We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Knocka P. a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Knocka thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
My most meaningful project I have worked on has to be my latest single FATBOY (MILKYWAY). I am very proud of this track because its a track that is %100 original. around the time i made the beat i was dependent on finding instrumentals from youtube and leasing beats which conflicted with royalties and sync opportunities. So I made a decision to start making my own beats and cut the middle man completely. I made the beat for FATBOY late 2022. I am on a learning curve as of now i am learning both the business and technical sides of the game. Before I started my LLC luxury over limitations i would get too excited and drop music on platforms that wasn’t ready to be dropped. After learning more and understanding the importance of quality over quantity and the importance of intellectual property and having copywrites, owning your masters, and owning your publishing. The title FATBOY. is a nickname for my youngest son. He is on the intro and outro of the track screaming FATBOY! I am extremely proud to have my wife on the interlude section of the song, my eldest son on the second verse, and my youngest daughter on the med way point of the song (interlude section). Having my Family be apart of my dreams is Amazing. Having my Family want to be part of my dreams is a even better feeling.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am Knocka P. Born Andrew Powell in Portland OR 1992. My voyage with music started at a young age. My grandmother had a piano in her house when i was a toddler thats my first memory of making music. As I grew, my love for music grew, my creativity also grew more curious and fearless. I got a keyboard one year… i had to been like 10 or 11, i constantly played on it, learned how to make beats on it and would spend hours making beats, and i would also write poetry so one plus one equals 2, i found a old tape recorder and recorded my very first songs. I continued making beats writing lyrics and recording tapes. freshman year of high school my cousin Nature moved from the south to live with us. we started a group called the 90s Babies. we were going to record at recording studios, doing shows almost every weekend, meeting a lot of rappers we listened to since we was kids, we had a manager / promoter that ended up scamming us for some money later on. things were moving fast probably too fast. not only that but we were so young and actually ghetto celebrities (local celebrities)(Spokane WA) and didnt know how to market ourselves our brand our anything. By the time I was 17 I ran away from home with my now Wife and got a one bedroom apartment, at that time she was going to college and I got kicked out of every high school alt school…. i did a ged program called youth builders part time construction part time ged class. gave me a income so it was nice. the 90s babies were still doing shows. my wife even got us a paid gig at her college. I was still making beats on a run down computer in our appartment…. then my wife got pregnant with our first child our oldest son. I was so scared, and excited at the same time. I got a full time job in no time as a line cook. I was 19 when my son was born. after my son was born (2011) my cousin and business partner and the other half of the 90s babies get sentenced to 10 years in prison. my wife and I moved around a lot through the years living with different family members of ours. Found a 2 bed apt Portland OR) had 2 beautiful baby girls by 2015 we had been wrongfully evicted and forced into homelessness. Now we have 3 kids and no where to go. weve exhausted our welcome with family in the area(that was actually crazy, famliy kicking you and your kids out on the streets) weve slept in our car we went from shelter to shelter, through all of this not one day went by that i didnt write to a beat and record it on my phone. i was posting songs frequently on my soundcloud, at this point in my life music became my outlet, my therapy. a way out of the reality we were facing at the time. By 2018 we moved to Seattle WA with my aunty she help us get into a shelter that actually helped families find permanent housing. My 4th Child was Born in this shelter (FATBOY) By 2019 we got a place but it was transitional so we were on a time limit to find actual housing literally the month that we were about to get kicked out we found a place and have been living there since. now we are comfortable, we have stability, and we are in a great area to raise children, my wife and I had one more baby girl (2021) to complete the pack. It is at this point when i start taking my music more seriously. i bought recording equipment and software and started dropping songs and every single platform instead of just youtube and soundcloud, im everywhere spotify, apple music, deezer, iheart radio, pandora, tiktok, instagram, snap, facebook, amazon music. you name it you will find me there getting royalties. i was still buyuing beats form youtube, i didnt know these guys or how to get a hold of them if opportunities present themselves i would like to be ready to accept anything coming my way without having to track down some random guy that made the beat. I wanted all my creative royalties so i just started making my own beats, not to say im not open to collaborate, i just want it to be a real experience between artists not an exchange online. that might make me old school but whatever. now that im able to really buckle down i am on a learning voyage learning about mixing and mastering techniques, learning frequencies and which frequencies are more annoying to the human ear, to get that out of any mix. with that every song that i drop, your getting a sharper sound and overall better quality master each time because im constantly evolving to give a bigger and better sound to the listener each and every time, while i learn my family also learns. Having my family bring there talents to the picture is a huge part of me and my music. my family is in pretty much every single music video ive dropped rather it was recorded on the phone or professionally shot. my family will always be involved. on the flip side learning marketing and all the actual business stuff is a whole other beast right. but im also constantly learning all of that too. its hard to find a balance between working full time, being a husband, a father, a business owner, a producer, a photographer, a promoter,… all of these things. the list goes on. sombody has to do it right. Ive put together a solid foundation for the legacy i will leave behind for my family, we will lay a brick each day and work hard, take our time to do it right, have fun, stay freely creative and live a prosperous life.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
yea im reading now start your own business by the staff of entrepreneur media, inc
this book helps me learn business practices. literally anything you need to know to start and run a business is in this book
slight edge by jeff olson
this book is all about habbits good and bad ones and how they shape your reality today
the winner with in by pat riley
this book is all about mental game. believe in your self.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I wish i could say its money. but its not… lol… music has always been apart of me. the most rewarding aspect at this point is being able to own all my masters and owning my publishing. this is the intellectual property that will one day grow in value and further build our legacy
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealknockap/
- Twitter: https://x.com/knocka_p
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCuFYqTtJmIddnmMxl3tVp8A?si=nhmZKTUI1kU9oJnC
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/knockap
