"Aggressive, hard-hitting, and versatile hip hop....a breath of fresh air." - FREQ Magazine.


It’s 2010 and Detroit native Joey Knuckles is standing outside the Magic Stick, a legendary music venue in downtown Motor City, talking with a friend. As he explains that he will be moving back to Calgary, Calgarian producer King Cole, who at the time was touring with the hardcore group, Gravemaker, overhears Knuckles. King Cole introduces himself to Knuckles and their conversation soon leads to a freestyle session outside the venue. Within months, collaborations and demos between Cole and Knuckles began to surface.

From the midst of a completely coincidental meeting during the Terror U.S. tour, Suicide Kings was born.

King Cole and Joey Knuckles have now been collaborating with each other for about a year. Their two unique styles come together to form the aggressive, hard-hitting and versatile hip hop that is Suicide Kings.

“He’s new school and I’m old school,” explains Knuckles, “and you mix it together and you hear what you hear… which I think is [pretty] different.”

King Cole relates his initial love of music to when he was 13 and would see his favourite hardcore and punk rock heroes playing shows in community centres. Cole says that being able to hang out and meet with those heroes inspired him to pursue making music. “This is basically what I always wanted to do and I found it through hardcore,” says Cole, connecting his experiences touring with hardcore bands such as Gravemaker with his passion for producing hip hop beats in Suicide Kings.

Knuckles agrees, saying that the group’s experiences listening to hardcore and hip hop growing up, combined with touring and playing live shows with hardcore bands, enables them to take the right steps in making Suicide Kings happen.

“We know what’s up and that’s kind of the bottom line. We don’t sell ourselves short, but at the same time we don’t have any sixteen-year-old rapper pipe dreams that things are going to be handed to us for free.”

For King Cole and Knuckles, making music is all about the passion. “Every single step that I take to make anything that I produce is all I care about… it’s all I do, it’s the passion,” says Cole with conviction.

“I think a lot of rap cats just in general get confused about the money and bling and stuff… and don’t get me wrong, all that’s lovely,” declares Knuckles, “but when it comes down to it, we just want to play, we just want to work.”

Words by Sarah Comber