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Anticon artistry >>
You either get it or you don’t, but Anticon MC Sole will probably
make music anyway
by SCOTT C
Mirror: First
of all, I want to know what kind of stuff you were listening to as an
MC coming up. Sole: Black
Moon, Organized Konfusion, Nas. Obviously Run-DMC and Fat Boys got me
into hip hop in the first place, then from there I got into Masta Ace
and OC. I sounded like Buckshot for about three years (laughs). Later
on, I got introduced to Aceyalone and the whole Project Blowed thing.
But that’s kind of where it ended for me. That was the last hip
hop shit that I lived and died for. M: Anyone
who listens to your stuff will hear that you’re a lyricist through
and through, but when did you adopt a style of your own? Because you
sure don’t sound like Buckshot anymore. S: I don’t
know, man. Probably when the Live Poets 12” came out in ’97
and no one wanted anything to do with it. They said it was too weird,
and that I didn’t rhyme, and it didn’t make any sense. I remember
trying to do shows in Maine and no one got it, ever, but you just bite
your favourite rappers long enough and a little bit of you starts to
shine through. M: If people
weren’t getting it, then why did you stick with it? I don’t
know about you, but the last thing I’m thinking when something
isn’t working is that I’m gonna adopt that as “my thing.” S: But that’s
not why I make this music. I make this music because it’s what
I have to say, and it’s the way I want to say it. I could’ve
signed to some New York label in ’98 and rapped over their beats,
toned down my style, and be large right now—if that’s what
I had wanted to do, but it’s not. M: Where
does that confidence come from? S: I don’t know, man. I guess I believed my own shit a little too much in the beginning (laughs). I just followed it off of a cliff. I see what’s out there. We all do. When I do a live show now, there isn’t anybody in the room who doesn’t get it. People respond to what we’re talking about because we’re talking about real issues. It’s stuff that should make sense to anybody. : With Passage,
Kevin Blechdom and Restiform Bodies at Casa del Popolo tonight, Thursday,
May 16, 9pm, $10
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According
to MC Tim Holland (aka Sole), America has its head up its ass. Often
dismissed as not being hip hop at all, Sole and the hip hop Brady Bunch
who make up the Bay Area’s Anticon collective seem to make music
with the aforementioned head-up-ass in mind. Along with the likes of
Dose, Why?, Odd Nosdam, Buck 65, Sixtoo and a slew of likeminded lyricists
and beat-makers, Anticon has been making noise with their outer-wordly
ramblings and making friends and enemies along the way.