Don't Judge a Book - Judge His Rhymes

The Q at Parkside is proud to present to the un-hip-hop of y'all Mr. Kirk Knight, who grew up using the Q at Parkside as his home train. With Joey Bada$$ he's a founder and part of the gigantic crew called Pro Era. Despite their, um, unfortunate Nazi looking logo, they're pretty fantastic rappers. Below is a remarkable video - BBC1. Who the hell is that DJ? He's playing these weird grooves and they're "free-styling" over it. (To the uninitiated, free-styling has a little improv but it's mostly rehearsed lines in new contexts. I know, I know if you're too old you probably don't think much of this, but it's incredibly skillful and literate and the Obama daughters like it! Just think for a minute about how much incredible wordplay and vocabulary is involved, even if it ain't your thing. Check it out:



Right? So maybe you think you know what these kids are like in person (after all they wrote a hilarious, if not age appropriate, stoner anthem - School High), but here's the more likely character of Kirk Knight, from an interview with him.

In Flatbush, I can only talk about my side of Flatbush. I lived all in Parkside and that, and there’s two types of Flatbush: There’s the whole Flatbush money-violence-drug shit, and then the Flatbush where we have those aesthetics, but we bring something totally different. People look at me and think, “Oh, he’s about to rob me,” and I really do get that because people do say I look like that, but in all actuality, I’m one of the nicest guys, and I’m one of the most knowledgeable guys, at least in terms of just thinking, because I think a lot. People judge a book by its cover. I might look like a hood dude, but my mental is totally different.

 His mental is totally different. If only the bad guys wore scarlet letters! Hey, there's a lot fewer of them that you might think.