Anti-Pop Consortium never left us. When the quartet of M. Sayyid, Earl Blaize, Hprizm, and Beans disbanded in 2009 after the release of Fluorescent Black (Big Dada, 2009), it represented the sui generis of experimental hip-hop. From the Disorientation 12” in 1997 to their ascension as the first rap group signed to Warp, APC wrote the source code for crafting avant-garde rap music.

In 2023, Anti-Pop Consortium reunited at Public Records in Brooklyn to headline King Britt’s Blacktronika Festival. In 2024, Anti-Pop Consortium unofficially released their first song together since disbanding with “ZWAARD_OVER” from Beans’ ZWAARD album. Fittingly, Hprizm opened his verse with “ya’ll know how we give it up” as a reintroduction and reminder that they are the originators and purveyors of abstract rap.

Despite breaking up 15 years ago, Anti-Pop Consortium has never been missing in action. M. Sayyid, Hprizm, and Beans explored solo ventures that moved them further apart, but never betrayed their core value to innovate the artform. Hprizm has steadily released over a dozen solo albums that explore ambient and improvisational microtonal meditation music—most recently Sacred Drift (2022)—and has his international jazz rap fusion ensemble Sélébéyone with Steve Lehman, Maciek Lasserre, and Gaston Bandimic. Beans launched Tygr Rawwk Records in 2017 with a trio of solo albums, Wolves Of The World, Love Me Tonight, and HAAST, and six subsequent albums that reach to 2024’s ZWAARD with producer Vladislav Delay. Although M. Sayyid hasn’t been as prolific, his Error Tape mixtape series (2016, 2024) maintains an unwavering devotion to true to life poetics and abstract production. Meanwhile, Earl Blaize has remained active behind the boards, building his production arsenal, while mixing and mastering many of his APC cohorts’ releases.

Today they were announced in the first wave of announcements for the 2025 edition of the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, and they will be headlining Public Records on October 3rd in New York as well.