Pyroradio.com recently caught up with Dead Prez over the phone to talk on a number of subjects including their new mixtape Pulse Of The People, their upcoming album Information Age, M-1’s trip to Palestine, Barack Obama and more.

If you’ve been living on the moon and don’t know who Dead Prez are, they are a duo composed of Stic Man and M-1 who have been crafting revolutionary but gangsta hip-hop since the late 1990s. Having previously released two major label albums ‘Let’s Get Free’ and ‘RBG’, two volumes of their independent Turn off the Radio series and two solo albums, Dead Prez’s way of life brand has become an international symbol of substance in hip hop that connects hardcore hip hop heads with the growing movement for liberation, social justice and grassroots empowerment.

Pyroradio.com: How’s life keeping?

M-1: I’m good brother, how you feel?

Pyroradio.com: I’m good, I read you just came back from Palestine, what was that like?

M-1: Palestine was an incredible experience, it was something like no other, the people that took me over there were Resistance Is Existence, they are an organisation that works on stopping the siege on the Palestinian border, Gaza, the West Bank, Ramallah, I went with this organisation to Cairo Egypt , to carry out a humanitarian aid mission, to bring medical aid, food, supply’s, support and energy to the Palestinian people in the Gaza strip who are being warred upon by Israel. It was a crazy situation, it was definitely war and war strategy. I’ve got too many words to say about the situation, it was incredibly eye opening. I met up with a guy called Lowkey over there as well who’s from London as well, I had a chance to meet with him, he’s a good brother, we built a lot, it was real cool, we gotta get the song out.

Pyroradio.com: You’ve got Pulse of the People out now, can you tell the people how that came about with Green Lantern?

Stic Man: We first linked up with Green Lantern on the Rock The Bells Tour, from that we just built a good relation ship and decided to do the mixtape together, with him handling the production. It’s the third part to the Turn off the Radio series we got…….

*Stic Man’s line get’s cut off*

Pyroradio.com: When can people expect  Information Age?

M-1: We gonna release it when it’s time, when it’s time, not before time, when it’s time you feel me, we were working on it before Pulse Of The People and are still working on it right now,  when it’s ready it’ll be out there, that’s the best I can give you right now, it’s coming though.

Pyroradio.com: What can people expect from it? Both of you have done your solo stuff since the RBG album, I know Sticman done a lot of production on Nas’s Untitled album but what can people expect from Information Age?

M-1: We gonna talk about everything that’s going around globally, we gonna talk about where people is at with their health, it’s gonna show our understanding of the world, Information Age as it stands is us feeding off the information of the people and us funnelling in our conclusion. We gonna be talking about everything from the sun and the moon, from where we heading as a people in the next couple of years, with the economy, where we might be at even tomorrow, if the situation keeps going the way it’s going right now.

Pyroradio.com: How do think Hip Hop and the world has changed since your debut album ‘Let’s Get Free’ came out?

M-1: When that album came out it wasn’t popular to talk about social issues, Biggie was rocking Versace and everything was on business, Crystal, that was the time we made that, we’ve seen Hip Hop follow trend after trend, a lot of it trying to get people into to capitalism, that has definitely been something we have not been for, I think the world has grown and learnt a lot though, so much things have happened that have had a massive affect, 9-11, the Imperialist Wars, basically World War 3 that everybody have been involved in, in the so called middle east. Everybody is changing and learning from what’s happening, that may not be reflected in the music because a lot of the music is a trick, it’s a big media propaganda unit on the side of the state. People are changing around the world, they are coming to their own conclusions, people are working on new strategy’s on how we can get out of the situation we in, it’s time for people in music to respect that but people need to ask their artists and want their artists to talk on them things, people need to expect more.  I think people are happy listening to the music they are listening too because it seems to be selling.

Pyroradio.com: Your track Politrixxx is one of the first tracks I heard from a Hip Hop artist that wasn’t endorsing Obama, it was sceptical of him and the machine?

M-1: To be critical of a political process is ok, even America Incorporated was supposed to be built upon revolution because the revolution that happened in America changed the relationship this land had with England, I wanna say being critical of a political process should be the norm, it’s power to the cause around the world. It shouldn’t be the exception to the rule. I think a lot of people now understand things can’t just be changed by a black President or putting a face on changes, you have to deal with the problems, we dealt with that in the track. We’ve still got a United States Government, that hasn’t expelled the seed of imperialism, it still funds the Wars and oppresses people, until that changes I’m gonna be talking about it.

Pyroradio.com: What were your thoughts on Obama’s recent NAACP speech and his Healthcare speech?

M-1: With the Health Care Speech it shows that the US Government hasn’t made a clear choice as far as a strategy that will benefit the people, I was talking with former congresswomen Cynthia McKinney who ran for President with the Green Party, most of the things that are apart of Obama’s policies or goals and strategies do not have anything to do with empowering poor working class people, he said some interesting things on racial profiling with what is happening in the African community which I think should definitely be talked about. We have a whole lot more to go.

Pyroradio.com: What other projects are you working on this year?

M-1: We got a tonne of things, we gone keep touring, putting albums, more and more work hopefully some collaborations.

Pyroradio.com: Have you got any last words, any shout outs?

M-1: I’m gonna shout out Existence is Resistance organisation for bringing me to Palestine, Congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney, Councilman Charles Barron of New York, all the rappers in Africa, shout out to all the African artists in the US, K’Naan, Wale and Blitz. I’d like to shout out the people and everywhere the people are. Thanks for the time, I wanna shout out Lowkey we got a song ‘24 Hours In Gaza’ we done with Mazzi and Ayman from PR a group from Palestine.

http://www.deadprez.com/

Words: Matthew Power

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