dead prez, composed of verbally gifted and socially minded emcees, didn’t just hit the Hip Hop scene in 1999 with Let’s Get Free, they smashed into it head on collison style. Listeners did a music equivalent of slowing down to witness the crashes aftermath, ingesting tracks such as “They Schools”, “Hip Hop”, and “Police State” mouths agape.
Some shouted ‘right on’ with fists raised. Others couldn’t move fast enough on to turn down the volume, and others remained frozen, mouths still agape trying to figure out what to do with the group that, some could say, I actually just oversimplified as socially minded. As a high school student, part of me could not believe that Sony actually released their debut album, an album which, according to stic.man, involved dp fighting Sony “on every lyric, every artwork description, on every way we would be presented. We fought them, but we didn’t have to fight them directly a lot cause we already knew they would have issues with things so we would wait til the last minute to do it. When we went to get signed we kind of portrayed ourselves as a Mobb Deep/Wu-Tang type of group. We were edgy, but they had no idea the political level that our music could portray.”The cat has since been thrown out of the bag, and dead prez has since to experience such large musical exposure. While they’re revered and lauded for their skill, passion, and championing of the people, they have not had a video in rotation on MTV such as their breakthrough “Hip Hop”. However, they’re not interested in changing their message for more money or limelight, as they prepare for the release of Pulse of The People, a new LP produced entirely by Green Lantern, the duo are still unfolding their sound, and still sticking to their guns. “One, we definitely don’t want to compromise our position at all, at any times. Our goal is to be 100% in control of what we say and how it’s portrayed.”
Read on to catch part one of our two part interview with stic.man of dead prez. Here he talks about the creation of their debut album, the walking contradiction that dp symbolizes, Paul Wall vs. KRS and much more…
RubyHornet: The first single that you guys put out on the web and iTunes was “The Stimulus Plan”. In that song you guys say that people will do anything for the green, but isn’t dead prez a walking example that the opposite can be true as well? I mean, the music you create is not exactly heavily commercial or marketable, and if you toned it down a bit, you could make more money right? So why not?
stic.man: Well, you just made some interesting points on both sides. One, we definitely don’t want to compromise our position at all, at any times. Our goal is to be 100% in control of what we say and how it’s portrayed. When we’re talking about the reality of economics, you can have all the principles in the world, but when certain issues effect your life greater than just convictions and people are hungry that you care about, people need health care, people need food to eat, people need a place to stay and things of that nature, you put people in a situation where they gotta make that happen one way or another. Even when you have a political understanding, or principles, or even if you don’t, we still are all running in the same system. We’re put in a situation that creates contradictions in our reality, in what we want to be able to do and what we are able to do. When we talk about politics, economics and things like that, we don’t try to paint a righteous picture of the way things are supposed to be. We talk about how things are and why. And that they’re going to be like that unless we change the position.
RubyHornet: I saw your interview with Ms. Drama and you guys talked about wanting to stay out of beefs between artists or be used to symbolize an attack on artists that your fans feel don’t share your level of musical intelligence and subject matter. In the same interview you said that you can respect Soulja Boy and sometimes understand what he’s saying, then in that same interview M-1 freestyled, “I’m trying to do a record with the teacher, not Paul Wall and not cause he’s white, I’m just saying f**k balling…” So it seems like there’s a difference between you supporting an artist as a person making a living vs. their actual music, like you may respect someone for being successful, but musically may not agree? Is that accurate?
stic.man: Basically yes. If you’re a boxing fan, you respect the sport, you understand the sport you respect the technique and the training. You know some of it is Hollywood and some of it is pure art and sweat. When you watch it, you have your favorites. When Tyson goes in there, you’re like, ‘knock’em out.’ The other guy who is just as human, and just as in need of being supported might not get your support cause you root for Tyson. There’s room for that being that we’re rappers. We got people that we like, people that we don’t, but since rap is under the microscope so hard and people try to make beefs, the FBI, the CIA, the Hip Hop police, the haters, all kinds of folks try to take sportsman like comments and turn it into a negative thing that can divide people and create tension, and create beef. There are times when we voice our opinion on certain artists and certain things in the spirit of we’re just one voice of everyone. Not to be like this is dead prez trying to make everybody like who we like, and not like who we don’t like. There’s a thin line, and I think with M-1 saying that I think he expressed himself saying, not Paul Wall not because he’s white, but because his subject matter, this whole ballin’-diamonds in teeth, yada, yada, yada…I think he was trying to say as an example, he respects KRS One’s contribution more than that. I also know that M-1 lives in Houston and he has a lot of love for UGK, and the originators of that gangsta sound. We relate to all the different cultures. At times you’re making different points. I do think KRS’ contribution to the game should be respected on a whole other level than, ‘I’m ballin’ out right now.’
RubyHornet: You’ve talked about being labeled underground artists vs. mainstream artists and the labels that are created by the music industry in a sense to continue to propel itself. I watched a documentary yesterday entitled Before The Music Dies in which I think it was Branford Marsalis or Dave Mathews who said that the music industry used to be about promoting that new sound, that new music, and selling it. Now the music industry is about selling pop culture and having people buy pop culture not really music. Do you agree? And if so, how does a group like Dead Prez make a living in the music industry?
stic.man: Let me just say that I have great respect for Marsalis as a thinker and a Jazz artist. I don’t have many of his records but I have respect for his ability to articulate his point of view. I’ve seen him speak many different places and I always enjoy how he is able to articulate himself. I would maybe beg to differ with him when he says music used to be about promoting a sound and now it’s all about pop culture. I think the capitalist business of music has always had the same objective. There’s always been a distinction between the business of music and the art of music. I think it’s easy to say that because Hip Hop is on top right now, it’s easy to scapegoat Hip Hop and say, ‘y’all got all the bulls**t.’ When New York was on top of the game everything was Hip Hop. Now that the South’s got the spotlight, rap ain’t s**t now. It’s easy to hate on who’s on top…I’m a person from the Hip Hop generation, but I’m a student of Jazz and appreciate our music from Africa all the way up to 2009. The pop culture aspect of it is the pimping of capitalism itself. It’s not only the music, it’s the food you eat. It’s the advertisers of the meat and diary industry making it cool to get three servings of cholesterol/day. America is the problem. The American lust for convenience at all costs and artificial happiness is the issue and is the problem. I’ll say it’s foolish to put that on the music.
RubyHornet: Before we jump into The Pulse of The People, I want to talk about Let’s Get Free, which is an album that came out almost ten years ago. I remember when I first that album, and the songs hit me hard. Especially “They Schools” where you say, “Observation and participation, my favorite teachers, when they beat us in the head with them books, it don’t reach us.” That whole song is really chilling to me. My mom taught in Chicago Public Schools for 30 plus years, and I also taught in CPS in Englewood for 3 years in a terrible, terrible school that definitely reinforced a certain system, some of the teachers embedded kids with the mindset that they will never be anything, dirty hallways, every stereotype of a bad school, my school had that etc…but in my classroom and many others I saw hardworking teachers that tried extremely hard to change that and really did reach kids. In your mind, even in “they schools’ as you say, can there be good teachers and individuals? Can there be silver linings in any of these places?
stic.man: Right on…If you look at Nazi Germany, I don’t even got to go into all the different facts, and how brutal that was. Let’s just say there were some Nazis that were just Nazis cause that’s who was in power. For people who are trying to get a check, this is a good job with benefits and I just happen to press the gas button. When that guy does it, he tries to treat them like a human being before he presses the button. He fixes you a strawberry soda or something. Certain people get a complex, get confused a little bit, like, ‘all the Nazi’s aren’t that bad. He just gave my cousin a strawberry soda.’ That obviously is not gonna change the fundamental situation of what the Nazi objective was. You always have a battle between the establishment and emergence of change. When we talk about school systems, of course you have people like you and your mom that want to make a difference as individuals. And that’s great that they have an individual resource, but the problem is that you’re stifled, you’re limited by what contribution you could make within that system. You gotta jump through hoops. You gotta do things that you know could be done a better way, or you’re going to get fired. There’s a force component even to do the good you’re trying to do because the system itself is corrupt and has a different agenda than you do.
So I recognize and agree with you that there’s always people, even in my high school there were individual teachers that would risk their job to push us in the direction that they felt would last longer than that diploma. One of my teachers is the reason why I got kicked out of school and started rapping the way I rap. One of my teachers said there’s not enough in the Black History program that attracts students. So all that rapping we’re doing, we should put some raps about our history and if I did, she would let me perform it at the assembly. Long story short, I didn’t know what kind of blessing she was giving me, but she gave me a couple of books and I ended up writing this song and the principal cut the mic off on me onstage. Basically, people kind of rebelled, wouldn’t go to class, and a melee popped off, some windows got broke, feathers got ruffled, and the next thing I know, the NAACP, my mom, my grandparents, churches, all kind of folks were in front of the school and that’s kind of what propelled me into realizing that music and politics can be used as a force of organizing people and getting the word out that way. We were able to get the Black History program in the hands of the students, but I got expelled from school. You have to take risks, sacrifice, you’re always gonna sacrifice your safe position if you’re trying to work within the system and want to make a difference. Ultimately, people are going to have to say, ‘we need a system in place that supports educational development and empowerment of kids and not that confronts and makes it a choice between either complying with the system or getting an education. My son attends an independent African school for boys. That’s the route I feel is most appropriate in the crisis of the public education system. I think we still have to be in that system fighting for kids that don’t have that alternative, but I think we need to create those alternatives and let the public school system catch up.
RubyHornet: Let’s Get Free came out on Sony, which was a major label release. It had strong video play on MTV. When making it, was there any surprise on your part like, ‘damn, I’m not sure if the label will put this out?’ And even with the copy that we all have, were there things that the label cut or things you had to fight for?
stic.man: The only censorship that happened on that record was that they put a version of it out where there was a sticker that covered up the guns on the cover. We fought them on every lyric, every artwork description, on every way we would be presented. We fought them, but we didn’t have to fight them directly a lot cause we already knew they would have issues with things so we would wait til the last minute to do it. When we went to get signed we kind of portrayed ourselves as a Mobb Deep/Wu-Tang type of group. We were edgy, but they had no idea the political level that our music could portray. They were more saying, ‘y’all are real lyrical and we like your sound.’ We kept the more political s**t. We didn’t play that at the demo. So they didn’t really know what they had on their hands til 1, we got our bread, and 2, they knew that even if they didn’t agree with all the politics that the support in the streets was there. We had a plan before we even met them of how we were gonna unfold what dead prez is. And we’re still unfolding that plan. Let’s Get Free was the table of contents, RBG was chapter 1. Information Age is chapter 2. We’re in constant development of perfecting our sound, which you can never perfect. But we perfect the sound and technique and showing people that we didn’t come here to be in a box of anything. We came to break the box. Over time hopefully people will be able to ride with us. Where we’re wrong, we’ll be able to correct ourselves, and where we’re right, people will see.
Check for part II coming soon.