Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Dead Prez - Hip Hop



dead prez is an underground political hip hop duo comprised of stic.man and M-1.



They are known for their confrontational style combined with socialist and pan-Africanist lyrics.

These lyrics tend to focus on revolution, institutional racism, critical pedagogy, police, capitalism, education, prison systems, religion, activism against governmental repression, and corporate control over the media, especially hip-hop record labels.




Dead prez made their stance clear on their first album Let's Get Free (2000), declaring on the lead song, I'm a African that the group is "somewhere between N.W.A. and P.E."

Let's Get Free, also featuring Hip Hop was dead prez' debut album, released on February 8, 2000 on Loud Records.

Critically acclaimed upon its first release, Let's Get Free was called a "return to politically conscious rap" and "the most politically conscious rap since Public Enemy"; the duo's messages also earned them favorable comparisons with Brand Nubian and X-Clan.



The album's lyrics, performed in front of sparse beats, are startlingly direct, militant and confrontational. M-1 and stic.man excoriate the media, the music industry, politicians and poverty, and rap about Afrocentrism and Black Power.

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