Pitchfork

It's been 10 years since they originally formed to "disturb the equilibrium" of hip-hop, and five years since they broke up, citing creative differences after releasing the 2002 album Arrhythmia. But the four members of experimental hip-hop group Anti-Pop Consortium (Earl Blaize, M. Sayyid, Beans, High Priest) have reunited with plans to make a new record.

"The type of music that we're doing, I feel that there's still a place for it," said Earl Blaize in an interview with Pitchfork. "There have been developments within the climate, but it hasn't changed that much. There are ideas that I've had for years that I haven't even tried yet. Over the past few years, technology being what it is, I would have thought that some of those ideas would have been applied, but there's still lots of room to experiment. There are still old ideas I haven't tried that no one else has really reached into yet, so I'm just ready to pull those out. The ideas don't stop coming."

M. Sayyid touched on a more basic motivation for the reunion: "It's about having my friends back. That's the number one motivation: having my peoples back in my zone. It's just a blessing to be back and have your people in the studio. I can't stress that enough to the people out there who supported us, how great we feel just being back, putting bars on things. APC represents not always being inside the lines, represents that creative freedom, so that's another reason why I'm real happy to be back on deck. I'm just really happy to be experimenting and trying new ways to break up flows, to break up productions, having my man Blaize, having Beans in the mix. That gives me an extra push to just kill it."

"Ultimately, time will tell how necessary [the reunion] was," High Priest laughed, "but that's more for the fans [to decide]. For us, it felt right at this time more than any other time previously. It was just a matter of when it all clicked for us."

As for how they plan to avoid the creative differences that accounted for the breakup in the first place, Sayyid said they're choosing not to focus on them. "Everybody's examined their own individual selves as well as their relationships in the collective, and it's just about moving forward, not so much about the past."

"It took us to go through our individual journeys to reach this point, so now when we come back, we're actually going to be a lot stronger," Blaize added.

The four of them met this summer to map out the shape of the new album, but they won't really start work on it until October. And when it comes to titles, release dates, and labels, "everything is preliminary," Beans said. "We don't really know anything about the album [except for] making that shit super hot. The meetings that we've had have been really productive. The things we've discussed that we want to do and that we want to start accomplishing in October, it's pretty exciting shit. I'm not gonna lie, man, it's shit that we've never tried before collectively. It's gonna be ill, man. It's gonna be a good record."

"We're definitely going to expand our vocabulary. It's going to be something that's well worth our catalogue," Blaize said.

To prepare for the writing and recording of the album, Blaize said he will "listen to a lot of [the other members'] tracks, a lot of their verses. Listening to what they do is really going to up my game. I really have to try to keep on par with what they're doing. Lyrically, they make me want to be a better MC. They're ill MCs, so I listen to them and say, 'I gotta step it up.'"

For Beans, "Health is number one. We're all involved in different ways of getting down health-wise. I run between five and six miles every other day. So we're definitely getting our lungs, our bodies, and our minds focused."

As with most of the other details surrounding the new album, no tour in its support is confirmed yet. One seems likely, though. "Maybe we'll tour before the record comes out and just build up the anticipation," said High Priest. "The dynamic tension of the Consortium was what pulled it apart, and at the same time, it's the biggest strength of its presentation: the four different dynamics tempered by one uniform presentation. And now, having that re-gelled and seeing the currency and the power in that, we're just taking kind of tenuous steps to make sure everything's on, with all of our heads in the same place.

"It's not like every decision is us sitting in a chamber with a gavel, but at the same time, just moving forward, touring, recording-- all those things are definitely following whatever is most comfortable for the presentation of the work. At whatever point we decide the labels are involved, that doesn't stop the fact that we need to connect with the people. So we may tour first, or this video may drop here, to get another decimal point up on those checks or what have you. It's definitely a touch and go situation with our relationship with the industry."

Even in the midst of the reunion, the members of Anti-Pop Consortium continue to maintain their individual identities in the form of solo careers and side projects (like Sayyid and High Priest's Airborn Audio). Beans even has a new, digital-only solo album called Thorns ready for release, which he said may happen this fall. "Nothing's changed," said Sayyid. "All the things that we've experienced, none of this stuff goes to waste. All these experiences are taken in, and we move it forward with the APC vehicle."

Thorns:

01 Thundermouth
02 Fearless Leader
03 Best of the Losers
04 Fingers
05 No Thrills [ft. Holy Fuck]
06 We Rock
07 Sudden Death Academics [ft. Holy Fuck]
08 Beauty of a Beast on a Beat
09 Razor Boss [ft. Holy Fuck]
10 MVP
11 In Effect
12 Return of the Gold Skull
13 Ultimate