Gnawledge is about outernational hip-hop, slow-cooked rhymes and beats from around the seven seas. Composers of modern electronic riddims rooted in traditional analog musical cultures, Gnawledge artists wander from archeologist to journalist, focused on learning and teaching about the funky side of global folk music.

     As sample-based musicians, the Gnawledge family recognizes the responsibility of hip-hop artists to contribute something fresh for the next generation. Sustainable environmental design is based on planting as many seeds as plums plucked. Jacking for beats without bringing something new to the library will eventually suck the record store dry. For every sample we flip, we add a new layer of live instrumentation for life's sake.

     Gnawledge is about teaching and learning, slowly and defiantly. Chewing on ideas until you develop an independent opinion rather than swallowing and regurgitating the spoonfed cliches in the textbook.

Most of all, Gnawledge is about promoting mass community consciousness, whether through international collaboration or a bumpin live concert.

"Bounce when my band hits your town with the funk/ Technics in the backseat, guitats in the trunk"

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international hiphop since 1954

     It all started with Broken Spoke, the debut album from Gnotes released in 2003 under his government name Sean Dwyer.  Recorded during his final year in college, Broken Spoke writhes with the tension of transition between adolescence and adulthood, an overflow of teenage emotion from a D-1 college football player who passed on the gridiron for the love of rhymes and beats. 

     Musically, Broken Spoke marks the beginning of Gnotes' evolution from acoustic grunge to boom-bap hiphop.  This transformation began in Seattle, where Gnotes had been performing since he was selling home-dubbed casette tapes of his rock band out of his backpack at recess in the 5th grade.  A decade later, Gnotes' DIY work ethic caught the eye of Gnawledge Records, an independent record label started by Canyon Cody to promote hiphop from a global perspective. 

     Outernational hiphop can be divided into its two halves: rhymes and beats. Lyrically, the albums released by Gnawledge Records confront issues of global importance, addressing supranational issues of social responsibility, neo-colonialism, and environmental sustainability. Sonically, our records can be described as urban immigrant music - the sound of people moving and interacting in the city.