What Is Dead Prez
dead prez: Raising the Roof and Black Consciousness
Throughout America’s history, a stream of voices has given shape to the African American experience. Whether through academic discourse, personal narrative, poetry, song, fiction, or satire, African American literature demonstrates the responses of African Americans to the social, political, and economic environments of their era. Countless writers have contributed unique, even contradictory ideas to this ongoing discussion, highlighting the diversity of the African American experience and the need for continued discourse. One such voice today is heard in political hip-hop duo Dead Prez (stylized as dead prez), whose debut album Let’s Get Free builds on the ideas of prominent black thinkers …show more content…
of the past, defies the stereotypical parameters of their genre, and articulates new ideas of what it means to be black in 21st century America.
Although the militant nature of much of Let’s Get Free could easily be described as merely a continuation of the Black Arts Movement in the 21st century, to do so would oversimplify the record’s message by ignoring numerous additional influences felt throughout the album. Instead, examining the evolution of ideas throughout the album highlights the diversity of thought present within dead prez’s message and the extent to which their album serves as a contemporary reimagining of many ideas expressed through African American Literature.
The album kicks off with the intro track “Wolves,” in which an excerpt from a speech by Omali Yeshitela, founder of the Uhuru Movement, is played over a musical backdrop (Maher). Yeshitela tells a parable of wolves being lured into deadly traps where they lick blood from the blades of swords and eventually bleed out as a result. He then draws parallels between this scenario and the epidemic of crack cocaine in black neighborhoods. From there, the intro explores the unequal opportunities between races in America, asking why many of the comforts and privileges afforded to white Americans remain largely unobtainable to many people of color. The concluding lines of this track serve as dead prez’s thesis statement and set the tone for much of the rest of the album: “You don’t blame the person, the victim. You blame the Oppressor! Imperialism, white power is the enemy... And that’s the thing that we have to understand.” Starting with this assertion, the rest of the album devoted to exposing modern manifestations of oppression and providing examples of ways African Americans can embrace new ideas to throw off the yolk of oppression and enhance the experience of being black in America.
Following the intro, dead prez gets their lyrical ball rolling with “I’m an African,” a simultaneous embrace of Afrocentrism and condemnation of America’s historic failures of its black citizens. Many of the sentiments expressed in this song reflect feelings popularized in African American communities in the early 20th century by Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association. Although dead prez does not advocate returning to Africa, they, like Garvey, seek to distance themselves from their oppressor, claiming “I’m an African, never was an African American/ Blacker than black, I take it back to my origins.” Both dead prez and Garvey recognize the extent to which people of African descent have been marginalized in American society and the need “for the individual Negro as well as the entire race to decide the course that will be pursued in the interest of our own liberty.” This “Oneness of Interests” of people of color is explained in very similar terms in these two writings. Garvey explains his belief that “there is absolutely no difference between the native African and the American and West Indian Negroes, in that we are descendants from one family stock.” In “I’m an African,” dead prez proclaims “A-F-R-I-C-A/ Puerto Rico, Haiti, and J.A./ New York and Cali, F-L-A/ No it aint 'bout where you stay/ it's about the Motherland.” By rejecting their American identity and arguing for the unity of people of color, dead prez denounces America’s institutional racism and sets the stage for the rest of Let’s Get Free, which seeks to “capture for the African world the true plight of the African in the United States, which defiantly contradicts the colonialist and imperialist version of our story” (Egbuna).
The fourth track on Let’s Get Free is dead prez’s popular anthem “Hip Hop.” The song’s upbeat tempo and precise delivery make it easy to miss its cutting critique of the music industry. Much like Amiri Baraka’s seminal poem “Black Art,” “Hip Hop” stresses the need for socially transformative hip hop songs and criticizes both the artists who fail to meet this standard and the record labels that exploit them. The song begins with the lines “Uh, uh, 1, 2, 1, 2/ Uh, uh All my dogs,” a mocking imitation of many superficial rap intros. Dead prez goes on to dismiss the many “fake ass records” they see in hip hop that ignore social issues and conform instead to the “materialistic, misogynistic, and thug-life scenarios” that are encouraged by label executives (Mitchell). In “Hip Hop,” dead prez presents their music as an alternative to the “monotonous,” sell-out music found throughout the genre and challenges fellow rappers to aspire to a higher standard, asking, “Would you rather have a Lexus, or justice? A dream or some substance? A Beemer, a necklace, or freedom?” The parallels to “Black Art” are readily apparent. It is as if dead prez reworded Baraka’s poem to read “Fuck hip hop/ and it is useful.” Indeed, the duo’s condemnation of superficial rap in the face of widespread social inequalities echoes Baraka’s sentiment that “no love poems (should be) written until love can exist freely and cleanly.” The song’s repetitive hook drives home their point that their music is “bigger than hip hop” and is motivated by their desire to expose and address racial injustice. In this way, “Hip Hop” affirms the notion that dead prez are “activists first and rappers second” (Maher: 142). Applying this spirit of activism to Toni Bambara’s liberation framework, “Hip Hop” could be viewed as dead prez’s attempt to liberate the genre as a whole “from the exploitive and dehumanizing system of racism, from the manipulative control of a corporate society… [and] from the constrictive norms of ‘mainstream’ culture” that are critiqued throughout the song. In short, “Hip Hop” challenges the hip hop community to “get basic” with their lyrics by addressing the obstacles faced by African Americans in every day life.
Many of the songs on the first half of Let’s Get Free serve as examples of the revolutionary, activist purpose dead prez urges the hip hop community to embrace. “They Schools,” “Police State,” and “Behind Enemy Lines” combine to paint a grim picture of the reality experienced in many economically and politically disadvantaged communities of color. The racism and injustice described in these songs gives voice to James Baldwin’s long silent Negro child who “knows his circumstances… but he cannot articulate them, because he is born into a republic which assures him in as many ways as it knows how… that he has a certain place and can never rise above it.” These songs defy such oppressive forces through exposure, laying bare the harsh realities facing countless Americans today. In “They Schools,” dead prez elaborates on the failures of the public school system, whose colonialist view of history serves “only to glorify the Europeans/ Claimin’ Africans were only three-fifths a human being.” The song goes on to claim the typical approach to education is irrelevant to many African Americans due to its failure to address the problems of poverty, police brutality, and drugs that surround many students on a daily basis. The song “Police State” goes on to elaborate on the challenges of daily life in many black communities. Like “Wolves,” this song opens with a speech excerpt from Omali Yeshitela, who says that “the police become necessary in human society only at that junction in human society where it is split between those who have and those who ain’t got.” Dead prez uses that as a launching point to describe problems experienced in many African American communities. The inadequate school systems and lack of meaningful financial opportunity lead many youth to gang life, which divides already disadvantaged communities and creates positive feedback loops of sustained poverty. The song’s chorus serves as a wake up call to those who listen by describing persist issues of crime, racism, sexism, and poverty then asking “can you relate? We livin in a police state.” Much like W.E.B. DuBois, dead prez seeks to “lift the veil” of distorted perception to expose the realities of African American life in the 21st century. The song “Behind Enemy Lines” continues this endeavor by describing crime in the context of the political, social, and economic realities in which it takes place. The song tells of a child with a heroin addicted, Vietnam veteran father and a stressed out, mentally unstable mother. Born into a life of poverty and raised by his grandma, the child turned to crime due to lack of opportunity. Dead prez concludes the verse poignantly, saying, “But y’all know how the game go/ D’s kicked in the front door, and guess who the came fo?/ A young nigga headed for the pen/ coulda been/ shoulda been/ never see the hood again.” By tearing down illusions and exposing the violence of reality, dead prez demonstrates a recognition that “reality itself is a construct, and that despite structural constraints it is also something capable of being dismantled and reconfigured” (Maher: 147). Throughout these songs, dead prez dismantles widespread conceptions of urban life for African Americans and reconfigures them in a way that “equates classrooms with jail cells, the projects with killing fields,” and views this children who turn to crime as victims of a racially unjust system (Ex).
After establishing their purpose in “Wolves” and “Hip Hop” and offering revolutionary social critiques in “They Schools,” “Police State,” and “Behind Enemy Lines,” dead prez changes gears in the second half of Let’s Get Free.
Having already established the need for liberation, many of the remaining songs come in the form of suggestions by dead prez on steps to be taken towards this end. In “Mind Sex,” dead prez offers an alternative to the misogynistic view of women perpetuated in mainstream hip hop. Rather than viewing women merely as sexual objects, “Mind Sex” asserts that true beauty resides in intellectual and emotional attraction and that men should form an appreciation for women as a whole person before pursuing sex. The first verse highlights this idea, saying “See, I aint got to get in your blouse/ It’s your eye contact that be getting me aroused/ When you show me your mind, it make me wanna show you mine” followed by “for me, boo, makin love is just as much mental/ I like to know what I’m getting into.” Although this song may seem disconnected from the no-holds-barred approach of previous songs, the argument presented here by dead prez demonstrates their commitment to the complete cultural liberation of the African American community. As bell hooks and others have keenly observed, sexism is often pushed under the rug when discussing racism and black empowerment. Dead prez, by expanding their call for liberation to include women, join the “small number of black males …show more content…
willing to engage feminist critique, seeing it from a standpoint that enables them to divest of learned engagement with patriarchal thinking that is fundamentally undermining and disenabling.”
Like “Mind Sex”, the songs “Be Healthy” and “Happiness” embody the pragmatic tone of the second half of Let’s Get Free.
Indeed, it is almost hard to believe the opening line “I don’t eat no meat/ no dairy, no sweets/ only ripe vegetables, fresh fruit, and whole wheat” came from the same men who, only a few songs earlier, were threatening to throw Molotov cocktails at police. In reality, however, this song offers practical advice to those seeking to make positive change within their community. School reform, poverty, gang violence, and widespread incarceration represent systemic problems that can be overwhelming to any individual. “Be Healthy” provides a message of hope in the face of such widespread injustice by reaffirming Gil Scot Heron’s belief that change on the individual level is a prerequisite to revolutionary societal change. In “Happiness,” dead prez addresses the possibility of being overwhelmed by injustice more directly, explaining to listeners “I feel great/ even though we got mad things to deal with/ happiness is all in the mind/ let’s unwind and find a reason to smile/ I’m just glad to be livin’/ feelin’ fine/ leavin’ my bad times behind.” These lyrics convey a theme repeated throughout African American literature of optimism for the future even in the face of widespread injustice in the
present.
The songs examined above provide an overview of the ideas conveyed in dead prez’s revolutionary debut album Let’s Get Free. The album not only revisits common themes of African American literature through a 21st century perspective, but does so in a way that reaches people who might otherwise never have been exposed to such thinking. By fusing revolutionary activism and hip hop, dead prez answers Baratunde Thurston’s call to challenge “the prevailing and limited images of blackness peddled by our major media but also the limited expectations of many black people themselves” (Thurston: 223). Indeed, dead prez’s music embodies their deeply held belief that “ordinary people have the capacity to create their own visions and solve their own problems” (Sullivan). By reimagining the possibilities of hip hop and boldly tackling important social issues of today, dead prez’s music represents a continuation of revolutionary African American thought that can be traced throughout all of American history.
Throughout America’s history, a stream of voices has given shape to the African American experience. Whether through academic discourse, personal narrative, poetry, song, fiction, or satire, African American literature demonstrates the responses of African Americans to the social, political, and economic environments of their era. Countless writers have contributed unique, even contradictory ideas to this ongoing discussion, highlighting the diversity of the African American experience and the need for continued discourse. One such voice today is heard in political hip-hop duo Dead Prez (stylized as dead prez), whose debut album Let’s Get Free builds on the ideas of prominent black thinkers …show more content…
of the past, defies the stereotypical parameters of their genre, and articulates new ideas of what it means to be black in 21st century America.
Although the militant nature of much of Let’s Get Free could easily be described as merely a continuation of the Black Arts Movement in the 21st century, to do so would oversimplify the record’s message by ignoring numerous additional influences felt throughout the album. Instead, examining the evolution of ideas throughout the album highlights the diversity of thought present within dead prez’s message and the extent to which their album serves as a contemporary reimagining of many ideas expressed through African American Literature.
The album kicks off with the intro track “Wolves,” in which an excerpt from a speech by Omali Yeshitela, founder of the Uhuru Movement, is played over a musical backdrop (Maher). Yeshitela tells a parable of wolves being lured into deadly traps where they lick blood from the blades of swords and eventually bleed out as a result. He then draws parallels between this scenario and the epidemic of crack cocaine in black neighborhoods. From there, the intro explores the unequal opportunities between races in America, asking why many of the comforts and privileges afforded to white Americans remain largely unobtainable to many people of color. The concluding lines of this track serve as dead prez’s thesis statement and set the tone for much of the rest of the album: “You don’t blame the person, the victim. You blame the Oppressor! Imperialism, white power is the enemy... And that’s the thing that we have to understand.” Starting with this assertion, the rest of the album devoted to exposing modern manifestations of oppression and providing examples of ways African Americans can embrace new ideas to throw off the yolk of oppression and enhance the experience of being black in America.
Following the intro, dead prez gets their lyrical ball rolling with “I’m an African,” a simultaneous embrace of Afrocentrism and condemnation of America’s historic failures of its black citizens. Many of the sentiments expressed in this song reflect feelings popularized in African American communities in the early 20th century by Marcus Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association. Although dead prez does not advocate returning to Africa, they, like Garvey, seek to distance themselves from their oppressor, claiming “I’m an African, never was an African American/ Blacker than black, I take it back to my origins.” Both dead prez and Garvey recognize the extent to which people of African descent have been marginalized in American society and the need “for the individual Negro as well as the entire race to decide the course that will be pursued in the interest of our own liberty.” This “Oneness of Interests” of people of color is explained in very similar terms in these two writings. Garvey explains his belief that “there is absolutely no difference between the native African and the American and West Indian Negroes, in that we are descendants from one family stock.” In “I’m an African,” dead prez proclaims “A-F-R-I-C-A/ Puerto Rico, Haiti, and J.A./ New York and Cali, F-L-A/ No it aint 'bout where you stay/ it's about the Motherland.” By rejecting their American identity and arguing for the unity of people of color, dead prez denounces America’s institutional racism and sets the stage for the rest of Let’s Get Free, which seeks to “capture for the African world the true plight of the African in the United States, which defiantly contradicts the colonialist and imperialist version of our story” (Egbuna).
The fourth track on Let’s Get Free is dead prez’s popular anthem “Hip Hop.” The song’s upbeat tempo and precise delivery make it easy to miss its cutting critique of the music industry. Much like Amiri Baraka’s seminal poem “Black Art,” “Hip Hop” stresses the need for socially transformative hip hop songs and criticizes both the artists who fail to meet this standard and the record labels that exploit them. The song begins with the lines “Uh, uh, 1, 2, 1, 2/ Uh, uh All my dogs,” a mocking imitation of many superficial rap intros. Dead prez goes on to dismiss the many “fake ass records” they see in hip hop that ignore social issues and conform instead to the “materialistic, misogynistic, and thug-life scenarios” that are encouraged by label executives (Mitchell). In “Hip Hop,” dead prez presents their music as an alternative to the “monotonous,” sell-out music found throughout the genre and challenges fellow rappers to aspire to a higher standard, asking, “Would you rather have a Lexus, or justice? A dream or some substance? A Beemer, a necklace, or freedom?” The parallels to “Black Art” are readily apparent. It is as if dead prez reworded Baraka’s poem to read “Fuck hip hop/ and it is useful.” Indeed, the duo’s condemnation of superficial rap in the face of widespread social inequalities echoes Baraka’s sentiment that “no love poems (should be) written until love can exist freely and cleanly.” The song’s repetitive hook drives home their point that their music is “bigger than hip hop” and is motivated by their desire to expose and address racial injustice. In this way, “Hip Hop” affirms the notion that dead prez are “activists first and rappers second” (Maher: 142). Applying this spirit of activism to Toni Bambara’s liberation framework, “Hip Hop” could be viewed as dead prez’s attempt to liberate the genre as a whole “from the exploitive and dehumanizing system of racism, from the manipulative control of a corporate society… [and] from the constrictive norms of ‘mainstream’ culture” that are critiqued throughout the song. In short, “Hip Hop” challenges the hip hop community to “get basic” with their lyrics by addressing the obstacles faced by African Americans in every day life.
Many of the songs on the first half of Let’s Get Free serve as examples of the revolutionary, activist purpose dead prez urges the hip hop community to embrace. “They Schools,” “Police State,” and “Behind Enemy Lines” combine to paint a grim picture of the reality experienced in many economically and politically disadvantaged communities of color. The racism and injustice described in these songs gives voice to James Baldwin’s long silent Negro child who “knows his circumstances… but he cannot articulate them, because he is born into a republic which assures him in as many ways as it knows how… that he has a certain place and can never rise above it.” These songs defy such oppressive forces through exposure, laying bare the harsh realities facing countless Americans today. In “They Schools,” dead prez elaborates on the failures of the public school system, whose colonialist view of history serves “only to glorify the Europeans/ Claimin’ Africans were only three-fifths a human being.” The song goes on to claim the typical approach to education is irrelevant to many African Americans due to its failure to address the problems of poverty, police brutality, and drugs that surround many students on a daily basis. The song “Police State” goes on to elaborate on the challenges of daily life in many black communities. Like “Wolves,” this song opens with a speech excerpt from Omali Yeshitela, who says that “the police become necessary in human society only at that junction in human society where it is split between those who have and those who ain’t got.” Dead prez uses that as a launching point to describe problems experienced in many African American communities. The inadequate school systems and lack of meaningful financial opportunity lead many youth to gang life, which divides already disadvantaged communities and creates positive feedback loops of sustained poverty. The song’s chorus serves as a wake up call to those who listen by describing persist issues of crime, racism, sexism, and poverty then asking “can you relate? We livin in a police state.” Much like W.E.B. DuBois, dead prez seeks to “lift the veil” of distorted perception to expose the realities of African American life in the 21st century. The song “Behind Enemy Lines” continues this endeavor by describing crime in the context of the political, social, and economic realities in which it takes place. The song tells of a child with a heroin addicted, Vietnam veteran father and a stressed out, mentally unstable mother. Born into a life of poverty and raised by his grandma, the child turned to crime due to lack of opportunity. Dead prez concludes the verse poignantly, saying, “But y’all know how the game go/ D’s kicked in the front door, and guess who the came fo?/ A young nigga headed for the pen/ coulda been/ shoulda been/ never see the hood again.” By tearing down illusions and exposing the violence of reality, dead prez demonstrates a recognition that “reality itself is a construct, and that despite structural constraints it is also something capable of being dismantled and reconfigured” (Maher: 147). Throughout these songs, dead prez dismantles widespread conceptions of urban life for African Americans and reconfigures them in a way that “equates classrooms with jail cells, the projects with killing fields,” and views this children who turn to crime as victims of a racially unjust system (Ex).
After establishing their purpose in “Wolves” and “Hip Hop” and offering revolutionary social critiques in “They Schools,” “Police State,” and “Behind Enemy Lines,” dead prez changes gears in the second half of Let’s Get Free.
Having already established the need for liberation, many of the remaining songs come in the form of suggestions by dead prez on steps to be taken towards this end. In “Mind Sex,” dead prez offers an alternative to the misogynistic view of women perpetuated in mainstream hip hop. Rather than viewing women merely as sexual objects, “Mind Sex” asserts that true beauty resides in intellectual and emotional attraction and that men should form an appreciation for women as a whole person before pursuing sex. The first verse highlights this idea, saying “See, I aint got to get in your blouse/ It’s your eye contact that be getting me aroused/ When you show me your mind, it make me wanna show you mine” followed by “for me, boo, makin love is just as much mental/ I like to know what I’m getting into.” Although this song may seem disconnected from the no-holds-barred approach of previous songs, the argument presented here by dead prez demonstrates their commitment to the complete cultural liberation of the African American community. As bell hooks and others have keenly observed, sexism is often pushed under the rug when discussing racism and black empowerment. Dead prez, by expanding their call for liberation to include women, join the “small number of black males …show more content…
willing to engage feminist critique, seeing it from a standpoint that enables them to divest of learned engagement with patriarchal thinking that is fundamentally undermining and disenabling.”
Like “Mind Sex”, the songs “Be Healthy” and “Happiness” embody the pragmatic tone of the second half of Let’s Get Free.
Indeed, it is almost hard to believe the opening line “I don’t eat no meat/ no dairy, no sweets/ only ripe vegetables, fresh fruit, and whole wheat” came from the same men who, only a few songs earlier, were threatening to throw Molotov cocktails at police. In reality, however, this song offers practical advice to those seeking to make positive change within their community. School reform, poverty, gang violence, and widespread incarceration represent systemic problems that can be overwhelming to any individual. “Be Healthy” provides a message of hope in the face of such widespread injustice by reaffirming Gil Scot Heron’s belief that change on the individual level is a prerequisite to revolutionary societal change. In “Happiness,” dead prez addresses the possibility of being overwhelmed by injustice more directly, explaining to listeners “I feel great/ even though we got mad things to deal with/ happiness is all in the mind/ let’s unwind and find a reason to smile/ I’m just glad to be livin’/ feelin’ fine/ leavin’ my bad times behind.” These lyrics convey a theme repeated throughout African American literature of optimism for the future even in the face of widespread injustice in the
present.
The songs examined above provide an overview of the ideas conveyed in dead prez’s revolutionary debut album Let’s Get Free. The album not only revisits common themes of African American literature through a 21st century perspective, but does so in a way that reaches people who might otherwise never have been exposed to such thinking. By fusing revolutionary activism and hip hop, dead prez answers Baratunde Thurston’s call to challenge “the prevailing and limited images of blackness peddled by our major media but also the limited expectations of many black people themselves” (Thurston: 223). Indeed, dead prez’s music embodies their deeply held belief that “ordinary people have the capacity to create their own visions and solve their own problems” (Sullivan). By reimagining the possibilities of hip hop and boldly tackling important social issues of today, dead prez’s music represents a continuation of revolutionary African American thought that can be traced throughout all of American history.