TSS Presents Fifteen Minutes With The Knux

"Fifteen Minutes With..."    By TSSCrew on November 20, 2008 at 10:35 am

Real talk…I didn’t know how my interview with Krispy Kream and Rah Almillio, the siblings collectively known as The Knux, was going to go. Usually, an artist’s music is indicative of their personality (or lack thereof). But musically, the duo from New Orleans is refreshingly unpredictable. For many Hip-Hop interviews, I chug a shot of espresso and brace myself for yet another drug kingpin-turned-rapper background story.

Not so with The Knux. Their self-produced debut album, Remind Me In 3 Days, is in stores now (courtesy of Interscope Records) and it’s just as colorful as my Q & A session with them turned out to be. Growing up in the gritty hood of N’awlins, The Knux listened to a diverse mix of rappers like Nas, Mobb Deep, Wu Tang, A Tribe Called Quest, Geto Boys and 8-Ball & MJG. To lure them away from the ever-influential streets, Krispy and Al’s mom enrolled them in their middle school’s marching band where they learned how to play instruments. The young brothers may not have stayed out of trouble, but they did hone musical abilities that would prove invaluable later on. Live guitars, bass, keys and drums play a heavy role in The Knux’s funky and futuristic beats; a perfect backdrop for their inventive lyrics.

So here’s the chat that I, Khalid Strickland of the Almighty TSS Crew, recently conducted with The Knux, who have earned a spot in my coveted, tough-to-crack MP3 rotation.

TSS: What would you like to accomplish with Remind Me In 3 Days?

Rah Almillio: Hopefully some more artists behind us will have the courage to do what they want to do with their music and not have no outside influences changing their shit; whether it’s the label or cats you hang with or whatever it may be. Basically, open the lane for more creative artists who want to do what they want to do. If we got to bear the burden for that…if we got to sacrifice album sales, you know what I mean? That’s basically what we want this album to be. Just that bridge for Hip-Hop cats and other genres. We have such a large buffet of different sounds on this album.

TSS: What can the uninitiated expect to hear on this album?

Rah Almillio: Really, you can’t expect nothin’ but what you could know is it’s gonna be some original shit. It’s some shit that’s going to bend your mind a little bit. It’s going to be some hard, hard, hard; our rhymes are something serious on there. We like…jump in the stars on our rhymes, you know what I mean? And you can find some very heavy production; not the beats, but like, production on a whole…some good songwriting. This album in particular is going to be the soundtrack of two hood motherfuckers from New Orleans being in Hollywood and adapting to the Hollywood atmosphere, so that’s what the album is about.

TSS: When did you guys start playing live instruments and what inspired you to do so?

Rah Almillio: Real, real young…as fuckin’ kids in middle school. And our mom started us playing these instruments because…In New Orleans, let me explain this to you, if your kids don’t really have nothing to do, they’re going to probably wind up selling drugs or fuckin’ shooting somebody. That’s just real and that ain’t even me over-exaggerating that. So my mom, she comes straight from the projects.

My mom is a good, good hood motherfucker so she knows she never wanted her children to be like the motherfuckers she knew when she was coming up, you know? So she put us in that shit early; in a marching band in middle school to keep us out of trouble and shit. It ain’t really work, but she tried the best she could to keep us out of trouble. So it was our mother who basically got us into playing instruments and shit like that. Playing in a jazz band and stuff like that, it’s not really a big deal in New Orleans because it’s a known thing. You got cats in the hood all day that’s like crazy on trumpet and all types of instruments. It’s like the norm in New Orleans to play an instrument.

TSS: Since Black folks pretty much invented and pioneered Rock & Roll, why don’t we acknowledge it the way we should? Why do niggas act like they’re scared of guitars? They see somebody pull a guitar out and they start buggin’.

Krispy Kream: I’m glad you said that, dog, because nobody…

(Almillio tries to cut in with a response)

Krispy Kream: Nah, lemme get this (laughs). I let you talk for a minute, lemme get this one. This is why, dog…Khalid, this is why, dog. Niggas let this White media, this multimedia, make them think they’re supposed to be a certain way. Before there was even Hip-Hop…we just started listening to Hip-Hop; it became mainstream in the mid-90’s. Even when I was growing up gangsters didn’t even used to listen to Hip-Hop. Them niggas used to listen to old Funk and shit; Gap Band and shit, you know what I’m sayin’? Niggas didn’t even wear like, big jeans and shit; them niggas wore like Bally’s and shit like that.

That shit kills me when they like, “Man, that ain’t no thug shit.” So you’re a thug ‘cause you got a big T-shirt on? Niggas will knock your fuckin’ head off in New Orleans if you think that’s the only thing that classifies you to be a thug; ‘cause of the way you dress. Niggas don’t want to do nothing that they think another nigga’s gonna look at them and think they’re funny for doing it. They wait ‘til somebody else do it and they think it’s cool then. Look at some of the shit that niggas do now, think about it. Niggas used to talk about me and Al (saying), “Aw, why ya’all got them small T-shirts on?” Now everybody got Ed Hardy T-shirts on. Everybody got chains around their waist.

Rah Almillio: You said it right. It stems from the media and shit. They fell into the trap of them personifying us as something else. You look at the transition Michael Jackson made from the Jackson 5. They were just making soul music, like soul fuckin’ funk. Finally he broke out of that; he saw something even bigger than that. But back then, didn’t nobody knock them for it because it just is what it is. But now if something like that was to happen, niggas would be like, “Man, what the fuck? You doin’ some White shit?” The reason is it’s just a reverse psychology sort of thing. Anything forward moving or outside of a box is considered not Black or urban, and that’s kind of like self-hatred in a sense.

There was an interview where me and my bro was speaking. My brother got a heavier New Orleans accent than I do, na’mean? But I speak a little clearer sometimes. And I can remember the interviewer (said), “Yeah, I like the way the other one talks, ‘cause he doesn’t sound like he’s (White).” Basically, I’m talking White because… you kind of get what I’m sayin’? The whole thing is promote negativity and anything positive is White. Think about that concept; it’s a reverse psychology. Anything that’s positive is White. Anything that’s forward moving is White. Any remote intelligence to it is White.

Krispy Kream: I heard a muthafucka say hood niggas don’t be fuckin’ with Common. Mostly White people fuck with Common. What? I’m like what kind of dumb shit is that? Nigga, I’m straight from the block and I fuck with Common 24-7. That’s my dude and Common is hood; good and fuckin’ hood, dog. I fuck with this dude. But he’s a grown man… he ain’t ‘bout to portray that shit. He got kids and shit, that man ain’t about to portray that shit out in the public. The difference from when we were growing up ‘til now, dog… niggas was hood cats but they grew up and became grown men. Nowadays, niggas is hood and they stay in the hood; they be like 35 still personifying dumb shit they was doing when they was like thirteen. You know what I mean, dog?

TSS: I understand exactly what you mean.

Krispy Kream: They be in their second childhood for real, we’re like, “Dog, you’re 35. You ain’t gutter, you ain’t hood, you ain’t no thug. You’re a fuckin’ executive. “I hustle.” Nigga, you hustle? Nigga, you a fuckin’ executive.

Rah Almillio: (Laughs) At the end of the day it’s a reverse psychology sort of thing. They do that to all of our shit, though. You can’t blame White people; it us, dog. Yeah, I’m glad that you brought that up, dog. Little Richard was one of the first heavy, heavy real influencing muthafuckas, you know? He ushered that shit in; raw energy and not having structured, polished songs where everything had to be intact. He was just freestyling it, whylin’. That’s just in our nature as Black people… we free-spirited people. But like somewhere it got reversed. I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere it got reversed. It became a White thing to do if you do Rock.

Krispy Kream: Lemme tell you something, dog. In one of our interviews, the dude said everybody compares us to Bill Cosby; that we make some Bill Cosby-like statements.

TSS: Huh?

Krispy Kream: ‘Cause the shit be true. We say shit like, “Why is it White shit to be smart and free-thinking?” Why does it have to be White? So Black people are dumb? This is what I never get about artists. They call rappers who don’t do gangsta rap conscious rappers. So what are the other rappers, unconscious? Like, what the fuck?

TSS: That brings me to my next question, as far as labels and categories and stuff like that. How do you guys feel about getting tagged with the “hipster” label? Actually, how do you guys feel about being labeled at all?

Rah Almillio: You can know from just talking with us, dog. Labels… I’m not going to bitch about it ‘cause at the end of the day it’s like, if I bitch about it I’m kind of owning the fact that I’m a hipster or some ol’… whatever label they’re trying to put on us. I don’t even pay attention to it, dog. ‘Cause at the end of the day, the music is gonna speak for itself. But I will say this… it’s an ignorant statement if you label somebody by self-image. Now what I’m saying is, if you label “hipster rap” by saying “somebody in tight jeans,” what would you label the when the whole button-up era was in? “Executive rap?” What would you call that? We got to stop being so intoxicated with shit like that. Don’t get me wrong, I hate bullshit. I hate garbage music and that’s how I am. But I never, ever judge any style of music before I heard it. I’ve never done that before in my life. People, it’s like…they’re not listening.

Krispy Kream: They’re looking at the clothes and shit, dog.

Rah Almillio: I think the Knux is nothing like The Cool Kids. The Cool Kids ain’t nothing like Wale. Wale is nothing like Lupe. Lupe ain’t nothing like… all of it’s different. If you actually listened, it’s all different. It’s Hip-Hop. But the thing is, over the last six years, gangsta rap became Hip-Hop. So you’ve got to understand. That was two different things at one point. Gangsta rap and Hip-Hop was two different things. But now gangsta rap has become Hip-Hop. So anything outside of that is not Hip-Hop now; that’s what’s happening right now. If you ain’t talkin’ about kilos on the floor, lying about coke and shit like that, it’s not Hip-Hop.

If you remember back in the day, we was against that shit. Like, if the nigga come up talking about some shit and he ain’t lyrical, and he talkin’ about some crack and shit, we’d be like, “Son, you got to get the fuck out the cipher.” But now, it’s the other way around. You come lyrical and it’s like, “Man, look at these corny-ass niggas. He ain’t talkin’ about no real shit, he’s talkin’ about lyrics and shit.” Ummm….. that’s the purpose of Hip-Hop, lyricism and shit like that, you know what I mean? A Canibus? He could not survive these days. It couldn’t exist; that’s the problem.

Basically we are doing Hip-Hop, but we’re just bringing it back to the essence which is… you can have different fuckin’ styles of Hip-Hop and you can have a selection to pick from. You may feel like a Lupe day. I feel I’m in a Knux mood, I want something real genre-bending and I want to fuck with that shit. I want to fuck with Cool Kids, I want to fuck with straight nostalgic and kind of old-school… whatever. But you’ll always have different styles of music to pick from and I think that’s what’s going on right now. And a lot of people are scared of that change.

So they would rather lump it (in one category) and push it to the side before this shit becomes actual Hip-Hop, you know what I mean? It’s that fear of Hip-Hop being this and that’s why they push it off to the side and pass it off as something.

Krispy Kream: They’re scared this shit is going to be all Hip-Hop and there ain’t gonna be no (gangsta/street rap). They think that shit’s gonna be gone. That shit’s gonna still be around, man. All that shit can be on the same plane. We don’t want that shit to be gone. I like Young Jeezy, I’ma tell ya’all out my mouth: I like Young Jeezy. The whole point we mention is everything can exist on one plane. You don’t have to have one thing all day. People just want that monopoly Hip-Hop, as I call it; where one style of music just rules the whole fuckin’ (game). We’ve got to get out this box, man, and just open our minds more. I’m telling you, it’ll free us up to do so much more things in life.

TSS: Ya’all made an appearance on “Entourage.” You have any other plans as far as acting and the Hollywood side of things?

Rah Almillio: Actually, I wrote the treatment for (our video) “Bang Bang.” We have a production company. I think my bro Krispy is definitely going to explore acting. That’s a passion of his that he always wanted to do. I’m definitely into writing films and stuff. But we’ve got a lot of indie films in the works, as we’re speaking right now. Some of them are our music, some of them are comedies, some of them is just weird as shit. But all of them is in the works right now. So we definitely want to get into the film industry like, real big. I want it detached from the music, we’re getting into that. We’ve got two artists that we’re working with on our label; we’re almost finished with both of their albums. It’s two different styles of artists from each other. One of them is standard gangsta rap; he’s bringing some hard-ass shit. We’re talking ‘bout like It’s Dark and Hell Is Hot, DMX’s first album. No jewelry, he ain’t talkin’ ‘bout none of that shit.

Krispy Kream: This nigga’s from one of the poorest places in America… this nigga’s from Flint, Michigan.

TSS: This nigga’s from one of the poorest places in America… this nigga’s from Flint, Michigan.

Rah Almillio: Black Flint. We got different things we’re dabbling with. I started an actual punk band on the side that I’m doing. Me and my brother’s putting an electronica album together that’s not going to be under The Knux. You know what I mean? We got different things we’re getting into early, we don’t want to wait later to start showing all these things.

Basically it’s all about how you market yourself, you know what I mean? If we came out just doing one way and later on we want to start showing these things, people won’t understand it. They’ll say, “What the fuck is The Knux on? Why they doing this and that?” That’s solely on marketing, knowing how to put yourself out there basically. We doing all this shit early in the game.

TSS: Cool. Ya’all were real thorough, I got a nice lil’ interview here. You have any parting shots for the Smoking Section readers out there?

Krispy Kream: Yeah, man. Fuck it… buy the album. You’re gonna have something good there.

Rah Almillio: And be yourself, man. Be yourself. That’s for everybody; journalists, deejays, artists, just do what you want to do.

Krispy Kream: See this Smoking Section interview? This was a real original interview. You came with the questions that people won’t never ask and guess what? I respect you for that. This is probably one of the better interviews I’ve had, dog.

TSS: Likewise, fam. Good lookin’ out.

WATCH – The KnuX – “Cappucino” Video | The KnuX – “Bang Bang” Video

Remind Me In 3 Days is in stores now. For more info, visit www.myspace.com/theknux.

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