When you’re seeing things nobody else is, it makes perfect sense why you’d seek out other worlds to manipulate. Effortlessly jumping from realm to realm is becoming a feature of north west London rapper Knucks’ approach, driven by his unique way of understanding rhythm and seeing instrumentals. He commands both like Neo from The Matrix, bending the WAV to his will rather than being bound by its constraints.
Over his first three bodies of work – one album, two EPs – Knucks has made different sounds and styles his own, changing their narratives but keeping their essences intact. On 2022’s ‘Alpha Place’, he reimagined UK drill in his own vision, deftly layering in more instrumentation and elements of golden era hip-hop sampling. It wasn’t just a “spin” or “take” on a genre that was surging in popularity; it was world-building.
“When drill first came about, there was something that I just appreciated,” Knucks recalls, speaking to NME over Zoom, avoiding the dreaded dark British winter, and instead opting for the comfort of his home. “It was the flow pattern and how it allowed you to find these different pockets. It was kinda like grime, but just an alternate version of it. It had some sort of African rhythmic swing to it.” The rapper’s version, though, rejected the parts he found dissatisfactory: “Obviously, I didn’t like the fact that all of [the] subject matter had to be one way, and all of the beats had to be one way, so I just changed it. I just took the bits I liked and then made something new with them.”
Three years after that record’s release, Knucks has his sights set on new horizons. At the heart of his second album, ‘A Fine African Man’, is a life-changing year he spent at boarding school in Nigeria. The effect of this year cannot be overstated, but Knucks ruminates on how different things might have been if his parents hadn’t made the decision to send him there.
“It’s a scary thought, but I don’t know if I would’ve gone to uni if I didn’t spend that year in Nigeria, and if I don’t go to uni, then there’s just a lot of things that I’ve learned over the years and a lot of things I’ve experienced that might not have happened. If I didn’t go to Nigeria, I don’t know how hard I would’ve worked to make sure I even got into uni. I may still be living in the same area, ‘cause when I came back from Nigeria, my parents didn’t want me to just be back in the ends, so we moved to Hertfordshire. I don’t know, man. But I just know it wouldn’t be good.”
Sifting through that pivotal year of his life left Knucks with crystallised ideas, but no clear way to turn them into cohesive stories. His love and appreciation for film eventually showed him the way, inspiring some of the narrative strands on the album. On ‘Yam Porridge’ with Tiwa Savage, he chronicles the story of how a serendipitous act of philanthropy would become a life-changing moment for a cook he met while at boarding school. The album is packed with these clever, non-linear twists, like on the slow, meandering symphonies of ‘Cut Knuckles’, which takes its lead from modern British classic Slumdog Millionaire, “in terms of the way the story was told, using the present to tell a story of the past”.
Knucks points to the lyric: “My mixtape brought all the girls to my yard.” “This is now me after ‘Alpha Place’, so I’m sitting in my house and I’m just looking at the washing machine like, ‘Oh, back in the day in Nigeria, I was washing my clothes by hand. Now I own a washing machine because of what my music [has] done,’” he explains. “I used the washing machine to travel back and talk about how when I used to wash clothes by hand, it used to cut my knuckles.”
We may not have heard the stories on ‘AFAM’ so soon had it not been for the musical zeitgeist being dominated by the likes of west Africa’s Afrobeats or the sounds of Gqom from the eastern coast of South Africa. Before turning his attention to some of the continent’s sounds and feelings, Knucks was actually working on an entirely different project.
“I was like a year and a bit into a project with Kenny Beats,” he reveals. “We were maybe 10 songs deep into that, and that’s when I had a meeting with my managers and we had a conversation about African music. At the time, there was a Burna Boy tune, a Rema tune, and these were the biggest songs. So it made sense to go in this direction, as long as I could do it in a way where it’s tasteful and I’m still talking about myself and my journey.”
Working in this world wasn’t entirely new to him. “My dad had an African dance group that he founded; he’d play the drums and other African instruments,” Knucks shares. “I was in the group when I was younger, and I feel like that’s probably where I got my rhythm. Rhythm is just something you get subconsciously, do you get what I’m saying?”
As much as Knucks has always had a nose for a good story, he’s always had a keen ear for production, too. ‘AFAM’ brings that all together in perfect harmony, and the cast that Knucks has assembled is nothing short of extraordinary. It’s the sheer range of expertise that each producer brings that is striking, each a virtuoso in their own right. Swindle is almost like a conductor, writing the melodies for the live instrumentation on the album. TSB has complete mastery of Afrobeats and how to give the drums the right amount of swing, while Venna’s sax and Emil’s infamous drums really help build a world around Knucks’ lyricism.
But it was Beat Butcha in particular that ensured the record still had that signature Knucks feel, even though it had been created in an entirely different world. The producer’s approach of making samples from scratch was key to this and left the rapper stunned. “Obviously, one of my things is the clearance of songs, innit, because my whole sound is based off of sounding like old music,” he reasons. “So, where I’m seeing that he’s making that from scratch, bro, that blew my mind. No matter how African the drums might sound or how whatever this might sound [like], as long as it has an old school sample, it ties it back to what people really know me for.”
Although ‘AFAM’ might be a departure from what some ‘Alpha Place’ fans are expecting, the longtime fans will be able to spot all the hallmarks. Knucks is at a crucial stage of both his career and his life, and at a transition point that many have thought rappers in particular struggle with. The seamless move from ‘Alpha Place’ to ‘AFAM’ shows Knucks is ageing like fine wine, entering his early thirties with finesse and reminding us that truthfulness is the key ingredient.
“It made sense to go in this direction, as long as I could do it in a way where it’s tasteful”
“I think honesty is important – knowing what people like from you and keeping those elements of yourself, but allowing yourself to adapt and being honest about those adaptations,” Knucks shares. “I think what gets people about older rappers is that they just be rapping like they’re still 21. Talk about ageing, talk about the things that you’re realising about your life as you’re getting older.”
Knucks is a generational talent, and it’s his honesty that has continually kept him at the forefront of a genre so prone to vicissitudes. So wherever his music goes next, there’s no doubt that Knucks will continue to evolve gracefully.
Knucks’ ‘A Fine African Man’ is out on October 31 via No Days Off