Erstellt am: 7. 5. 2013 - 10:36 Uhr
"Knowledge is power"
Dead Prez sind M1 und Stic, zwei MCs, die sich Ende des letzten Jahrtausend beim Wirtschaftstudium in Florida kennengelernt haben und dann gemeinsam nach New York gezogen sind. Mit ihren Alben hätten sie eine neue Ära des politischen Hip Hop einläuten hätten können, "between Public Enemy and N.W.A". Das ist nicht passiert, aber die Dead Prez sind in dem Rahmen, in dem sie operieren, hervorstechende Einzelkämpfer und allein auf weiter Flur: Politsch prägnant und am Punkt, aber keineswegs humorabstinent. Abseits von ihrem Werk als Musiker sind sie in politischen und universitären Gruppen aktiv und beziehen sich in ihren Texten auf die Black Panther, Malcom X und Marxismus.
Ihre bekannteste Nummer ist sicherlich "Hip Hop", von ihrem Debütalbum "Let's Get free" (2000), ein großartiger Beat kombiniert mit einem Plädoyer dafür, auch als MC Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit über die Versuchungen und Verlockungen des Kapitalismus zu stellen:
Im sick of that fake thug, R & B
Rap scenario all day on the radio
Same scenes in the video, monotonous material
Y'all don't here me though
These record labels slang our tapes like dope
You can be next in line, and signed
And still be writing rhymes and broke
You would rather have a Lexus or justice
A dream or some substance
A Beamer, a necklace or freedom
“RBG - Revolutionary But Gangsta“, der Name ihres zweiten Albums, das 2004 herausgekommen ist, ist zumindest bei den Figuren, mit denen ich meine Leben verbringe, zu einem häufig zitierten politischen Slogan geworden.
Information Age
Ende letzten Jahres ist ihr viertes Album "Information Age" erschienen. Das Cover hat mich einigermaßen verwirrt. Ein Buddha mit einer Lotusblüte im Schoß - die Symbolik passt nicht zu einem Album, auf dem sich Dead Prez vor allem mit dem Verhältnis zwischen Macht und Information beschäftigen. Sie setzten sich mit Machtsystemen auseinander, die zu regulieren versuchen, welche Informationen uns zugänglich gemacht werden und welche nicht. "Das war die Brisanz von Wikileaks", meint M1, "es hat uns nicht etwas gesagt, das wir nicht wussten, es hat uns die andere Seite der Dinge, die wir wussten, gezeigt.“
dp
Ich habe Dead Prez vor ihrem Konzert in Berlin zu einem Interview getroffen:
Some people might be confused by the appearence of "Information Age"
It is more a provocative album than a statement. I think that the digital age does provide tools for the people to communicate, to emit, to translate and to relate in our experiences, our battles, our struggles. However Dead Prez´s attempt to make "Information Age" was not to state we understand these things, it was more to bring the discussion to what we know as a collective and what we don't know which is even more dangerous.
How do you see the relation between information and control?
Knowledge is power but what you don't know is what really can hurt you. And so in these days, 24 hours seven days per week the propaganda system which is employed by the governments feeds the media sources with the policies that the government intends to inject into the people. The information that they allow you to have is about control. It comes from a place of predicting the next steps of the colonial subjects. For instance when Wikileaks came into the world, what was so threatening about it or what is still so threatening about it, is not the fact that we where told something we didn't know but we were told the other half of the truth.
dp
Do you think that capitalism is in a consecutive historic line to slavery?
There are various phases of the development of capitalism. We are moving out of the information age into the age of convergence. For the imperialists the age of convergence means to find a one world view which the ruling class would use to govern the masses of us throughout the world. But Age of convergence also means the place by which we can connect the dots, like social networking and grassroots organising and single individuals like information gatherers that fight against the system. We can converge these things to be a resisting force. But yes I would definitely say capitalism is a grown up cousin of slavery.
I would like to talk about your album "Information Age" especially about the song "No Way As The Way" which is about the relation between culture and religion.
The discussion about religion can be complicated but in reality it is not: All our experiences should be accepted but they are not and that is the problem.
So to ask more general, what is your relation to religion? Dead Prez come from a very political background, also a scientific background but you also always have been in favour of a holistic world view.
I think there is a difference between religion and spirituality. I´m a social scientist and I believe if we study people and if we study our relationships, people come to a point where they want to understand the world by understanding things that are greater than us or the collective in us. I think religion is something that is put over the people and can be alluded in a way that is oppressive. The organisation of religion has been in many ways the manufacturer of propaganda and the reason why so many governments legitimise the actions that are taken against the people in the most irrational way including war and all kind of injustice that are all demanded by the name of a so called god. I find this a farce. I believe our relationship with our spirituality has nothing to do with what someone else says it is and I believe we are to be guided into our own understanding about what our relationship with a greater power is. I'm a revolutionary. I'm an ideologist. I'm a dialectic materialist. For me it means matter over things spiritual. But who cares what I think. Just like Malcom X thought: We put our spirituality into our pockets and we come to our meeting to be able to relate to each other as people. When you want to deal with your spirituality you do this in your time the same way I do that in my time.
Dead Prez have been referencing in their music what the call food criminals like "Murderking" and "Crack Donalds", so please tell me your opinion on nutrition politics?
When we are not able to use our foods to heal our bodies, when the government controls vitamins and minerals and medicine in hopes that we will have to depend in what they dole out for us, in order to be well physically and mentally, it is a crime. I believe if governments choose to make food that is modified or when the exploitation of the earth ends in depletion of our natural resources it is a crime. We began our journey around food as we read Malcolm and learned how important it is to eat to live, but also how important it is to eat so that the world can live. For many years I was a vegetarian which is a broad label, I even became a raw foodist, I was a vegan and now what I try to do is eat fair. I do eat fish. I'm not about the exploitation of food by big corporations in order that people can remain subjected to that. I think that is criminal. I think what Halliburton does with corn syrup and corn is criminal, putting it into 75% of the food that we find on the shelves. I think what Monsanto and other corporations do, using food to control populations is criminal. They are planting crops that will deplete from the ground, that is criminal.
I´m against the exploitation of animals. RBG does not just mean red black and green or revolutionary but gangster, it means roots beans and greens which is speaking to our ability to farm and be responsible for our own nutrition and health.
May we talk about the question of public space, the city sand how the public space, the space to interact, is taken from us, because for me Hip Hop since its begings fought for the public space
I think you are right. I think more than anything we live in laboratories not only in airports, in supermarkets, in our schools. We are in laboratories almost in every public place that we are in. The fight for this public places is revolutionised by people who create social centres, who take over buildings that are not used by the government aka squads. I have been a proponent of touring squads in Italy and Greece and Spain and hopefully in Germany soon . And I think this is the best use of public spaces. What the government fears most is our ability to get together and discuss ideas that are not theirs. That's why Hip Hop was born in a public space, in the park. When Afrika Bambaataa and Kool Herc and Grandmaster Caz went to a public place and created Hip Hop that was a revolution. That was a new understanding where we could go and the reason why this music has lasted so long. People have made genuine connections that have lasted 30 and 40 years. The elimination of these spaces is the elimination of our right to think for ourselves. There are people around the world who fight for our right to get together in public places and do what we wanna do without being prosecuted by the police or criminalised for doing it. We need to continue to use this spaces. We need a revolutionary way to use flashmobs, a revolutionary way to project images in public spaces. For example Graffiti, the reason why it is so powerful is because it can use public spaces to talk about real messages and recreate our environment. We have to take back our right to be human, and thank you for asking.