Geographer

When Shaun Koplow moved to the Bay Area to study art at UC Berkeley in 2001, he had no idea he'd wind up running his favorite record label, or that he'd eventually relocate its operations to Los Angeles, the city from whence he came. Four years ago, at the age of 23, Koplow became Anticon Records' label manager – the chief wheel-greaser – charged with vetting new talent, developing established acts, conceiving record campaigns and handling the day-to-day. Having come up amongst a crew of West L.A. backpacker kids, Koplow was a longtime devotee of California's outsider rap scene, a movement that saw Anticon at its forefront in the late '90s. He's since made it his mission to preserve that commitment to innovation, artistic license and all-around quality while pushing the label's genre-bending tendencies yet further, helping to bring artists like Baths, Tobacco, Son Lux, Bike For Three!, and Anathallo into the fold alongside Anticon mainstays like WHY?, Themselves, Odd Nosdam and Dosh. Koplow views his role at the label as curatorial, a philosophy that can be witnessed literally when he's DJing under the handle Sodapop, or co-hosting Silver Lake's weekly Calling All Kids night with partner Matthewdavid (Dublab, Alpha Pup, Leaving Records). The pair's duties for C.A.K. are head-to-toe – they're promoters, organizers, song-selectors, and even bartenders – and Koplow's vinyl/Serato sets consistently display an ear for the adventurous: favoring vintage krautrock, contemporary electronic pop and Bay Area rap. C.A.K.'s history of guests is equally diverse: Nite Jewel, Dm-Funk, Lucky Dragons, Flying Lotus, and Ariel Pink, to name a few. Both Koplow and Anticon have been based in L.A. since early 2008. The former creates visual art occasionally and nurses a strong fetish for rare wax, brims and kicks. The latter refuses to be pigeonholed, eternally.