Greg Bowes It’s rare that we get ace international hip-hop acts in town and when groups who incorporate these elements do visit, the reception has been less than lukewarm. Consider the plights of Anglo-Asian anarcho-noise makers Fun-Da-Mental and slick Arrested Development, who both dished out masterful, remarkable music to mediocre receptions in the Nineties. Eargasm Entertainment turned the tables earlier this year when they brought out Mr Len, Jean Grae and Bobbito Garcia for the burgeoning local hip-hop community. Next weekend as part of the Arts Alive festival they host the sonically and politically barbed audio science of Dead Prez. The band is fronted by wordsmiths Stic Man and Jamaican-born Lavonne Alfred, aka M1, who both come from under-privileged, crime- ridden backgrounds. When they met in the early Nineties they formed Dead Prez with a defiant political agenda. Their unrelenting debut album Let’s Get Free arrived in the United States in March and sparked instant controversy. Recently released locally through Sony, it features tracks like Hip-hop and Happiness, a collaboration with Mary J Blige and Sean “Puffy” Combs. The confrontational work deals frankly with many concerns – the school system, police, “fake niggas who try to copy Masta P”, organised religion, nuclear weapons, the liars in the FBI, CIA, KKK, IRS, CBS and NBC – you name it. On the one occasion where they relinquish the issues it’s to slip between the sheets on the sultry Mind Sex, but as its title suggests the cut glorifies conversation, incense and herbal tea over the act itself. The duo’s feelings are stated explicitly in the album notes: black prisoners are seen as PoWs because they have to operate in an oppressive system that forces them to either work poorly paid jobs “that (for the most part) make white folks with money even more rich” or join the drug economy and a life of crime. For Dead Prez, capitalism means black suffering and enslavement – hence the album’s title. The highly charged and articulate duo use hip-hop – still anathema to mainstream America – as a fast-talking political mouthpiece, raising questions about the deaths of Steve Biko and others and forwarding ideas of “African renaissance” atop a provocatively produced soundtrack. Dead Prez’s musical lexicon includes interstellar G funk, laid-back reggae, slick soul jazz, groovy guitars, crab scratches and machine gun drums, and in their rhymes are cries for revolution that link them to legends like Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh.
Their live show reputedly leaves the lengthily mediated finished CD product in the shade, but with only a DJ backing them up we’ll have to wait and see. Dead Prez’s first African gig happens at Jo’burg’s Mega Music on September 29 and the second at Cape Town’s Longkloof Studios on September 30, with the hottest local hip-hop talent in support, including Ready D who’ll do his usual scratch showpiece at both events alongside the brilliant Bionic. MC Mizchif will perform at Jozi’s gig with DJ Mista Bigga, Blk Sonshine and Cashless Society, whose debut single on Bobbito Garcia’s Fondle ’em label has just sold about 2E000 units worldwide. The packed programme starts at 8pm and also includes the “poethnic rhythmix” of PERM, percussionists, videos and B-Boys, so get there early. Cape Town’s event will feature the finest the Cape has to offer, like new POC rappers Eloise and Tebz and taggers The Villanous Animators. Dead Prez then travel to Botswana where they perform at the Independence Day festivities with Mandoza and others. As with Fun-Da-Mental and Arrested Development, Dead Prez’s appearance here entails more than just bringing down the house, seeing some game and going home with our rands. The continent is one of their major focuses and they’re no doubt here on their own personal fact-finding mission. With so much at stake it’s definitely about much more than just the music.