“It’s rare to find someone that you can connect with musically on this level, because your thing is your thing,” said singer Aloha Mischeaux. “And I’ve been doing my thing by myself on my own for a long time.”
Individually, she and rapper Rockwell Knuckles have had the local music scene’s stamp of approval for several years now.
She was a top 32 finalist for “American Idol,” the recently defunct television show that enjoyed cultural phenomenon status at the height of its popularity.
He was a runner-up for the DTP Madness hip-hop competition presented by Hot 104.1 FM and rapper Ludacris’ Disturbing Tha Peace record label.
Both have enjoyed radio hits and received national buzz for their respective solo work, but a chance encounter while working on a television project would change the course of their musical direction by creating an intersection.
The television show never managed to take off, but the silver lining came in the form of the creative partnership that they say came together organically about a year-and-a-half ago. Their natural chemistry compelled them to go into the studio and make songs – and they never stopped. They soon joined forces as the duo The Knuckles.
The past 18 months they’ve created more than 200 songs. They released the album “Set One” last year. “Set Two” is being finalized for an early spring release.
“The stuff I’m making with Aloha is so powerful because I don’t have to slow down for her,” Knuckles said. “The level of making music I’m trying to attain is easier because I’m doing it with her.”
The work of The Knuckles sounds absolutely nothing like their respective solo work. It’s almost as if they are coming from a place of oppositional defiance when it comes to making music that fits into a format conducive to radio airplay – or a particular genre in general.
On one track she might be singing with a cadence usually reserved for rap. On another track, he might be singing. Regardless of how anti-industry the music comes across, the sound they’ve teamed up to create raises the bar of expectations and potential for them as artists – who have joined forces to create something completely left of what is expected from them individually.
“We’re throwing stuff at the wall and just seeing what works,” Mischeaux said. “For the first time, I didn’t have to fit into a radio format, a box, a skirt or a certain hairdo. I was just myself all the way and it was just so easy. I’m in a group with somebody that I don’t have to explain myself to. It’s just a certain feeling that I feel we have in our music.”
That feeling can best be described as creative freedom.
“There’s no box or formula, but it works,” Knuckles said.
Last year they took The Knuckles on the road playing festivals and were featured on several local shows – most recently rapper Tef Poe’s Poefest last month at Delmar Hall.
They also recently released a video for their song “Ugly People.”
“The song looks at people going at things for the wrong reasons,” Knuckles said. “Some people are chasing things to show off how beautiful they are to everybody to hide how ugly they are inside.”
He calls their songs lighthearted mission statements.
“We’re not being preachy, but we are representing what we feel,” Knuckles said. “We just want to have a consistent amount of content to push out because we want people to get emotionally attached to what we have to offer.”
She hopes that through listening to what they have created, it will encourage others to liberate themselves as well.
“Do not conform. You are enough – you are definitely enough, but only if you believe it,” Mischeaux said. “I want to do some great [expletive] and I think I’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg. It’s beyond music. It’s a feeling. And that can translate to so many things.”
He knows that not everyone who rocks with them individually will be down for the ride of The Knuckles, but hopes they all will at least be inspired by what their new partnership represents.
“You don’t want in, we understand,” Knuckles said. “But we’ll continue to have fun, laugh at ourselves when we fall – and try to learn how to fly.”
The Knuckles can be on social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @theknucklesband. For more information on the group, visit www.theknuckles.net.
