Sole and the Skyrider Band

As cofounder of the fabled indie label Anticon, Sole has had a profound effect on the sound of indie hip-hop over the past decade — so much that it's hard to remember that, as a teenager, he could have signed a record deal that angled to turn him into a '90s pop-rap act like Kris Kross. Instead, he took a far different route. It was ten years ago that Sole moved to the Bay Area and formed Anticon, a collective responsible for a series of dense, literate and experimental hip-hop releases. The Arizona-based MC continues to push the genre's boundaries with his live combo, the Skyrider Band.