Anticon: A Brief History of the Fiercely Creative Hip

Editor’s note: This story is part of That’s My Word , an ongoing KQED series about Bay Area hip-hop history.

“While hip-hop was struggling to digest us, music was accepting us,” said Adam Drucker, the rapper, producer and vocalist also known as Doseone, while telling me about the Anticon collective back in 2023. This was during the height of celebrations for hip-hop’s ostensible 50th anniversary, generating all-star concerts, award-show tributes and, in the Bay Area, That’s My Word , KQED’s ongoing initiative spotlighting the history of local hip-hop.

But it also inspired reflections about who’s traditionally considered part of that history, and who is often left out. For Doseone, a founding member of the iconoclastic Anticon collective in Oakland established by Tim “Sole” Ho