The Knux rebellion
Their onstage look is the first clue that brothers Kintrell 'Krispy Kream' and Al Lindsey like to do things their own way. Their genre-bending sound leaves absolutely no doubt about it.
On a recent fall afternoon, "experimental" hip-hop duo the Knux sidled into a Melrose Avenue vintage clothing emporium wearing matching pairs of skin-tight jeans, Chuck Taylor sneakers and expressions of serious intent. Style is as important as substance to the New Orleans natives -- who have become the most forward face of Los Angeles' burgeoning "hipster rap" scene, whether they like it or not -- and so the two bounded over to a rack of used T-shirts and started rifling through them. Without a word, they disrobed in the middle of the store.
Off went the snug-fitting tees the rapper-producer-multi-instrumentalists had been wearing in favor of "new" T-shirts that looked to have gone through the rinse cycle at least a thousand times. For Kintrell "Krispy Kream" Lindsey: one bearing the logo of '80s punk group the Exploited. And for his brother, Alvin Lindsey (nom de rap: Rah Al Millio, but call him Al), a shirt bearing the slogan "D.A.R.E. to keep kids off drugs."
No sooner had the cashier removed the shirts' electronic shoplifting sensors than the Knux exited the store, looking more like the Strokes than, say, New Orleans rap icons the Cash Money Millionaires, without bothering to pay for their new threads.
"This is us. It's not an image," said Al, pausing to sign a credit-card receipt a clerk had rushed out onto the sidewalk to present him. "We started dressing like this at a time that had nothing to do with music. Me and Krispy, we're some street-ass [individuals]. We caught a case . . ."
"Racketeering, auto theft, tampering with public documents, forgery," interjected Krispy.
"That's just what we got caught for," Al continued. "But we changed our life around, started living differently, traveling. And once our lifestyle changed, the clothes got tighter."
Knuckling down
Call it hip-hop's new shrink-to-fit rebellion. Time was when form-fitting clothing was more antithetical than handcuffs to any tough-talking male rapper worth his fat gold chain. But the Knux, short for "knuckleheads," never cared about fitting into rap's status quo. Which might explain why they are helping change the genre in their own used-clothes-wearing, tight-jeans-rocking image.
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