NEWS
EVENTS
Dead Prez Interview
RnB/Hip Hop | Tuesday 6th December 2011 | Osh
After the infamous interview in 2006 on a roof top in Miami (see last months issue) i caught up once again with one of my favourite groups of all time Dead Prez. I thought i would kick it a little and find out whats been happening since we last met. As always M1 greeted me with a big smile and we reminisced about sunnier climates, Sticman was serious as ever and it was Carnival Sunday everyone was busy and i got straight down to business.
Oshi: So you’ve got a black president now, so i guess everything is alright now lol?
Dead Prez: Who? Oh you mean that black president?! Yeah, nothing’s changed.
O: You have been asked what your proudest moment was... I was thinking, what you guys have done is get people all over the world talking about black power through your music. That for me is a great achievement. Over here, England’s a funny country; when you bring up race issues a lot of people say, “We’re tolerant over here, everything is cool over here.” But what I like about you guys is that you have a way of putting things...Like when you saw White Ladies Road in Bristol and you said “Where is my Black Ladies Rd”. When you come over here, what feelings do you get?
DP: I’ve got to say that different people have different experiences. I was talking to Talib Kweli about this because he was saying that he doesn’t see a resistance movement in hip hop round the world globally and when he comes to London. Now he probably lives a commercial hip hop life, but everywhere we go, because of the development of the resistance in the music and the things we have participated in throughout the years, everywhere I go I see resistance and I get straight to it. My homie Low Key is over here and every time I touch down with people like you we have these conversations. When I come here I meet people who are so charged and who have intentions to touch the community. I see so many progressive people and progressive organisations. I was over here with the African Socialist Party organising the African Socials International 3 or 4 years ago which was a huge thing and they’re not even doing that inside the US actually. This is a great jump-off spot for African revolution worldwide because there’s so much African influence directly and one generation removed. There are many generations of Africans removed who don’t even know what part we were stolen from but there are Africans here and in Europe who know and when we go in we become immediately immersed as soon as we get here.
O: I was watching something recently, you guys were in Paris doing something outdoors - it was going off.
DP: Oh yeah that thing!
O: Yeah, everyone was just going nuts. So you must still be travelling lots, you were on the way to Africa the last time I saw you, and you’ve been to Brazil.
DP: Oh yeah, I don’t have any bad news to report other than we still ain’t free. In spots you drop in you’re going to see that - you’re going to see racism and people on the ground struggling, trying to get some power. I’ve never been in a place where I didn’t see that. I guess a positive note is there’s loads of ideas around and its growing. Just coming from Palestine and Israel and what that president is doing to the world is some greedy, nasty shit. It’s a direct result of $20 billion that America gives Israel to be able to oppress the Palestinian people and steal their land. Now that’s happening everywhere, you’ve got displacement up in Jordan and Lebanon and Turkey. It’s happening throughout Northern Africa - it’s the tremendous effect of displacement of money and resources around the world. That’s just from my recent travels. In the United States there was a recent trial for a young man named Oscar Grant in which a policeman was slapped on the hand for murdering him on New Year’s Eve in 2009. He was murdered on public transportation on the subway train in Oakland, California - which is the birthplace of the Black Panther party coincidentally - and the young man, Oscar Grant, was shot while he was handcuffed and laying on his stomach on the ground by some crazy pig. They had a riot and the trial was moved to LA and then they slapped the pig on the wrist and there was no justice for Oscar Grant. So we’re still seeking justice for Oscar Grant. In New York City there was the 50 shots they shot at Sean Bell - they tried to pay off his family by giving them $7 million and some people say, “Oh $7 million dollars is great,” but fuck that. You can’t give out $7 million for shooting somebody 50 times, that’s not OK. That’s not a good trade off to somebody who had a family and who was a productive member of our society. Also, you’ve got Obama - he’s done more warring than Bush and Bush’s father did. He warred more against them than any place in the world, and right now he’s about to go visit New Orleans. New Orleans is now commemorating the 5th year since the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and for everybody who needs an update - nothing has changed in New Orleans. There’s been no rebuilding at all, the community has seen no move to bring the displaced people back to their homes. What we’ve seen is a more insidious plan to keep the land, redevelop it and turn it into this playground so New Orleans can be resurfaced and become a new place, and lo and behold they do things like that. Natural disasters hit places like New Orleans and you’ll find the same scheme happening in Haiti where there’s a natural disaster and they want to reinvent the surface of Haiti. This is what Bill Clinton’s idea is - to renovate Haiti so it can be full of resorts and things of that nature, without the people. They’re not letting Haiti redevelop and have a government of its own. So that’s a little bit of news. The world ain’t doomed but I just like to be up there on what’s going on.
O: Yeah, people need to know and these things...
DP: There’s some good things going on too, there’s some great things happening. For instance, Dead Prez have got a brand new album coming out. deadprez.com!
O: I heard you guys talking about the Nas album “Nigger”. For me a massive moment in music in terms of mixing content with lyrical ability. You spoke about you having to up your rap game a little (smiles) Have you done that? Is that what we’re going to hear?
DP: Stic is a better rapper than Nas hands down! (All laugh) Nah, I love Nas, but yeah, there’s some heat, our pens are on fire right now. You got the new shit? Yeah. Pens on fire. I’d say while working with Nas on the Nigger album - we did some co-writing - I was extremely inspired by his abilities and his mastery of his craft, words, enunciation - all the mechanics in the studio, I was amazed. I’ve been a student of MCing forever but that was definitely an honour just to see how he does what he does.
O: So i know you did some beats for the album did you work on the lyrics too?
M1: Yeah. It was really good because he would come with raw concepts without the information to back it and I sat in the studio with this dude for 3 days straight. He would come and say, “I want to do a song to diss Fox - because they said something crazy about him... So we would sit there and talk about Fox top to bottom - who owns it, who broadcasts it, who are the people playing the game, what are the lies they tell... and we gave ourselves feedback.
O: Nice, that explains a lot. Looking forward to the show and seeing you at carnival.
We caught up with Dead Prez at the show, it was crazy so check out this interview on- line at guestlist.net
Oshi: So you’ve got a black president now, so i guess everything is alright now lol?
Dead Prez: Who? Oh you mean that black president?! Yeah, nothing’s changed.
O: You have been asked what your proudest moment was... I was thinking, what you guys have done is get people all over the world talking about black power through your music. That for me is a great achievement. Over here, England’s a funny country; when you bring up race issues a lot of people say, “We’re tolerant over here, everything is cool over here.” But what I like about you guys is that you have a way of putting things...Like when you saw White Ladies Road in Bristol and you said “Where is my Black Ladies Rd”. When you come over here, what feelings do you get?
DP: I’ve got to say that different people have different experiences. I was talking to Talib Kweli about this because he was saying that he doesn’t see a resistance movement in hip hop round the world globally and when he comes to London. Now he probably lives a commercial hip hop life, but everywhere we go, because of the development of the resistance in the music and the things we have participated in throughout the years, everywhere I go I see resistance and I get straight to it. My homie Low Key is over here and every time I touch down with people like you we have these conversations. When I come here I meet people who are so charged and who have intentions to touch the community. I see so many progressive people and progressive organisations. I was over here with the African Socialist Party organising the African Socials International 3 or 4 years ago which was a huge thing and they’re not even doing that inside the US actually. This is a great jump-off spot for African revolution worldwide because there’s so much African influence directly and one generation removed. There are many generations of Africans removed who don’t even know what part we were stolen from but there are Africans here and in Europe who know and when we go in we become immediately immersed as soon as we get here.
O: I was watching something recently, you guys were in Paris doing something outdoors - it was going off.
DP: Oh yeah that thing!
O: Yeah, everyone was just going nuts. So you must still be travelling lots, you were on the way to Africa the last time I saw you, and you’ve been to Brazil.
DP: Oh yeah, I don’t have any bad news to report other than we still ain’t free. In spots you drop in you’re going to see that - you’re going to see racism and people on the ground struggling, trying to get some power. I’ve never been in a place where I didn’t see that. I guess a positive note is there’s loads of ideas around and its growing. Just coming from Palestine and Israel and what that president is doing to the world is some greedy, nasty shit. It’s a direct result of $20 billion that America gives Israel to be able to oppress the Palestinian people and steal their land. Now that’s happening everywhere, you’ve got displacement up in Jordan and Lebanon and Turkey. It’s happening throughout Northern Africa - it’s the tremendous effect of displacement of money and resources around the world. That’s just from my recent travels. In the United States there was a recent trial for a young man named Oscar Grant in which a policeman was slapped on the hand for murdering him on New Year’s Eve in 2009. He was murdered on public transportation on the subway train in Oakland, California - which is the birthplace of the Black Panther party coincidentally - and the young man, Oscar Grant, was shot while he was handcuffed and laying on his stomach on the ground by some crazy pig. They had a riot and the trial was moved to LA and then they slapped the pig on the wrist and there was no justice for Oscar Grant. So we’re still seeking justice for Oscar Grant. In New York City there was the 50 shots they shot at Sean Bell - they tried to pay off his family by giving them $7 million and some people say, “Oh $7 million dollars is great,” but fuck that. You can’t give out $7 million for shooting somebody 50 times, that’s not OK. That’s not a good trade off to somebody who had a family and who was a productive member of our society. Also, you’ve got Obama - he’s done more warring than Bush and Bush’s father did. He warred more against them than any place in the world, and right now he’s about to go visit New Orleans. New Orleans is now commemorating the 5th year since the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and for everybody who needs an update - nothing has changed in New Orleans. There’s been no rebuilding at all, the community has seen no move to bring the displaced people back to their homes. What we’ve seen is a more insidious plan to keep the land, redevelop it and turn it into this playground so New Orleans can be resurfaced and become a new place, and lo and behold they do things like that. Natural disasters hit places like New Orleans and you’ll find the same scheme happening in Haiti where there’s a natural disaster and they want to reinvent the surface of Haiti. This is what Bill Clinton’s idea is - to renovate Haiti so it can be full of resorts and things of that nature, without the people. They’re not letting Haiti redevelop and have a government of its own. So that’s a little bit of news. The world ain’t doomed but I just like to be up there on what’s going on.
O: Yeah, people need to know and these things...
DP: There’s some good things going on too, there’s some great things happening. For instance, Dead Prez have got a brand new album coming out. deadprez.com!
O: I heard you guys talking about the Nas album “Nigger”. For me a massive moment in music in terms of mixing content with lyrical ability. You spoke about you having to up your rap game a little (smiles) Have you done that? Is that what we’re going to hear?
DP: Stic is a better rapper than Nas hands down! (All laugh) Nah, I love Nas, but yeah, there’s some heat, our pens are on fire right now. You got the new shit? Yeah. Pens on fire. I’d say while working with Nas on the Nigger album - we did some co-writing - I was extremely inspired by his abilities and his mastery of his craft, words, enunciation - all the mechanics in the studio, I was amazed. I’ve been a student of MCing forever but that was definitely an honour just to see how he does what he does.
O: So i know you did some beats for the album did you work on the lyrics too?
M1: Yeah. It was really good because he would come with raw concepts without the information to back it and I sat in the studio with this dude for 3 days straight. He would come and say, “I want to do a song to diss Fox - because they said something crazy about him... So we would sit there and talk about Fox top to bottom - who owns it, who broadcasts it, who are the people playing the game, what are the lies they tell... and we gave ourselves feedback.
O: Nice, that explains a lot. Looking forward to the show and seeing you at carnival.
We caught up with Dead Prez at the show, it was crazy so check out this interview on- line at guestlist.net
