AntiHippie is a groove-metal and hardcore band from Santo Domingo, formed in 2013, that describes its style as “narco-metal”.

The band

The lineup is Jehison Tavarez on vocals, Radi Pina on guitar, Freddy Muñoz on bass and Mario Luis Ventura on drums. It began as two childhood friends, Jehison and Radi, and grew into a four-piece. Jehison says the “narco-metal” idea started as a satanic take on the theme before he dropped the satanic side, and the band jokes that all its members are hippies despite the name.

Records

Its first release was the EP «666» (2013). In late 2016 the band said it had only that EP and expected to release a full album the following year; «Narcoestado» came out in November 2017. A 2016–2017 yearbook of Dominican alternative music lists among its tracks «Perico», «Pederasta», «Narcoestado» and «Complot», and describes the sound as a groove metal with a local flavor, built on syncopated rhythms and harsh vocals. A 2022 survey of Dominican metal read the band’s songs as blunt commentary on drug use and racism. Its YouTube channel also carries «Mantequeros» and a lyric video for «Eugenesia».

On stage

In the two years around the album the band opened for Soulfly, Brujería and A.N.I.M.A.L. at their concerts, and it played the Destrucción Masiva festival in December 2016, on a bill with Santuario and La Armada among others. Its guitarist described «El Tripletazo», a tradition of a three-band concert on the first Friday after each Destrucción Masiva at the rehearsal space of Santuario, the room from which several local projects, AntiHippie among them, have grown.

Legacy

The yearbook counted AntiHippie among the most important groups in the Dominican metal scene, and in 2022 the metal site MetalSucks included it in a list of fifteen bands from the Dominican Republic.