Agitprop! Records

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Note: for Chumbawamba's UK-based record label, see Agit-Prop Records.

Stand Up & Fucking Fight For It cover

Agitprop! Records is a 'revolutionary hardcore and hip hop' independent record label based in Boston, USA, founded by Angela Tavares.

One of the label's notable releases is the compilation Stand Up & Fucking Fight For It, its first full-length CD, released in 2002. The recording features queercore bands such as Fagatron, Best Revenge, The Rotten Fruits, Kids like Us and others, and is one of a handful of queercore compilations to be released. Tavares said in the Fanorama zine, "I was - oh - 17 or 18 when I came out, and very much into hardcore and punk. It was weird being involved in these two different 'communities' - one that, at times, could be over-run with homophobia and heterosexism, and the other which I could find very little in common with except for that we fucked the same. It didn't feel right to me that I felt more at home hanging with the fag-this and fag-that's at a Shelter show." She said that the compilation was inspired largely by the Outpunk label and its early-90's Outpunk Dance Party, though she added that despite its reputation, Agitprop! is not specifically just a "queer" label.

Other early releases included albums and vinyl singles by Ninja Death Squad and Fagatron, and Agitprop! also began issuing records by hip hop artists like Juha and Deep Dickollective.

Agitprop! was initially established as a distro, and continued to distribute other labels' recordings after it began releasing its own. The label is frequently referenced in Homocore, a somewhat definitive guidebook to queercore history.

Tavares eventually put Agitprop! in hiatus to focus on her writing, which has included "Fast Ones" from the Dennis Cooper anthology, Userlands (Akashic). In 2007, Agitprop! returned, first by making much of its back-catalogue available through CDBaby.