Startsida 
Musik Hip Hop/Rap Dead Prez deliver an important message
Musik Hip Hop/Rap Dead Prez deliver an important message
| Dead Prez deliver an important message |
| Skrivet av Rikard Rehnbergh |
| 2009-11-25 15:07 |
Rikard Rehnbergh reviews the recent Dead Prez concert @ Nalen Alongside the original rappers The Last Poets and the somewhat younger Dilated Peoples, Dead Prez must be the most militant and radical coming from the US of A since the days of Public Enemy and N.W.A.; since the death of Tupac Shakur, and Saul Williams sold out to a Nike ad. The duo, stic.man, M-1 and their DJ made a celebrated performance at the honorable and beautiful old dance palace Nalen (old nick name for “National” and the hang-out for the beatniks of the 40’s & 50’s) in Stockholm on a rainy, gloomy autumn-winter evening. The concert starts in slo-mo, with a dreary sampled tune from the DJ (who’s replacing DJ Green Lantern) while he’s trying to fire the masses, which doesn’t really happen; but as soon as M-1 and stic.man enter the stage the roof sure enough catch a fire. Dressed up in jackets and T-shirts that read “Yo, MTV sucks!” “Wildcats,” and “Sankofa Warriors” (Sankofa was sentenced to death at the age of 18, despite his strong claims of innocence, he was executed in Texas during 2000, aged 36) they set the standard of the evening: very political and radical and anarchic.With songs and slogans like “Obama, give me my shit back!” “We’re red, black’n’green, not red, white’n’blue,” “Marcus Garvey on my wall” one can see it coming – and coming hard! Dead Prez combines revolution rap with conscious spirituality rooted in the east: black-nationalism and pan-africanism, martial arts and meditation, veganism and absolutism! Therefore and accordingly they salute and toast the people with water, their new brandy, as they say, and urge all to “eat ya peas’n’rice” and to “do ya exercise” regularly. The main part of the Dead Prez-logo is the ancient I Ching-hexagram Shih, meaning The army or Leading. The Book of Changes (in Thomas Cleary’s translation) says: “An army is a group; to be upright is to be correct. Those who are able to employ groups correctly can thereby become leaders.” So true, so true, compared to all the so called hip-hop (read: redundance) that comes from the US at the present moment and for the last ten years, at least, the Dead Prez-posse (all of them) have something to say, an important message to deliver to the people of the world. That fact goes to show by the in-between-tunes-talk, it being nearly as long as the tune itself, no small talk, intermezzo chit-chat here, oh no. And it is such a relief to hear someone taking the opportunity to actually use the stage to say, not only sing, something of importance. Now, that might sound obvious and logic, but sure sheitz’ rare today. The autodidactic part is also very important in the Dead Prez-philosophy, so with the Pink Floyd intro to “Another Brick in the Wall” (which isn’t the first Floyd-tune they sample) they shout and at the same time state: “Fuck that school, teach myself, free myself!” As is the Black Pantherism/Nation-alism, with their “We’re red, green’n’black” (the tricolour of the Pan-African or UNIA-flag) they paraphrase Gil Scott Heron’s classical poem/pamphlet The Revolution will not be televised: “There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving for just the proper occasion.” DEAD PREZ GOES GREENSometimes the duo are working real hard as revolutionary cheerleaders, to get the crowd in a frenzy. Like in the game of call and response: What’s the call: free ‘em all! Or when they exhort everybody’s fuck fingers in the air, clenched fists in the air, or peace signs in the air. Dead Prez latest concern is the environment. They warn you: “Watch out for the global warming!” and mean that it is all part of a whole, holistic system, that it all goes hand-in-hand: And of their latest record, 30% is of total recycled fiber. On the official website they write in capitals: DEAD PREZ GOES GREEN! - STIC AND M1 INTRODUCE A POIGNANT NEW LECTURE SERIES THAT EXAMINES THE GREEN MOVEMENT FROM A HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE. DEAD PREZ EXAMINES HOW GOING GREEN IS NOT ONLY ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT BUT ABOUT HEALTHY EATING, EXERCISE, BUILDING ECONIMICALLY SUSTAINABLE FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES. During the concert they’re mocking Barack Obama a lot for being just a puppet on a corporate string, and the ambiguity, if not hypocrisy, of receiving a peace price while you are sending more troops to already troubled areas, by and large inflicted by the “Yankees” in the first place. Dead Prez is trying “to pimp da system!” Or, as they sing in the song Pulse: “My skin is the same color as Obama, My skin is the same color as Usama, I’m a refuge in a dirty game with no referee!” But it all ends in peace and love, for revolution is love. The change that must come. The concert ends with Al Greens classical song Let’s stay together, and that goes for the moods of the trio. Both happy and sad, angry and glad. After the concert M-1 is friendly enough to hand yours truly a free sample of their latest album, Pulse of the People, and when asked to deliver a message to my son, Mutulu the revolutionary writes: “Do it now! Time 4 Freedom!” Rikard Rehnbergh Concert date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009, Nalen, Stockholm, Sweden  Rikard Rehnbergh is a Swedish born Journalist and Anthropologist who has lived, studied and written about colonial structures, social, sexual, and cultural discrimination foremost in the former "colonies", such as Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago.
|
