Big K.R.I.T. - Sookie Now (feat. David Banner)

I got to see my second favourite hip-hop artist (Kanye's #1) last night at Fortune Sound Club in Vancouver. The night started with lots of drinking and blazing, culminating in me and a buddy pissing next to some dumpster in some alley. BOOM. Out of nowhere comes the po-poo. After a brief lecture about how stupid we are, the ridiculous fines ($250 each!), and a background check that brought up a prior for myself doing the same thing (another story, another day) he just let us apologize and we got off with a warning. Phew! Now the night could really get going.

So we get in and there's a DJ playing some good hip-hop (the Throne, 3-6 Mafia, etc.), except like every 3 seconds the sound fades out. We're just like "weird, but whatever it's different..." Then it got really annoying and the crowd was clearly not digging it and started calling out the DJ. Next this dude gets up onstage and claims that a power outage earlier in the day has fucked up the sound system. Oh FUCK! So they turn off the system to let it reset for about 5 minutes. This was the longest 5 minutes of the crowd's night as we anxiously awaited for the hopefully fixed sound system. After some acapella freestyling and clapping and shit the sound booted back on and sounded perfect! Back in it, close to 11pm and the show can finally get going. 

Some guy named Tito came out first and was quite good. Played some solid tunes with good beats. He also had some pretty good lines/disses and was just truly stoked to have the chance to perform what he loves doing. Up next was Casey Veggies, a guy who 2 of my friends I went with had seen here as the headliner not 2 months earlier. So we're in good hands as C.V. blazes through a hot set. He played some new stuff and I was definitely digging it. Overall good but still not the reason why I, as well as the rest of the crowd, was there.

Midnight strikes and within a few minutes Big K.R.I.T. is finally on the stage. Holy Fuck was he ever worth the wait. K.R.I.T. came out full blast, spitting rhymes like his life depended on it and instantly had the crowd so into it and going nuts. He played tons of shit I knew and a great mix from his newest studio album as well as stuff from his older mixtapes. Highlights included "Me And My Old School", chants of "Fuck these haters and fuck these hos" (always fun to do in a crowd), a furious "I Got This", "Country Shit", the classic "Hometown Hero", an incredible, emotional and WOW moment during "The Vent" and the insane closer "Time Machine" where K.R.I.T. said "Oh shit almost forgot this one". Also the song of the day, "Sookie Now" was an early favourite for me that I was stoked to hear. Just a sick beat and good pump up song. Plus he brought along Big Sant who was sick and rapped along with him on several tracks.

So I have loved Krizzle since the first time I listened to his mixtape, Return Of 4eva. His beats that he makes himself are fucking insane and he has just sick flow in his rapping. So I was pumped going into the show (my first hip-hop show at a small venue. I watched the Throne, and then saw others at music festivals such as Brother Ali, Mos Def, Childish Gambino, and K'naan). And wow, just wow, Big K.R.I.T. was just sooo good. He went so hard for every song, played a great mix of all his stuff, brought it down for some quiet, more emotional stuff like the brilliant, aforementioned "The Vent" and then brought it up for major pump up songs to get the entire crowd bumpin' and sweatin'. He even did a stage dive right into my 2 friends, Nate and Avandi, who claim he did so cuz they were singing every song and just going nuts. Awesome. I have absolutely nothing but good things to say about this show. Here's just a very brief taste of that show:

Big K.R.I.T. - The Vent

And here's a great performance of his best performance from that show:

So this was show number 4 of 4 that I went to over the past 10 days. And it was my favourite. Florence put on a hell of a show and was fucking awesome but Big K.R.I.T. was beyond amazing and truly had a 'moment' of a show, something that the whole crowd felt as well. The whole rest of the night we couldn't stop talking about the show... something that simply didn't happen with Florence. Just wow, truly incredible.