I came of age during the "Golden Era" of hip hop. That being the case, It Takes A Nation of Millions and Yo!Bum Rush the Show had a huge, dare I say it transforming effect on me. It Takes A Nation of Millions exposed me to so many names, so many ideas, most notably Malcolm, Huey, and Assata. I still remember just sitting and staring at the picture of PE in a jail cell standing on the flag, or listening to Show Em Whatcha Got on the way to school in the morning, feeling a great sense of both pride and anger. I remember the first time I noticed on the case of Yo! the small type print that read, "The Government's Responsible." Anyway, those albums sent me on a mission to find out about myself, a mission that was reinforced with Fear of A Black Planet. I went through a "militant" phase in my life when every extra moment was spent contemplating the presence/pervasiveness/influence/machinations of white supremacy. I was actually conducting my day to day behavior while keeping in mind the tenets of Neely Fuller's People's Independent Compensatory Code...this book was on a list of books that Harry Allen/Chuck D said every black person should read that was published in Spin...it basically laid out that any activity, thought, endeavor that a person of color engaged in that wasn't in opposition to white supremacy was a waste of time...I read books like Enemies:The Clash of Races, The Iceman Inheritance, The Isis Papers, and I loved them...I loved the vitriol of H. Rap and Stokely...I felt pride when I read about and saw the images of these brave, angry, intelligent young brothers who weren't touting some peaceful resistance philosophy...I had pictures of them everywhere...having grown up surrounded by nothing but white superheroes and without a father, they were my very own Black Justice League and Father Figure rolled up intoone...but somehow I always thought there was something a little bit too easy about all of it, the basic equation, white=bad/evil, black=good seemed overly simplistic...and no, I didn't glean this simple equation from all of my reading, but I felt it was somehow implied...I knew deep down that evil was more intrinsic to man than color, more fundamental than that...anyway, I kinda feel Huey when he wrote in Revolutionary Suicide that he was never able to authentically and honestly hate people on the basis of their color, and I will tell you now, I have and have had a lot of enmity towards white people, and I would like to think that I separate their historical/collective actions from those of specific individuals, but sometimes the lines are blurred...I do feel a bit disturbed/disgusted when I see white boys with "dreads" next to me at a show...or white girls in stereotypical white girl voices talking about how cool the act is and so on, or passing a joint to the dreadlocked brother next to them...

Anway, I'm rambling, this is my point...I have feelings of ambivalence about Dead Prez...I remember Chuck D. saying a long time ago that PE would be replaced by newer, angrier voices...but are these brothers one of those voices?...I appreciate them more because of what they represent, and the context they are in...but as far as them intrinsically, I don't think they are that great as far as emcees go, to me they are basically rhyming rhetoric that anyone who was studied the works of Fanon and the BPP has already been exposed to a thousand times over...granted, not everyone has studied The Wretched of the Earth or To Die For the People, but to those of us who have, well to me at least, they seem unimaginative...but then again, perhaps what I call a lack of imagination or craftmanship is what some would call a very necessary directness...maybe they are trying to hit the "proletariat" so to speak and don't want to wrap up their words in riddles and artsy fartsy metaphors...Don't get me wrong, I like them and all, I listen to them every now and then, but they just don't blow me away...I think Boots is more insightful, clever, but somehow less compelling than the DP's...

Back to the point, my questions are as follows:

1. What do you think is so insightful/profound/informative/deep about their lyrics?

2. Do you think they are actually good emcees, or do you just like what they rhyme about? Can one separate the two?

3. If you believe that they are sincere, activists first and artists second, why?

4. I remember Lord Jamar saying that when he heard them rhyme and reference Ho Chi Minh(I think), he knew that he had to sign them because he had never heard that before. Isn't it possible that they are pimping an image? Sliding into an uncontested niche? I mean how many other militant rappers are out there right now? It's an insulated position, almost critique free. The last time I posted about Dead Prez I was accused of being a "cracker." It's like you can't criticize them as artists without being accused of opposing their message or ideology and I don't think the two are unseparable.