--- title: "Big K.R.I.T.’s ‘M.I.S.S.I.S.S.I.P.P.I.’ closes K.R.I.T. Iz Here with a five-minute ode to his home state" url: https://badiyaa.com/big-krit-mississippi-krit-iz-here/ published: 2026-11-12T21:30:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-12T21:30:00+00:00 section: Entertainment publisher: Badiyaa --- # Big K.R.I.T.’s ‘M.I.S.S.I.S.S.I.P.P.I.’ closes K.R.I.T. Iz Here with a five-minute ode to his home state Big K.R.I.T.'s M.I.S.S.I.S.S.I.P.P.I. is the 5:08 closing track of his 2019 album K.R.I.T. Iz Here, produced by Danja and released on Multi Alumni. Big K.R.I.T. saved his loudest statement of home for the very last slot. “M.I.S.S.I.S.S.I.P.P.I.,” the five-minute closer of his 2019 album *K.R.I.T. Iz Here*, spells out his state letter by letter in its title and then spends its runtime explaining what growing up there gave him. The track is the 19th and final song on the album, which arrived on July 12, 2019, through BMG and the rapper’s own Multi Alumni label. At 5:08 it is the longest cut on a 56-minute record. Big K.R.I.T., born Justin Scott, wrote it with Nathaniel Hills, better known as the producer Danja, who also handled the beat. ## A family portrait in the verses The song is less a brag than a family album. K.R.I.T. raps that his father worked on a train and that his mother, the one with “brains,” is now a teacher. He name-checks a grandmother yelling at a kid to stop slamming the doors, an aunt he says he thinks about all the time, wood-grain old-school cars and the hunger for “them dreams and all that.” The emotional center is about his parents. He says he wants to keep lifting them “higher and higher” and buy the biggest house he can find, and he nods to a fellow Southern rapper with the line “That 2 Chainz song was right,” before admitting most things never happen overnight. The hook is the line most fans quote back: he is “so southern I sometimes scare ignorant people’s perception of independence.” It reads as a reply to the assumption that an artist from the Deep South must be signed, managed or packaged by someone else. K.R.I.T. had just spent two albums proving otherwise. ## Why the independence line lands Context makes the boast concrete. K.R.I.T. was signed to Def Jam in 2010 and released *Live from the Underground* (2012) and *Cadillactica* (2014) there, both of which opened at No. 5 on the US albums chart. In July 2016 he announced he and the label had split, after dropping twelve freestyles in twelve hours. His next album, *4eva Is a Mighty Long Time* (2017), was his first on Multi Alumni and still debuted at No. 7. *K.R.I.T. Iz Here* extended that run, reaching No. 16 and pulling in guests including J. Cole, Lil Wayne, Saweetie and Baby Rose. It was also framed as a sequel to his 2010 breakout mixtape *K.R.I.T. Wuz Here*, so closing it with a song about where he comes from completes the loop. The song ends with a joke. Over the fading track, a mock critic gushes about a “lyrical massacre,” wonders aloud whether that was a trumpet, clarinet or saxophone, and then realizes “now we must wait again.” It is a wink at fans who know K.R.I.T. as a careful producer who takes his time between albums. ## Where it sits in a long Southern tradition K.R.I.T. has always worn his influences openly. He has cited UGK, Outkast and 8Ball & MJG as the groups that fill his library, and the soul-heavy, organ-and-horns sound on this closer comes straight from that lineage. Badiyaa recently traced one corner of that history in a piece on [UGK’s “Swishas & Erb” and its Sleepy Brown sample](https://badiyaa.com/ugk-swishas-erb-sleepy-brown-sample/). For another snapshot of Mississippi as a music state, see how [FAMU’s Marching 100 played Jackson State’s homecoming](https://badiyaa.com/famu-marching-100-jackson-state-halftime/) this fall. The wait the outro joked about did end. After *Digital Roses Don’t Die* in February 2022, K.R.I.T. released *Dedicated to Cadalee Biarritz* in 2025, his sixth studio album, still on his own terms. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: K.R.I.T. Iz Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K.R.I.T._Iz_Here) - [Wikipedia: Big K.R.I.T.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_K.R.I.T.) *Image: Julio Enriquez from Denver,CO, USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*