The Knux Music Group

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.