For decades, rap music in the American South has been dominated by the big cities of Atlanta and, to a lesser extent, New Orleans, with a special nod to Houston and Miami. But as hip-hop has aged, its footprint has grown into the suburbs and also small towns like Meridian, Mississippi, and Snow Hill, North Carolina. The former is the hometown of Southern rap’s current symbol of consistency, Big K.R.I.T., who has spent the past decade grinding like an independent artist (despite a Def Jam deal) and cranking out music that set his thoughtful, drawled rhymes against beats as durable and dependable as the mighty Mississippi River. If you made a list of 2019’s best hip-hop albums, K.R.I.T.’s newest effort K.R.I.T. Iz Here would be on it. by Ben Salmon