"I make albums, not hits," snarls Mississippi producer-rapper Big K.R.I.T. over howling electric blues on "Handwriting," stating his case with the kind of tunnel-vision zeal Kanye West reserves for awards-show rants. 4evaNaDay is K.R.I.T.'s eighth mixtape, a self-produced act of defiance while Def Jam endlessly stalls his debut album. He expresses concern about his thick drawl, but you don't have to be "country folk" to be staggered by his flow or truth-telling – he's an Outkast disciple who can't make an ode to sipping drank ("Down N' Out") without dissecting the self-medication of the "have-nots."

Listen To Big K.R.I.T.'s "4evaNaDay (Theme)": 

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.