Dead Prez or alive

The packaging is powerful; the payoff comes up short.
By Oliver Wang

THE MOST POWERFUL statement Dead Prez make on their new album, RBG: Revolutionary but Gangsta (Sony), is with the cover art. Their recasting of the African red, black, and green in paisley doo-rag shades adroitly distills their image as robbin' hoods out to AK their way into a new world order. If nothing else, M-1 and Stic excel at pushing the idea(l) of '60s riot revolution in a tempting package. Compared to their 2000 release, Let's Get Free, RBG is tighter, as their low-end electro rumblings tug harder at your gut, and double-time, Southern-fried flows nestle snuggly in the pocket. This is marching music for a new generation of street soldiers, and Dead Prez wave the recruitment flag loud and proud.

Stic and M-1 aspire to what Oakland's Coup have excelled at: kicking complex ideologies on race and class to both the ivory tower and asphalt alley. Dead Prez's current hit, "Hell Yeah (Pimp the System)," for example, is a manifesto of working-class rebellion, a guidebook to "pimping the system." However, in contrast to the Coup's Boots and his sophisticated ways of coding messages into music, Dead Prez's songwriting, at best, is unintentionally humorous in its hyperbole. At worst, they just dish out didacticism.

Some 15 years after Public Enemy and N.W.A. shook the world, it's no longer enough just to shout, "Revolution!" and throw up a clenched fist. Today's politically engaged hip-hop fan has a right to demand artistry with his or her agitprop, but Dead Prez's proselytizing lacks both passion and subtlety. For example, "I Have a Dream Too" promotes drive-bys on cops, but it's surprisingly tame and tedious compared to the unleashed anger of Jay Dee's funky, furious "Fuck the Police." "W-4" tries to engage working-class frustrations, but Kayne West's "Spaceship" tackles the same topic with far more sophistication and spirit. Even their catchy "Hell Yeah" begins to drag when you realize not only that their calls to commit credit fraud and carjack pizza delivery people estrange the very wage slaves they're supposed to unite, but also that it's fundamentally a hustler's anthem that lacks a collective consciousness. Dead Prez's political plank juts out provocatively but fails to connect anywhere.

This may sound like damning with faint praise, but RBG is a compelling listen so long as you don't listen too closely. The group's thick, sticky sound beckons your body into compliance even if your mind resists. Moreover, Stic and M-1 deserve recognition for trying to ignite popular outrage in a time of arrogant apathy. But good intentions don't equal great songs, and the pair's reliance on flat rhetoric muffles their impact. Where they should be lobbing Molotovs, Dead Prez mostly rub sticks that produce smoke, but alas, little fire.

M-1 and Stic speak to the youth.
By Juan Pablo

With their latest album, RBG: Revolutionary but Gangsta, Dead Prez, in all their antigovernment glory, are poised to do what politically charged groups like Public Enemy, Paris, and the Coup haven't been able to in well over a decade. Paris was hard-hitting, and nothing can erase the indelible mark P.E. left on the game. All respect to them, mind you, but that was a long time ago – the heyday of P.C. raps, head wraps, and vegetarian sandwich wraps. Every other brother was in Kente cloth or in those African American University Alliance sweaters.

However, recent releases by the aforementioned rappers hardly made a ripple in the industry, let alone on the streets. Why? What's changed? Why can't these talented musicians garner the same success as they did in their earlier years? It could be any number of things. Some people recite the "nobody wanna hear that political shit" theory, but that doesn't add up. M-1 and Stic's second offering was voted "6th Most Anticipated Hip Hop Album of 2004" by a recent XXL Magazine-MTV2 collaboration. The same album was given a rating of "four mics" by the Source magazine, and the duo have also appeared in a handful of other MTV and VH1 rap-related segments that air regularly.

This all gives Dead Prez the stamp of authenticity that's so crucial when trying to sell records. No one, least of all poor people, like to identify with low-budget endeavors. The exposure is interpreted as "They're being controversial and still getting shine, ink in magazines, and air time on MTV. They're eating. I can see myself identifying with that."

What makes Dead Prez most attractive, though, to the street-corner hustlers, boosters, and gangsters, and in turn may spark a movement among them, can be explained in the album title's three words: Revolutionary but Gangsta. RBG. Their formula is simple. Red, black, and green rags with Dickies, Chucks, white tees, and gold teeth. Now that's hard. M-1 and Stic are more street-militant than anything that's ever hit the stores, and they present an outlet through which the downtrodden can bang on the system rather than one another. On "I Have a Dream Too" they pull drive-bys on police. On "Hell Yeah (Pimp the System)" they rap about swindling fast-food and credit-card corporations. Track after track, Dead Prez solidly connect on the RBG ideals of making politics hood-related.

M-1 and Stic marketed themselves as the industry renegades before 50 Cent did (in his pre-Eminem days) and have dealt with music industry politics at their worst. They've breached record contracts with the "plantations" in order to release their own mix-tape series, Turn Off the Radio Vol. I and II – continuing to pull in young listeners. All these factors make their relevance undeniable. Their 2000 debut, Let's Get Free, was highly praised but by and large slipped below the radar. That said, with all its revolutionary content, the video for "Hip Hop" still got a few spins, and Dead Prez were even invited to perform the single at the 2000 Source Awards. Fast-forward to 2004 and the group are releasing remixes guest-starring Jay-Z (the "Hell Yeah" remix). Shawn Carter doesn't just jump on anybody's track. Naysayers will try to discredit them, and what can be said but who knows? I do know this: Dead Prez were all over Paris's and the Coup's last albums. Neither Paris nor Boots was anywhere to be heard on anything by Dead Prez.