Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Big K.R.I.T. Does What He Wants to Do


If your familiarity with The Dramatics begins and ends with their 1971 single "In the Rain", you might wanna do yourself a favor and dig deeper into their catalog. Big K.R.I.T. did, and we're all better off for his endeavors. This year, K.R.I.T. dropped two projects: 1) 4eva N a Day, a mixtape release, and 2) Live from the Underground, his major label debut album. I happened to enjoy 4eva N a Day a bit more; I felt it was a more consistent effort. (Overall, my favorite project of his is still Return of 4Eva.) One of the highlights from 4eva N a Day is the outro track, "The Alarm", which samples The Dramatics' "Do What You Want to Do" off their similarly-titled 1978 LP Do What You Wanna Do. (What's with the spelling differences?!) "Do What You Want to Do" is a cover of "Do What You Want, Be What You Are" (again, what's with the differences!?) by Hall & Oates off the duo's 1976 LP Bigger Than Both of Us (side note: which also features one of my personal favorites, "Rich Girl").



Gorgeous back cover!

The vocal portion that K.R.I.T. splices (at around the 2:50 mark) is fantastic. One thing I love about digging for samples is the attention you've gotta pay to the material. With K.R.I.T.'s production in mind, focusing on that perfect line ("do you believe") conjures up the image of the gut-wrenching emotion to simply sing it out loud. Powerful. Powerfully soulful.





#SOTY2012