Sole & DJ Pain 1 Announce Fourth Studio Album 'Post American Studies'

Post American Studies is Sole & DJ Pain 1's fourth studio album. Pain 1's platinum-certified club hits strike a perfect balance with Sole's scorched earth prose. After years of touring the world together and crafting anti-capitalist epics against the epoch, this record is a perfect summation of the times and their finest work to date. Post American Studies is being released February 4 on CD, cassette, digital download and streaming platforms by the Austin, Texas-based eMERGENCY heARTS label.

A collection of Trap-infused Anarcho Rap anthems from the crumbling halls of American democracy. An album about collapse, class struggle, climate catastrophe, and fighting for a dignified life while the world slowly but surely burns. At times triumphant and inspiring, at times scholarly & poetic and at all times a dead-on analysis of what we have seen and are yet to see. Post American Studies is an album about outliving the state, reclaiming our humanity and joy through resistance, autonomy and insurgent rap.

Known for his production on Young Jeezy's platinum-selling album The Recession, producer Pacal "DJ Pain 1" Bayley stays busy. His journey started in the late 90's while cultivating hip-hop sensibilities through visual art, DJing, and beat-making. He balanced a career in youth service/teaching with creating music, oftentimes marrying the two - he co-founded the first hip-hop performing arts program housed in an institute of higher education in Madison. Once he decided to focus on his production career, his resume quickly grew to include both legendary hip-hop acts (Public Enemy, Nas) as well as contemporary hit-makers (Lil Baby, Rick Ross). He has also garnered attention for his online video series on production and music business know-how.

Sole is a dad, Hip Hop artist, podcaster, and homesteader. In 1998 he founded Anticon Records, the first collectively owned indie Hip-Hop label in the United States. Since then, Sole has played over a thousand shows throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Middle East and Japan. Around 2010, Sole pulled his masters from Anticon and has re-invented himself as a new kind of insurgent artist and political entity. His music has been featured in major media outlets such as Rolling Stone, Vice, 2DopeBoyz, Pitchfork, MTV, Huffington Post, Spin, Submedia, and countless podcast appearance.

Sole has released about two dozen full length studio albums and a handful of tour CDs, EP's and mixtapes. His most recent and prominent musical collaborations are with certified platinum hip-hop producer DJ Pain 1. Throughout his career sole has been known as one to push the limits in terms of genre and content and is widely heralded as a pioneer of avant garde and experimental rap music.

Sole and his wife Yasamin released the instrumental project WHITENOISE and in 2013 Sole started the "The Solecast," a podcast featuring longform interviews with academics, artists and activists., which is currently on hiatus. Sole also co-founded Channel Zero Network, a media co-op linking together anti-authoritarian English-speaking podcasts all over the world. Most recently, Sole has been the co-host of the Propaganda by the Seed podcast, a podcast designed to share practices and information for people interested in food autonomy and food forestry. Sole is currently in nesting/survival mode and doing a land project with his wife and kids in Maine.

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