It was curated from the 40+ tapes that Boothe's released on his Bandcamp page in the past four years (including at least seven from 2013), clearly assembled by someone familiar with the best of Knx.’s catalogue. While it eschews the pop remixes that might entice listeners in favor of deeper cuts, its 53 short pieces (most falling between one and two minutes) provide a fine introduction to an enormous, if capricious, talent.
Knx. rejects the free release schedule that so many in the hip-hop community have embraced, which is likely the reason he remains relatively obscure - his bandcamp mixes, at $5 a pop, are out of your standard internet-comber’s price range. But while post-Dilla beatmaking fervor has reached its highest point, there’s certainly room to be made for a producer steeped in the history of black music and still with it enough to put out remixes of Drake, Miguel, and Danny Brown.
The tracks on Anthology don't make it as easy for sample-spotters as on some of Knxledge's past releases. For every Jadakiss ad-lib, every Illmatic skit, there’s an unrecognizable treatment of Camp Lo’s “Luchini AK (This Is It)” or a magical horn salvo like the one on “Pho”. Creating collages from the unfamiliar helps to show the fallacy in thinking of this kind of music as unoriginal, while also adding to Knx.’s legend as a prodigious crate-digger - a snippet from an episode of "What’s Happening" on “Rude” is a perfect find for the track’s dreamy mix. Just as attractive is the beatmaker’s lack of snobbery: one of the best tracks here “[Lets]TalkAbtit” samples liberally from Tori Kelly, an amateur artist best known from America’s Most Talented Kids, and later on, “TooKlose[latensi]” is a remix of Next’s famous warning.
