This Kid From Birmingham is the Musical Secret Behind Beyonce, Jay Z and Mary J Blige

Call me an ignorant twat, but when I scan past something like the announcement of a new immigration act in the Metro on my way to work, the impact of what that actually means doesn’t always fully resonate with me as much as it probably should. Then you speak to someone, like me to Jamaican born Knox Brown, who’s lived in the Birmingham since he was 12 and attended university in the UK, and you realise it’s all a bit batshit mental. “I still don’t have my British citizenship,” explains Knox. “I still have my Jamaican passport right now, and I only just got indefinite leave to remain last year. That made it very difficult for me to get any sort of job after uni.”

The 25 year old producer, who shares his name with a late eighties Tennessee tough man boxer, responded to the inability to get himself a normal bill-paying job by just holing up at his mum’s and trying to turn his hobby into a makeshift occupation: making music. That doesn’t sound outrageous in a city that’s booming with young musical talent and initiatives at the moment. It doesn’t really sound outrageous at all until you discover that in 2014, Knox has written, produced and worked on music for Beyonce, Jay Z, Mary J Blige, Aloe Blacc, Jess Glynne, Wretch 32, Emeli Sande and many more, as well as launching an insanely rich song of his own with quarter million plays and counting. So how does a jobless uni graduate in the Midlands become an auspicious global hitmaker?

Brown was born in Kingston before moving to the coastal city of Portmore where he grew up by the beach - the same city to coast journey made by Vybz Kartel - until his mum decided to move the family to the UK, in search of “something better” he says. “Certain memories of Jamaica come back to me,” laughs Knox. “My mum and dad used to host parties in the house, and I used to play little toy xylophones or toy trumpets, and they used to record me doing poetry. I’d just get up and just do it. But in Jamaica music was not a compulsory subject, and budgets meant so many schools had no music rooms. So, it wasn’t until I came to England and went to music lessons for the first time, that I saw the piano and the drum kit, and I just lost my little mind.”

Listening to some of the songs Knox has made recently, from the emulsified piano beat ballad of Mary J Blige’s “Whole Damn Year” (above) to the tropical dance quirks of Wretch 32’s “Blackout,” and chaotic motown sound of his own song “Harry’s Code” - on which he channels all the mystic energy of a dub-stylee Bobby Womack - it’s clear there is a truck load of dimensions to his sound. But there is something indefinable, a common particle, that marries them all, in the same way you can pick out a Timbaland, Dre or Clams Casino beat. Apparently, the team around him call that “Knox Sauce.”

There is explanation for his diverse sound in the abstract ways he first taught himself music. “When I was in year 9, mum bought me a Casio keyboard. It had all the classical songs on it, like Mozart, Bach and all that. What I’d do is I’d learn those songs by heart. I’d listen by ear, and then play it back to myself. And then I would go to school and try to impress the girls in the music lessons. That was the first instrument I taught myself to play."

The origin of the beatmaking aspect in his sound is even more ingeniously basic than that. “My friend had a Playstation and I used to go to his house,” begins Knox. “He was playing this game called Music2000. I was like ‘Wow! That’s how you make beats?’ I got the game, and started replicating the same beats I would hear on Tim Westwood. I remember 50 Cent put out a song called “In Da Hood”, and the beat was made by Dr Dre. I tried remaking it, and that’s what me and my friends would freestyle over all the time. I got really good at replicating what I would hear.”

A quick YouTube search of Knox brings up footage of a young lad on stage at some beat cyphers in Birmingham. Needless to say, he absolutely smashes the two rounds you can still watch online, doling out a charged The Chronic-esque beat that even gets the other producers swallowing their pride to shake his hand. This was a few years ago now, when he was garnering a decent local name for himself, but, in his own words: “people were telling me how much they liked my music but it just wasn’t moving you know? It wasn’t until Wretch heard the beats that things changed.”

Things changed in a huge way. Doing beats for Wretch got him doing beats for Jacob Banks. And doing beats for Jacob Banks is how Jon Platt, the president of Warner/Chappell Music, heard Knox for the first time, apparently bursting out during a meeting: “Who’s the producer?”

“Everything just followed from there, and he met with my management. He only heard three beats, and then when I met him I played him my own personal artist stuff and he was blown away. That’s when I started getting more calls to go to LA.”

Now, you’re just as likely to see Knox walking down Sunset Boulevard as you are down Birmingham’s Main Street, as his time is split between the two. I ask him if it was a culture shock going over there to work with such colossal names? “Yeah man!” he laughs. “You can just be walking down the road and you’ll meet someone. I’m driving round LA, I’m seeing Jonah Hill. I’m in Fairfax and I see Tyler The Creator. You can just jump out the car and talk to these people. I mean, I still get a shock in England when Emeli Sande or Jess Glynne gets on the phone to ring me. It’s just mad.”

Time over there has already been fruitful. Knox has sent beats to Jay Z of which Hov took two for something he’s working on - you do the maths on that. He’s also been in the studio vibing with Timbaland, and when the conversation trail of thought leads me to asking if he’s working with Beyonce, he’s tight lipped: “I had to sign a disclosure, so I can’t talk about that.”

He's also been writing with Harold Lilley (Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Brandy), and let’s not forget his songwriting with Mary J Blige, Emeli Sande and Jess Glynne, and emails on his Instagram from Team Minaj. He’s even working with a Danish band called Lukas Graham, who you might not have heard of, but everyone in Denmark has, because their debut album went four times platinum.

Yet, here I am trying to talk to Knox about his own solo work, and trying to understand how he can launch his own project amidst the Indian summer of songwriting and production. Knox says it's easy, because it's what he loves, but no follow up song since “Harry’s Code” in May suggests otherwise. “It can go both ways,” he explains, “sometimes I’ll make a song for myself, but sometimes I think it would suit someone else better so I’ll pitch the record. Like, I just played one to Jon at Warner/Chappell and he was like ‘Yo! I’m sending it to Pharrell!’ Problem is, I kinda want it for myself again now. That’s how crazy it is. You have to pick and choose.”

The constant throughout Knox’s songwriting, production and solo project, is the personal touches and the trademark pallette. By 2015, “Knox Sauce” is gonna be slathered everywhere, and it can only be a positive thing that such a cultured artist is climbing the ladder of the pop’s commercial landscape. “I think music has become a bit of a bandwagon system,” he states. “Everyone wants whatever is number one. Even the labels are guilty to it. When I’m producing for someone, they’ll ask for something that sounds like whatever is top right now. Imagine if something went to number one with truly conscious lyrics and sound? Then the whole world would start making really conscious music!” It’s a nice thought.

Knox is in the process of putting together his debut EP now, from a selection of hundreds of songs he’s made, and by 2015, I reckon “Knox Sauce” is gonna be everywhere. It can only be a positive thing that such a cultured artist is climbing the ladder of the pop’s commercial landscape. “I think music has become a bit of a bandwagon system,” he states. “Everyone wants whatever is number one. When I’m producing for someone, they’ll ask for something that sounds like whatever is top right now. Imagine if something went to number one with truly conscious lyrics and sound? Then the whole world would start making really conscious music!”

It’s a nice thought. Such is the commercial and commodified clamour of pop’s mainstream, amidst the deafening noise of Band Aid lyrics, industry exploitation, think pieces about what someone’s haircut means to civil rights and stop-the-press stories about richest musicians, I find it heartening to know that a bubbly and talented young kid from Birmingham, who lives music like his religion, has got behind the iron curtain and has a chance to start pulling some strings.

You can follow Joe on Twitter: @cide_benengeli