Beans, the driving force behind Antipop Consortium, crafts intense otherworldly rhythms paired with lyrics that fuse intricate poetry and startling conceptual depth. His spontaneous vocal approach aligns more with sonic verse traditions and improvisational jazz than conventional broadcast rap, while his productions push experimental boundaries by fusing splintered electronic pulses and harsh mechanical textures. Across projects he has joined forces with electronic, hip-hop, avant, and rock figures such as Four Tet, Arto Lindsay, Vernon Reid, Matthew Shipp, and William Parker. After the first dissolution of Antipop, Beans issued his initial solo full-length, Tomorrow Right Now, via Warp in 2003. Subsequent releases have spanned jazz abstraction on 2006’s Only, visceral scatological play on 2011’s End It All, and pointed political statements on 2017’s HAAST, with two further albums, Team BreakUP and Venga, arriving in 2020 before the 2021 single Bermuda Serpent Saliva Man.
Born Robert Edward Stewart II and raised in White Plains, New York, Beans participated in Brooklyn’s Boom Poetic Collective before gaining recognition by fusing hip-hop and exploratory electronics as one of three members in the progressive N.Y.C. rap unit Antipop Consortium. Established in 1997, the group issued three albums, the last being the intricate, intellectually rigorous Arrhythmia on Warp Records, plus a project with DJ Vadim under the Isolationist name and a recording alongside free-jazz pianist Matthew Shipp.
Beans first offered solo material through the 2000 Nude Paper 12-inch on Mo Wax, yet the Consortium’s split prompted his proper debut album. Tomorrow Right Now, released by Warp in 2003, merged Antipop’s far-flung B-boy surrealism with an underlying pop sensibility. Following tours alongside the Rapture, Out Hud, El-P, Prefuse 73, and Mike Ladd, he completed the Now, Soon, Someday EP, which included reworkings by Prefuse 73 and El-P and surfaced in January 2004. Shock City Maverick appeared later that year, succeeded in 2006 by Only, a Thirsty Ear Blue Series collaboration with avant-jazz players William Parker and Hamid Drake. On 2007’s Thorns he handled most production himself, recruiting Holy Fuck for several cuts and Dabrye for one. That same year Antipop reunited, resulting in the 2009 Big Dada album Fluorescent Black.
Beans joined the Anticon roster for 2011’s End It All, featuring production contributions from Four Tet, Clark, and Interpol’s Sam Fogarino. Also in 2011 he reconvened with HPrizm, Matthew Shipp, and William Parker for Knives from Heaven. With producer Mux Mool he formed the duo Knifefight, issuing a self-titled EP on Anticon in 2013. After focusing on assorted endeavors, 2017 saw the “weird fiction” novel Die Tonight alongside three TYGR RAWWK RCRDS albums: Love Me Tonight, Wolves of the World, and HAAST. The following year brought the EP Nights Without Smiles, recorded with Diamond Terrifier and Michael Beharie of Zs, plus the albums Nibiru Tut and Someday This Will All Be Ash. Ace Balthazar, featuring billy woods and Jennifer Herrema, emerged in 2019, followed in 2020 by Team BreakUP and Venga, each containing a guest appearance by Angel Bat Dawid and Hemlock Ernst respectively. The abrasive single Bermuda Serpent Saliva Man appeared in 2021, after which Beans began work on the solo album Harrower and a collaboration with Vladislav Delay.
