Dead Prez (continued)

by GEZUS ZAIRE

bprn.moonfruit.com

Click here for Part 1

On their latest album “Revolutionary But Gangsta” dead
prez called on native Clevelander Krayzie Bone of Bone
Thugs-N-Harmony to assist them with the song “Walk
Like a Warrior.”
“ With ‘Walk Like a Warrior’ we did a collaboration
which included Krayzie Bone and Erykah Badu. The
reason why we chose Bone was because he’s from
Cleveland and [Bone Thugs-N-Harmony] are examples of
what it means to be living Black life. Life with no
choices. I think Bone Thugs -N-Harmony have always
been working class and they always have understood the
first line of defense of the state has always been the
police. So ‘Walk Like a Warrior’ is up to the
interpretation of the artist. For me and stic., of
course it meant that we were trained to be
revolutionaries. I think for Krayzie Bone he showed
his allegiance to our movement and what he meant about
getting free. He wasn’t talking about no soft
[expletive]. In the most hardest of ways he was
talking about brothers organizing. He talked about
standing on the side of the people. It was nobody more
perfect to do it with than Bone.”

Most people in previous generations don’t understand
the harsh approach that hip-hop takes in relaying its
message. Many elders find the expletive lyrics
difficult to listen to. M-1said hip-hop’s approach
would be better received if it had a concrete plan.
“ The biggest misunderstanding is that there’s not an
agenda,” he said. “The minds have been co-opted. In
this war our minds have been the greatest casualties.
It’s really the propaganda that has done the greatest
disservice to our political education. The [oppressor]
does not want us to know about Fred Hampton ... They
rather have us focused somewhere else where truthfully
if we knew what this game was worth to us we would
take it use this resource to create a future for us.”

As dead prez attempts to promote unity and retaliation
against institutional oppression, the group faces a
hard battle of competing with media hyped rilvaries
which are painted with violence between African
American rap artists, most notably between 50-Cent and
Ja Rule.

“ People want to have all these subjective view
points,” M-1 said. “The world is objective. Regardless
of what 50-Cent and Ja Rule are going through, we are
still at war in the hood. The same thing is going on
in Iraq, Brooklyn, Watts and in Miami in [the
projects]. So whatever 50 and Ja is doing it can be
very subjective, we lead subjective lives. But the way
we have to look at the world is through our objective
reality and that means we have to put revolution first
no matter what?”

The materialism and self-hate that is perpetuated in
hip-hop has been confused by most as positivity. M-1
sees it as the promotion and adoption of the
oppressor’s ideas upon the oppressed.
“ The owner and controller of hip-hop no matter what
happens inside the music, the ideas that are generated
come from White power,” he said.

“They are generated
by capitalism and overseas imperialism, so no matter
who blasts it, no matter what face it is that’s
talking about what’s going on, they are talking the
White power talk. Ja Rule is talking White power talk,
50 is talking White power talk. All these brothers are
talking White power talk. We’re trying to get them to
talk about international African power talk so in the
end that can counteract what’s going on ...
Neo-colonialism, that’s the last stage of this. You
got Black people talking that White power [expletive].
That’s the last thing they can do is have us talking
the [expletive] to ourselves. When we get tired of
talking of buying their Bentleys and Benz’s we are
going to buy our tanks and guns and start going to
war.”

 

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