the video for Mayday, a 2012 single by which Christian rapper?

Lecrae released it on Gravity, the first album by a hip-hop artist to win the Grammy for Best Gospel Album. K.R.I.T.'s verse voices his frustration with church hypocrisy.

Big K.R.I.T. is a guest rapper on Side Effects of You, a 2013 album by which American Idol winner?

Fantasia saw the record, billed as rock soul, enter the Billboard 200 at number two. Missy Elliott is its other guest rapper.

Big K.R.I.T. co-headlined the 2011 Smoker's Club Tour with Curren$y and which member of the Wu-Tang Clan?

Method Man shared the bill for six weeks that autumn. The first Smoker's Club show had been a showcase in Austin during SXSW, and K.R.I.T. played that one too.

Big K.R.I.T. was among the producers of Return of the Trill, a 2018 solo album by which Texas rapper?

Bun B also gave him a guest spot on the record. The two had history: the Texas rapper appeared on both of K.R.I.T.'s first two studio albums.

Whose 2012 album Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors features Big K.R.I.T. on the song Gossip?

Big Boi put him on Gossip alongside UGK, pairing the Mississippi rapper with one of the acts he names as an influence.

Big K.R.I.T. guests on Brimstone, a track from the 2014 album Hood Billionaire by which Florida rapper?

Rick Ross released Hood Billionaire only eight months after Mastermind, as his second album of 2014. He had already rapped on a song from K.R.I.T.'s promotional week that March.

Which North Carolina rapper guests on Prove It, a track from Big K.R.I.T.'s 2019 album K.R.I.T. Iz Here?

J. Cole and K.R.I.T. had been rivals for Best Mixtape at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards, and both were named in the same 2013 call-out verse.

Big K.R.I.T.'s 2019 single Addiction pairs New Orleans star Lil Wayne with which California rapper?

Saweetie was two years on from her debut single, Icy Grl, when the collaboration came out. It arrived less than three weeks before the album.

Which R&B singer and producer joins Big K.R.I.T. on Soul Food, a single from his 2014 album Cadillactica?

Raphael Saadiq also produced the track. It marked a change for K.R.I.T., who had made every beat on his debut album himself.

Which R&B singer features on 1999, a Big K.R.I.T. single that borrows from Guy's Piece of My Love?

Lloyd is the featured voice on the track, which went to urban radio in February 2018 as the fourth single from 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time.

Which fellow Southern rapper guests on Big K.R.I.T.'s self-produced 2011 mixtape Return of 4Eva?

David Banner, raised in Jackson, is also among the influences K.R.I.T. names. Rolling Stone ranked the mixtape the 32nd best album of 2011.

In 2012 Big K.R.I.T. confirmed he was planning a joint album, Country Cousins, with which fellow Southern rapper?

Yelawolf had shared a magazine's 2011 Freshman cover with him, and both rapped on the same 2013 posse cut. The joint album was never released.

Asked in 2012 to name his favourite rappers, Big K.R.I.T. began with which Houston veteran of the Geto Boys?

Scarface was the only solo artist he named. The rest of his answer was three Southern acts: Outkast, UGK and 8Ball & MJG.

Which mash-up producer made the 2022 album Full Court Press with Big K.R.I.T. and two other rappers?

Girl Talk had not released a full album since All Day in 2010. He recorded the three rappers together over several days in a Los Angeles studio.

After leaving his major label, Big K.R.I.T. launched which imprint of his own in 2017 for his third album?

Multi Alumni released 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time in partnership with BMG, and the independent album still reached number seven on the Billboard 200.

Which former G-Unit Records president signed Big K.R.I.T. to a major label deal in 2010?

Sha Money XL made the signing one of his first priorities as a new senior A&R executive. He was later credited as an executive producer of the mixtape 4eva N a Day.

Which independent label, founded by Jonny Shipes and later home to Joey Bada$$, signed Big K.R.I.T. in 2010?

Cinematic Music Group shared the release of his first two studio albums with a major label. Its founder flew to Mississippi with a camera crew in January 2010 to film a video with him.

Which outside producer made Life Is a Gamble, the only beat Big K.R.I.T. did not produce on his 2013 mixtape?

9th Wonder was the one exception on a tape K.R.I.T. had said would let other producers in. In the end he made every other beat himself.

Big K.R.I.T. released a new single in 2020 on the soundtrack of which long-running sports video game series?

Madden NFL 21 carried his song Kickoff among 18 tracks by artists including Anderson .Paak and Denzel Curry, and its soundtrack was released in August 2020.

Which Houston rapper featured Big K.R.I.T. on Coming Down (Every Town), the first single from his 2013 album Boss Life?

Slim Thug shared the single with Kirko Bangz and Z-Ro too, and K.R.I.T. is also credited among the producers of Boss Life.

Which music site gave Big K.R.I.T.'s mixtape Return of 4Eva a score of 8.2 and its Best New Music tag?

Pitchfork reviewed the free download three weeks after its release, and the site later gave it an honourable mention among the best albums of 2011.

Under what longer stage name did Big K.R.I.T. first brand himself before shortening it to four letters?

Kritikal was how he branded himself when he started out. The shorter version came first, and the meaning attached to its letters came later.

Big K.R.I.T. co-produced Long Story Short, a 2023 single by Lil Wayne and which Georgia rapper?

2 Chainz and Lil Wayne put the song on Welcome 2 Collegrove. K.R.I.T. shares the production credit with Mannie Fresh and Juicy J, over a Project Pat sample.