Steve 'Flash' JuonAntipop Consortium is a group whose name is embedded in the consciousness of internet rap heads from the late 1990’s through the early 00’s. You may or may not have listened to their music, but you saw their name on message boards and in discussion groups. Maybe you even browsed past them through a retailer like Sandbox Automatic. The name sticks in your head. “Consortium” tends to imply companies or corporations working in concert, often to the detriment of the consumer, but this was an “anti-pop” consortium of artists working against the corporate music industry. It sparked intrigue.
A consortium can only last when all of the members agree on their goals. APC rapper Beans (Robert Edward Stewart II) clearly didn’t agree when he went solo in 2003, although all parties would put their differences aside to reunite four years later. In the meantime the Beans not to be confused with Sigel would explore his rap experimentation with releases like “Now Soon Someday.” When I say “he” I am being very specific — he rapped it, he produced it, it’s his vision. He had an engineer mix it and some help with the art direction, but the free flowing bars and pounding beats are entirely his vision.
There’s an almost proto Death Grips air to tracks like “Gold Skull,” and if MC Ride said that Beans was an inspiration I’d believe them. The echoing minimalism, the rawness of the vocals, the feeling that it’s crunchy and polished at the same time, it all fits. If he was yelling or there was a harder rock edge it would be a perfect match. Beans’ experiments are firmly grounded in the familiar though, even if what you’d be familiar with is Dr. Octagon and Deltron 3030. “Existence has become a composition in void, limited in life, limited to death.” Beans speeds up and slows down his flow at his own whims, indulging in esoteric concepts and opaque thoughts that take more than one listen to discern.
Can you dance to songs like “Structure Tone” and “Crevice” then? Not even slightly. Beans doesn’t care and if his music is of any interest to you then you shouldn’t either. The latter song is “emotions with emotions” of the struggles a family goes through without their bread winner and provider. You might be able to argue it’s a head nodder thanks to the obvious knock of the track, but it’s more a head thinker. Beans challenges you to see the world the way he does and deal with the realities that he knows.
“Now Soon Someday” is a bit short at 32 minutes, and wouldn’t even reach a half hour without remixes from El-P and Prefuse 73. It doesn’t need to be longer though because Beans got to do this release the way he wanted to, which means it’s exactly right in length and artistic vision. Beans isn’t for everyone and that’s entirely by design. He can’t “dumb it down” and given his Antipop roots there’s no reason that he should. He made a commitment to going against the mainstream and follows it to the correct conclusion here, and if underground rap with dense lyrics and beats is your bag, this will fill it.