If you were to get a dictionary and look up the term anti-establishment don’t surprised if you find the faces of Dead Prez next to it. Described as “somewhere between N.W.A and P.E (Public Enemy)” M1 and stic.man have been fighting ‘The Powers That Be’ for years with their social, political and militant lyrics. Taking a ‘no retreat, no surrender’ stance to those who are in power and who abuse it has made them one of the most celebrated hip hop groups in the world today. Jerry Gadiano has quick chat with the revolutionaries who headlined last Monday’s Summer 2010 Rhyme And Reasoning Showcase.

This year Is the tenth anniversary of Let’s Get Free. Ten years on how do you think it compares to classics like Ready To Die, Illmatic, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), 3 Feet High And Rising and Me Against The World.

stic.man: Ah man, you can’t do the music and judge the music ya know what I mean, the people gotta say that. I’ll say I assume Ready To Die and those other albums were life long goals of Biggie, Nas and whatever and Let’s Get Free was a life long goal for us. If Ready To Die told Biggie’s story up to that point Let’s Get Free definitely told our story up to that point.

Why do you think the album done so critically well?

stic.man: Cause it was hard man, lyrics was real.

M1: I would say it happened reluctantly. I don’t think that The Source[Magazine] jumped on board and said “That’s great”. It came at a time when that type of music was not the most popular music out there. I think there some people committed to new ideas because at that point there was no crunk music but definitely bling bling was invented, you had Versace and there was a whole bunch of war going on and the time of ‘Black Power’ was not in. So when we came in with the knotty roots looking hair and wearing the camouflage suits  we were influence by the hardness of the world but with something that we wanted to march to. I guess it done well critically because… well you gotta tell me like stic said because we where the makers of it.

stic.man: See  I think what made our music cut through in certain kinda way – and I say that humbly – we try to be a bridge, where a lot things either try to be on one side or this side, but in our life that’s not reality. You know I can relate to the streets in everyway, that’s everything I learned about music, economics, history and culture I learned from the streets, I didn’t learn from no University or any other place. So the way that we speak on philosophy and life come from the streets and I think people in the streets relate to that because they always say you gotta go to college to have some kinda of education or whatever but we see things, have ideas and visions just like anybody else. So I think that’s partly what our music represents it’s a bridge to the intellectual and the streets.

On the subject of education “They” Schools was one of the stand out tracks for me on that album but I’m interested to know do you still harbour the same feelings to the education system in America?

M1: Like stic said, we were able to add onto that idea, we were giving you our experiences whether it was good or bad and we wanted to communicate with reality. Making Let’s Get Free and writing “They” Schools we wanted to communicate our angst and frustration at the American school system for being a brainwash and slavery system and it still is today. From that we’ve gone on to be a part of helping and developing curriculums in regular public schools, some teachers will be in there knowing that they’re participating in a school environment that’s brainwashing  kids and there’s certain teachers that don’t want to do it and they’ll play that song to their students today. I’m proud that moment can happen cause that also gives us a chance to add on to the song where we didn’t and to some solutions we weren’t able to have from before, cause “They” Schools wasn’t about solutions but we’re now able to talk about solutions to education today.

Do You feel that some of you listeners don’t understand the true meaning of the song Hip Hop?

stic.man: Well I don’t assume that, I don’t assume what people think at all. I feel like people who like Hip Hop like different things, some people like the beat, some people like the flow, some people agree with the sentiment, ya know what I mean and that’s life. I would say our message is the whole thing, it’s the beat, the lyrics, it’s the point of view and that’s the message and I think people get that. It’s hard to play that song and think we’re talking about booty shaking or something like that…

M1: And even when you do here the song and people are paying homage to it like Drake did I think that deep down in his psyche, even though he twisted them lyrics around  and made ‘em kinda on some BS, you can’t escape the fact that that song hit him. No matter what, the lyrics are what they are and it’s still Bigger Than Hip Hop and that reverberates so I love just the strength in that and I give thanks to that, it’s been a fantastic journey with that song.

Have you guys got any new material or an album coming out soon?

stic.man: We got a new album dropping this November called Information Age, so you know it’s a lot more progressive so look out for it.

Look out for Information Age to drop this year in November. In the meantime you can download Dead Prez’s latest mixtape Revolutionary But Gangsta Grillz hosted DJ Drama by clicking here.

You can check out there website DeadPrez.com for the latest Dead Prez news.

For more infro on Rhyme & Reasoning go to their website RhymeAndReasonLive.com.

Tags: Dead Prez, Hip Hop, Interviews, Rhyme And Reasoning