It’s currently 5 AM in Vegas and I’m chilling in my living room with the Macbook searching for new music. Not your typical night/early morning for someone who lives in Sin City, but it’s where I’m at. And I’m completely in my zone. The Beats are turned up loud and the constant distractions that come with covering hip hop on the web are at a minimum. The perfect time to share an open ear to the potential artists of the future.
Enter KR. An emcee hailing from Los Angeles that has had me in a trance for the last three hours with his recently-released I$0lyf3 2 project. I find myself shaking my head more and more with each track that passes as I should’ve been listening much earlier. For the past month or so I’ve had an open tab with his “Poetic Death 2” video, but never pressed play because I’m absent minded as hell. Finally coming around to it tonight and it turned out to be a definite gem in the massive sea of struggle.
As the 12-tracks play out, the Kendrick Lamar influence is obvious but there’s more to the young emcee. It’s as if someone threw Kendrick, J. Cole and Joey Bada$$ in a pot, sprinkled in some Blu and fueled the outcome with the personal experiences of one Kaalan Rashad Walker.
Comparisons aside, KR is dope. Do yourself a favor and check out the videos and mixtapes below.
