The man who would later be known as
Sole, one of the founders of the avant-garde indie rap label/collective
Anticon, was born in 1977 in Portland, Maine, as Tim Holland. By 1992 he had made his first demo, attracting interest from EMI, whose deal
Sole declined when he was told he could have
Jermaine Dupri as his producer, and not
DJ Premier. In 1996, with his group
Live Poets,
Sole released
What's It All About, which brought him into contact with like-minded rappers (and future
Anticon members)
Doseone and
Jel. In 1998
Sole formed
Anticon with longtime friend
Pedestrian in response to what they saw as a closed-minded and stagnant mainstream rap scene, and
Sole and
Pedestrian moved out to the Bay Area to officially start their label.
Soon after,
Deep Puddle Dynamics (made up of
Dose,
Jel,
Slug,
Sole, and
Alias) recorded their first album,
The Taste of Rain...Why Kneel, and introduced
Anticon to the world. In 2000
Sole released his debut,
Bottle of Humans, and followed it up in 2003 with
Selling Live Water. In 2004, frustrated with life in America, he relocated to Barcelona, Spain with his wife, and
Live from Rome, his third studio album, came out the next year. Under the pseudonym
Mansbestfriend,
Sole has also recorded and self-released three albums (the Mansbestfriend, Pt. 1 [2002] and Pt. 2: No Thanks [2003] CD-Rs and 2005's My Own Worst Enemy), one with the German label Morr Music, 2004's
The New Human Is Illegal, and one, 2007's
Poly.Sci.187, with his very own
Anticon.
Along with that release, 2007 brought two more
Sole offerings: the Exhile EP and the collaborative full-length
Sole and the Skyrider Band. A remix album featuring
Odd Nosdam and
Dosh, among others, arrived in 2009. Two years later he would leave
Anticon and release Hello Cruel World on the Fake Four label. The album featured his Skyrider Band once again, along with more accessible pop productions. In sharp contrast, his 2012 effort A Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing was aptly titled and inspired by his involvement in Denver's Occupy political movement.
–
Marisa Brown, Rovi