Blogsong III | "We Ain't Rappin' For Money"

While Rhymesayers in Minneapolis and Viper in NYC were doing their things, in Oakland another breed of Hip-Hop was burgeoning | Friends from all over America and Canada who’d met in the underground scene of the mid 90s gathered together to form an art/music collective calledAnticon.

Creating a sound not entirely terrestrial, the co-owners of Anticon – Alias, Doseone,  Jel, Why, Odd Nosdam, Pedestrian, and formerly Sole – not unlike the folks at Rhymesayers and Viper, seemed to attach the goals of their art to something more personal than the mainstream | Deviating from the norm or sample based beats, the artists of Anticon tend to rely more heavily upon mechanical production or performance based beats | Employing synthesizers, drum machines, vocoders and more effects than you can shake a stick at, Anticon MCs and DJs alike serve as producers on the multifarious acts associated with the label | Per their status as a collective, collaboration among the various members is not only a prominent feature of the acts, but the norm | An early release which included Slug of Atmosphere, Doseone, Sole, Alias and production by Jel, and Ant and DJ Abilities also of Rhymesayers in a project called Deep Puddle Dynamics | Although the group only made one album, “The Taste of Rain…Why Kneel”, it set the tone for what was to come.

Doseone and Jel together perform under the moniker Themselves | With Doseone’s bizarre lyrical style and content mixed with Jel’s very dense and ethereal beats, Themselves has a niche market – a market whose base seems, at least from an onlookers perspective, that seems to be growing | Perhaps it comes down to a bit of advice delivered by Dose in his final line of their first album Them: “You know when energy is flowing; smile, teach yourself to write and let them by the album - thanks for the help.”

Another Anticon group whose influence and appeal has led them around the globe is Why? | Originally a solo project by Yoni Wolf – later to be accompanied his brother Josiah and others, Why?’s very dynamic and oddly metered music combined with Yoni’s often self-effacing lyrics again create a  very unspecific niche market | Their third album “Alopecia” brought great critical acclaim from many different sources | Recently, however, Anticon has begun to attract much media attention with two acts in particular: Tobacco and Baths | Tobacco, formerly of the psych-rock group Black Moth Super Rainbow, has released two albums and a mixtape of sorts on Anticon | His most recent album Maniac Meat which featured Beck, was very well received by critics and audiences alike | Possibly the most remarkable Anticon artist of 2010 was a young man who goes by the name of Baths | Baths’ first album Cerulean was included on the AV Club’s top albums of the year and received an honorable mention from Pitchfork.