Last year we interviewed Anticon’s WHY? front man Yoni Wolf followed by one of the most enjoyable and memorable gigs ever performed in Glasgow’s tiny, dark venue Stereo. Despite still producing some of the best tracks in Anticon‘s pile, WHY? have detached themselves from the more provocative work they used to produce. On recalling anti-factory farming track ‘Darla’ Wolf says; ‘I can’t listen to that song. I hate it’… ‘I don’t listen to art that is directly political’, claiming political music or endorsing a certain message seems too fleeting. But thinking of the lyrics, emotion and timelessness of Woody Gutherie or Bob Dylan, singing ‘the people of the world are getting organised’ or ‘the times they are a changin’ ‘ and the repetitive widening circle that is history and politics becomes clear, something that contemporary music needs to recognise.
It’s this split and separation from a more overtly political, questioning lyric into a subdued and accepting voice that Anticon has been victim to in recent years as the capitalisation on hip-hop/indie/’indefinable’ music has begun to slowly transform those who might have been into music for the art and power of social change, into folk obsessed with that $$$ Donald Trump shit $$$.
Cue Tim Holland AKA Sole, and his latest piece of work inspired by Mac Miller (see video above). Sole, one of the founders of Anticon, parted ways with the label last year, while other bands seemed to tone down political rhetoric in favour of songs about feelings with loose ties to hip-hop, and the co-operative angle the company was founded on seemed to be fading. But once the HQ moved to share with Alpha Pup Records and the creators became less involved in the running of the label, the ethos on which it was built appeared to be crumbling.
Attempting to go viral, tweeting practically every minute since its release, Sole is a man on a mission to fight the apathetic, desperate for as many unlikely people to see this money burning version of an unbelievable ode to capitalism and sexism from a prepubescent kid who appears to be the rap worlds answer to the Jonas Brothers.
Despite the fact that Sole has made countless shout-outs to Mac Miller that this isn’t a hate song or piss take, it makes sense that if people can read the words as they flicker in the glow of burning dollars; ‘Go ask a child soldier about that Donald Trump shit’ ‘My planet gone die like American wages’ ‘if I was a Muslim I’d be burning flags’ that people who think Mac Miller’s lyrics are acceptable, or musical, or interesting: (Find a big butt bitch, somewhere get my nuts kissed/Thats the way it goes when you party just like I do/Bitches on my dick that used to brush me off in high school/Take over the world when I’m on my Donald Trump shit) could think twice about embracing such a thoughtless piece of ‘music’.
It’s work like this, akin to CocoRosie’s cover of Kevin Lyttle’s ‘Turn Me On’ (see video below), that questions and provokes a mass movement to question the voice of the capitalist driven mainstream voice that drowns, submerges and slits the throat of those who want real change and real equality. Music is such a powerful, evocative form of art, easily corrupted but if, as Sole calls for, the rappers/artists of the world unite against the Donald Trump shit then maybe this needn’t be a dream much longer. Now is the time, with politics across the globe in a state of flux and confusion, for the people to take back the power.
Join the movement, follow Sole here and help this go viral & #DONALDTRUMP #BASED #WISCONSIN #THUMBSUP #YONKERS and look out for his new album with the Skyrider band ‘Hello Cruel World‘ in July. (listen to the Sole radio here click on audio)