Big K.R.I.T. asks us to call him a King Remembered in Time – a king who pays homage to royalty who’ve come before him. Among those giants who came before K.R.I.T. is Outkast.

The beauty of Outkast is the group’s appeal to the playa and prophet that lives in us all. Indeed, there is a spirit inside many that acknowledges and appreciates “pimpin’ hoes and slammin’ Cadillac doo’s,” but there’s a longing in fewer that craves a more permanent gratification. `Kast’s gift is how Big and `Dre masterfully engage in that conversation time and time again. Because let’s face it, sometimes you want to be challenged and inspired to do better and other times you just want to shake your ass. There’s been an enormous void in those who straddle and cross that line since the group took a sabbatical after releasing Idlewild’s soundtrack in 2006.

With that said, (as Freddie Gibbs recently said) Big K.R.I.T. is doing a masterful job of filling that void and we expect nothing less on February 20 when he releases his next project, a concept album/mixtape called 4EVA N A DAY.

But don’t take my word for it. Let the music do the talking. Here are some of K.R.I.T.’s songs showing respect to ‘Kast, with the OutKast companion pieces:

Get Right

Player’s Ball:

Rise and Shine (Note: the lyric “get up get out and get something” occurs around the 13 second mark in both Rise and Shine and Git Up, Git Out.):

Git Up, Git Out:

Return of 4 eva (“Forever, forever, ever, forever, ever?”):

Ms. Jackson:

–J. Locke