Bleep

1988 in hip-hop. Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back. N.W.A.’s Straight Outta Compton. Eric B & Rakim’s Follow The Leader. And, on 8th March, the birth of Glen Boothe, the beatmaker now known as Knxwledge.

While Boothe’s new LP is not as hard-sounding as any of the above records, there is certainly a similar old-school sensibility at work here. Many of the samples on 1988 pull from the clean, smooth R&B sound that was knocking about at the time of Boothe’s birth. Tracks like ‘listen’ and ‘awomanslifeislove’ see soulful vocals and slow, sensual grooves floating dreamily across the mix. Knxwledge’s penchant for squelching bass and coasting drum programming also invokes the historical G-funk sound of his adopted home of LA.

Mind you, Knxwledge is no mere revivalist, and he turns these familiar tropes into something fresh and unique on this set of beat vignettes. The way that Knxwledge tones up his productions is distinctly modern, the hazy sheen which cloaks his beats invoking vaporwave and the contemporary beatmaker sound of fellow Stones Throw artists like MNDSGN. There is also great compositional deftness to be found here - take ‘do you’ for instance, a luxurious neo-soul joint which channels The Internet, The Roots and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly (an LP which Knxwledge has a production credit on, of course).

On 1988, his first LP for five years, LA hip-hop producer Knxwledge draws from the genre’s old- and new-schools to create a vibrant and soulful set of beats.