It’s (Still) Bigger than Hiphop

If you want to see where Dead Prez are at right this very
second, look no further than the children gracing the cover of their
latest mixtape offering, Pulse of the People. Nearly a decade
ago, our introduction to the Brooklyn duo came with the image of a
heavily armed insurrection of African villagers that adorned the cover
of their debut, Let’s Get Free. Dead Prez was like that uprising
village: deliberately militant, on a mission far more essential than
their surroundings, and ready to crush the skulls of anyone who dared
stray into their path. They were the fuck-a-cop hiphop duo that offered
a beacon of hope to the oppressed, while simultaneously frightening
conservative white America to its quivering core.

A few wars and presidents later, things still aren’t all that
different for the protagonists of Dead Prez’s songs. Yet Dead Prez,
artistically, are in a better place. The cover of Pulse of the
People features a less confrontational assembly—young
African-American kids who are all smiles—and in the duo’s
still-combative sound there’s a sliver of hope, or at least, some
stability.

“There’s been growth in terms of how we express ourselves,” explains
stic.man, who with M1 makes up Dead Prez. “We still got the same
mission, still the same struggles out here, but definitely every time
we come out, we want to show another layer, another side.” While no one
likes a happy militant, a decade-plus of swinging fists and spitting
rhymes through gnashed teeth might wear you down, and there were
moments where it seemed that the Dead Prez legacy wouldn’t be limited
to the “political” sub-genre. This included 2004’s RBG:
Revolutionary But Gangsta, a big-label release that featured a
Jay-Z cameo and a highly controversial video for lead single “Hell
Yeah.” Naturally, it was rarely played.

Dead Prez’s revolution was not televised, and they suffered for it.
Trapped in the contractual bindings of various record labels that were
never comfortable with an act of such pure combative urgency—the
oddly placed censorship sticker that attempted to veil the weapons on
the front of Let’s Get Free is proof of this—Dead Prez was
dying on the vine, a ferocious hiphop giant sawed off at the knees.
Like their short-lived icons, Dead Prez were making their wish to be
“between N.W.A. and P.E.” a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Granted, Public
Enemy still exists today, but it’s been a lifetime since they were
relevant.)

Pulse of the People is the third in a series of mixes, a
teaser for the long-delayed LP Information Age, which stic.man
promises will feature a “totally different sound and totally different
approach to what people have heard from Dead Prez.” Blessed by the
influence of co-collaborator DJ Green Lantern, Pulse challenges
longtime fans with the deep grooves of “Warpath,” which blasts off in a
Parliament spaceship of free-for-all funk, and the soulful, breezy
“Summertime” (sample lyric: “the fan don’t work but the window
will/boombox propped in the window sill”).

This slight shift towards steadier footing hasn’t changed Dead
Prez’s message, best summed up by an audio sample of an interview
between M1 and imprisoned activist Mumia Abu-Jamal that appears on
Pulse: “You got people all around the world nodding their heads
to what people are saying,” Abu-Jamal says. “So when you are conscious
of that, then you could do more than just say, ‘This is a hustle,’ ‘I’m
trying to make my bread,’ or ‘That broad got a big ass.’ Come on,
there’s more important things in the world.”