This California MC is sure of one thing… he ain’t your average Knobody. The Oakland native has been putting in work over the years and has seen his share of ups & downs. Knobody at a point was selling his music at $2 a CD and now has his album Tha Clean-Up due to come out in September. boombox.co.uk had a chance to speak with Knobody on his craft, crew and album.
Evans: Your album, Tha Clean-Up, is dropping this September. Who has dealt with most of the production?
Knobody: I deal with a lot of different producers, but Beathoven did 85% to 95% of the album, and we got a good cohesive relationship. We’ve worked with each other for so long and we get time to get a lot of stuff right. Beathoven hooked me up with a few producers he knew and he put me on. That’s my producer right there, but we’re open minded and prepared to work with other artists.
Evans: How do you feel that Hieroglyphics Crew is a perfect fit for your music?
Knobody: There’s a saying that I coined, “You can make music that makes dollars or music that makes sense.” Its hard to do both, Hiero are making music that makes sense and ain’t fallin’ into the times. You know, like how big my rims are or shooting, stuff like that. When I write it’s about expression… I got songs here and there where I’m talking shit, but I’m mainly about true expression. Hiero are some solid kats and it never felt like they were trying to get over, they took me in with open arms and there stand up dudes.
Evans: So staying with that phrase “…music that makes dollars or music that makes sense.” Do you feel that you touch one side, the other, or both?
Knobody: Sense overall, I ain’t never really had money like that and it ain’t a history for me. I’m Knobody, I’m gonna do me. If I don’t make a dollar off my music, people are gonna know how I feel and that’s enough me for me. But of course, I would like to retire from my music someday…
Evans: You must get this question from the masses, but you got to tell us. What’s the motivation behind the name, Knobody?
Knobody: (Laughs) you’re right, I do get that a lot. JD is what everyone calls me. From the time I was young. My family, my people, everybody… I wanted to run with that name, but you had J Dilla, Jermain Dupri and there’s like a million other kats in the underground with the name JD. It just came to mind one day, Knobody. I feel there are a lot of nobodies hopeful of becoming something. And I knew I could relate to it. I’m a Knobody aspiring to be somebody.
Evans: What are your thoughts on the Underground scene?
Knobody: I listen to kats in both underground and mainstream. There are some not too talented and some talented in both. In the mainstream you hear the same twenty songs so much. When I hear a song for the first time, if I ain’t feeling it, I respect that the artist put time and work into it. Underground is pure to me. But mainstream and underground is a label that somebody came up with to separate us, at the end of it we’re all making music. But I do feel that the fan base is more loyal on the underground.
Evans: For years, you were independently selling your music at $2 a CD and making a living off that. Was it tough?
Knobody: It was a humbling experience. I was selling on Haight Street in San Francisco, California which is probably one of the most diverse places in the world; you’ll find people from everywhere on Haight Street from all backgrounds and cultures. My man has a shop out there and he gave me permission to sell CDs outside of his store. I was doing that for four years and it was a big help where I was doing it from outside his shop, where police would leave me alone because they knew him and knew that I was just selling CDs. I sold CDs to a lot of people and thought I was going to break into the game that way. It was a motivation.
Evans: Being from Oakland, California, your style of flow is different to what some like to label as “West Coast hip-hop”. How would you classify your style?
Knobody: To me I don’t sound south, or east or where ever. But my style of flow is original to myself and I’m capturing a style of my own.
Evans: Supa (one of the songs on Tha Clean-Up) is a wild track. On it you make mention on how life is now and how it should be. Any plans to drop a video for that in the near future?
Knobody: Actually, that’s the next video. Hopefully we’ll get that done by the end of the month or early September when the album drops. Supa is the signature track that set the tone for the rest of the tracks on the album.
Evans: What inspired the track, On My Job?
Knobody: It came together kind of funny; Beathoven and myself knew each other but weren’t working together at the time. He saw me perform and told his group members that we would work together, he just knew it. He got through to my manager and gave him his CD. I eventually went by his studio and heard some tracks and we started recording. We kept pushing and I was listening to a lot of his beats and realized that he had heat. Anyway, we all ended up living in the same place and Beathoven had a studio set up in the living room downstairs and I was upstairs in my studio setup messing around with some music listening to this bass line coming through the floor wondering what he was doing. And as the bass line, was hittin’ I was sayin’ “Oh oh oh oh oh my G*d.” and we just built on that hook.
Evans: On a couple of the tracks on the album, you made references to former pro wrestling superstars like Superfly Jimmy Snuka and The Rockers, did you ever think about pursuing a wrestling career at a younger age before hip-hop?
Knobody: Nah, that’s just stuff we grew up on, you know WWF wrestling. I make a lot of references to a lot of childhood memories and get inspiration from different places and pretty much make a metaphor out of it.
Evans: Any final words you want to leave us with?
Knobody: The album will be coming in September. And I just want to send a few shout outs to Bumpin Music, Beathoven, 2Deep Productions, The Rat Pact, Poe Dis, my man Taz, Butchy and the whole Hiero crew and J Pistol… There are so many, just a big thank you to everybody that’s been supporting me through the years.
