Knucks Flips Pre-Teen Trauma Into Confident Identity on ‘A Fine African Man’

Knucks’ new album, A Fine African Man, is more than a declaration; its acronym spells out the shortened form of his traditional Igbo name. If its titular intent is explicit, there’s a beguiling depth that isn’t all too surprising considering his reputation as one of UK rap’s conscientious voices.

For his sophomore project, the man born Ashley Afamefuna Nwachukwu doesn’t just tap into his Nigerian roots and co-opt influences from contemporary Nigerian pop sounds; the real-life stories of his time(s) in Nigeria and how they’ve shaped him are at the core of AFAM. What listeners will hear is a 13-song project that layers ruminations on identity, the joy of growing older, a colorful sonic palette, and interludes brimming with specificity that make the project fuller.

“Initially, it was kind of traumatic,” Knucks tells OkayAfrica about his first time living in Nigeria. “My parents called me into our living room and they told me that they were thinking about taking me to school in Nigeria, and I just started crying.”

After living his first twelve years in the UK, being uprooted from everything he was familiar with was difficult. The move, spurred by attitude issues in school, didn’t seem too daunting at first – his father and brother were also there for two weeks at his aunt’s house when he came to Nigeria. It was when he was dropped off at boarding school in Enugu, eastern Nigeria, that it dawned on him that things had changed. “I put on a brave face at the time, but not only was I brought to another country, my immediate family [was] gone,” he says.

Like anyone with Nigerian boarding school experience will tell you, it’s a complex situation that can shake up pre-teens in arduous ways. In Knucks’ case, he came in without much context of the Nigerian experience in the first place, which doubled his anguish early in the experience. On “Three Musketeers,” a late highlight on Knucks’ cult classic debut album Alpha Place, he briefly references getting “sent back to Naij,” but only within the context of getting separated from his close friends. There’s a subtle sense that he’d rather have remained where he was born and raised.

The Knucks on AFAM isn’t just accepting of what he went through in Nigerian boarding school; he has parsed those two years in relation to who he is as a person. On the Tiwa Savage-assisted emotional centerpiece, “YAM PORRIDGE,” Knucks recalls befriending one of the cooks in the boarding school, relaying things he learned about her life and how her treatment made life bearable. The narrative is presented as less about sustenance and more of a companionship that left an indelible mark on him.

“A Fine African Man”: Completing the Story of Knucks' Identity

AFAM does a lot in its 34 brisk minutes, confronting the shame of not being proud of his Igbo name on “MY NAME IS MY NAME,” espousing the Igbo values of building wealth through interconnectedness on the jaunty “NWANNE,” swinging through cowbells, the oja flute, and log drums on “CONTAINER” with KCee, and tearing through tribal synths on “NKITA” alongside fellow British Nigerian rap artist Fimiguerrero.

“I started going back to Nigeria in 2023 and I just realized that there’s a lot of acknowledgment of what’s going on [in the UK] in Nigeria,” Knucks says. “I just felt like there needs to be a moment in time where the closing of that gap is more intentional. Like with my last album that I dropped, a lot of people from Nigeria started listening to my music, and some of them didn't even know I was Nigerian. So it was important for me to make a project like this, to tell my story, how my experience in Nigeria affected me and made me the man I am today.”

In a sense, AFAM is the yang to the yin of Alpha Place. The 2022 project chronicled hood tales, immortalizing the neighborhood in the UK where Knucks was raised. It won the MOBO award for Album of the Year, an honor it shared with British Nigerian rap artist Little Simz’ Sometimes I Might be Introvert. The new project rounds out Knucks’ identity in a meaningful way.

“My last album was talking about where I’m from in the UK. Coming back [to Nigeria], it was more about how that experience affected me, and I felt it’s important to tell the full story,” Knucks says. “You can hear me reflecting on the person I feel I am now and how that Nigerian experience made me that person. I don’t think I would be the person I am today if I didn’t go through that, and it was hard at times, I cried and felt alone at times, but going through that definitely made me the person who was able to like go through some of the things that I had to go through to get to this point right now.”

Stream AFAM here: