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For
the type of year a guy like Rob KNox has had, it’s amazing
he’s so humble. An Los Angeles native and former college football
standout, the knob turner born Rob Tavross has quickly found himself in
high demand. With a track record that started with Chris Brown’s
“Lottery” and T.I.’s “Dead and Gone,”
Knox has become a full-fledged movement. For an Egyptian cat who grew
up on N.W.A., Dr. Dre and RUN-DMC and didn’t take music seriously
as a career until the end of college, KNox is doing quite alright.
Recently,
rolling out caught up with the man whose latest track,
“Mannequin,” is featured on Britney Spears’ latest
effort, Circus. Knox was able to fill us in on the secret of how he
developed his production skills and why Timbaland fans love to hate
him. –gavin philip godfrey
When did you music first come into music?
In first grade, I started playing the violin and from there, I kind of
developed my ear for melody and stuff like that. And I just fell in
love.
You’re known for your heavy-hitting drums. As a producer first starting out, what did your early music sound like?
I really didn’t have a style, man. When you first start,
you’re just kind of searching for your own creativity. I think
when everyone starts, they just kind of emulate whoever they look up
to. At that time when I first started, The Neptunes were real hot. Of
course, Timbaland was real hot; Dre was real hot. I used to just go and
listen to their beats and kind of emulate them, just kind of copied
them if you want to say. I was trying to figure out what they were
listening to when they were creating.
What is about your sound nowadays that has folks like T.I., Marques Houston and Britney Spears knocking?
I think my sound is just really aggressive and I think no matter what
genre you’re in, you’ll always hear aggressive music–
something that’s just really hitting hard on the drums or
something like that. You just always want some heavy-hitting
drums– something moving. I think that’s the one common
thing that everyone’s looking for.
Indeed.
When I first heard “Dead and Gone,” I assumed it was
produced by Timbaland. As a producer, what is the biggest misconception
about you?
A lot of people that love Timbaland or are on his
jock would say I bite dude. What I tell people is that I don’t
really bite him because if you listen to my tracks, they don’t
sound like any track he’s done. They just sound influenced by
him. It’s like any big hip-hop producer saying that they
weren’t influenced by Dre and they have like the most basic
drumbeat in the world. Everybody has done that. With me, I love the
quirkiness. I like the weird rhythm patterns. That’s just what I
grew up on being Egyptian, looking for weird [sounding] drums and stuff
so that’s just really why my biggest influence is Timbaland.
People hear me and they think “Oh, this guy is biting.”
I’m not biting any specific Timbaland record. I’m just
influenced by [him]. He’s shown me how to take the weird melodies
that I hear in my head and put them out.
