obsessive breed; comparative, in some ways, to those that follow the Manson Family—you mention a trivial fact and eyes widen, speech accelerates with enthusiasm, rattling off dates, facts, and slogans. Anticon is that level of obsession without the creepiness—finding a fellow devotee is finding a new friend for life.Anticon is an independent hip-hop record label, initially based in the Bay Area and founded in the late ‘90s. Similar to other hip-hop “crews,” they’ve released records as individual bands or performers, but other artists make guest appearances on nearly every release (of which there are MANY. Every artists is wildly prolific). Founding members of Anticon include Doseone, Jel, Sole, Alias, Pedestrian, Odd Nosdam, Telephone Jim Jesus, and Why?. Combined project acts of these individual artists include Themselves, Subtle, cLOUDDEAD, Greenthink, and Deep Puddle Dynamics. The combinations continue: Themselves + German indie band The Notwist = 13 & God, and Sole’s solo project that is now post-Anticon is Sole and the Skyrider Band.
Anticon is not gangster rap, nor is it minority self-empowerment hip-hop. It is surreal, experimental,
and by far the most exciting music to emerge from any genre in the past ten years. Someartists that began with hip-hop have moved on to sounds more electronic or pop, like Alias’ Muted or Why?’s Elephant Eyelash. Doseone’s apocalyptic, rapid-fire poetics have been placed against both drum machine and electric cello. cLOUDDEAD created a singeable melody out of the lyrics “It's hard to stand the sight of two dogs dead under a sky so blue/You have to stop the blood to your head/to fit the breath in front of you.” If anything, the maturity and spread of Anticon’s artists geographically and genre-wise has only enhanced their accessibility and confirmed their initial manifesto of Music for the Advancement of Hip-Hop.
Twenty years ago this month, Amoeba Berkeley opened its doors and we began this mystical journey that continues and has spread over the years to San Francisco, Hollywood and around the world! For the next few weeks, we will be celebrating here on the blog with various posts -- an interview with one of the store's owners, Marc, about opening Amoeba; pics of the Berkeley store while it was still under construction and in its first year; special top 10 lists from the employees who have been with us the longest; highlights of some of our most memorable instores; and today, we kick things off with testimonials from various fabulous customers -- including Adam from Doseone, Good Word of BPos, Yoni Wolf from Why? and more!
Read on and check back for more additions over the next few weeks! To get info about the Anniversary Events scheduled at the Berkeley store on Nov 13 & 14 with DJs, live performances from Foxtails Brigade, and Lyrics Born and prize giveaways, click here! You can also get involved by entering our contest -- share your own Amoeba story for a chance to win a shopping spree and more! Read about it here. You can also read Part 2 of this Anniversary series, an interview with co-owner Marc Weinstein about getting the Berkeley store up and running, what Amoeba means to him and more right here!
Yoni Wolf of Why?
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