Leanne Petersen recently caught up with Dead Prez in London as they celebrated their 10 year anniversary of their album, ‘Let’s Get Free’. They performed a special performance at HMV Forum in Kentish Town alongside special guests Skinnyman, Akala and Sway. The Wrap Up has the exclusive…
The Wrap Up: You’ve been in the hip-hop game for quite a while now. How do you manage to stay so current and fresh?
M1: What I do is wake up my babies, 3 and 5-year-old daughters, then I say to them, ‘Dance for me’ and they’ll do something crazy, nah I’m just kidding [laughs]. I do get expression from the youth though, they’ve just got a vibe and it helps to invigorate me.
Stic.man: I’m definitely the same, my son is a creative lil' dude. He always inspires me even down to his style; I got a Mohawk because he had one.
TWU: Do you still get that excitement before going on stage from performing live?
M1: It can get redundant, it definitely can. For it to remain fresh you’ve got to keep on making new material, which is a challenge because you’ve got to wrap your brain around it. It never seems like you can fit another rhyme in, but you always got space for another one and then I just feed from the people. I’m a political scientist, a political animal and when I look into the crowd all I can think is, ‘After this, how can we move from this step to the next step.’ That’s my total meditation.
Stic.man: Well my joy is in the music, not the stage. I like the production; if I could do this without the publicity kind of stuff then I’d probably be able to enjoy it that much more. I do have days that I enjoy performing, but that’s just not what I really love doing. To make it interesting, is the format, how we present the songs, the elements we add to the show, the new songs, what we might wear and just trying to make it interesting. I figure if we’re not bored, the crowd isn’t going to be bored.
TWU: What did you hope to achieve when you guys first started Dead Prez?
M1: I just wanted to be heard, be able to hear that we were making steps and at that point it was measured by little things, like having a song that you could hear on the radio for example. When we first began I was very influenced by the magic of word chemistry, I would listen to Rakim and KRS-One and they made it feel like they were masters and they are, masters of words. I just remember them being able to say things that I was thinking, ‘If only I could have thought of that.’ You know, there’s a magic in that creative part, the spark of it and that really was what I wanted to achieve. I wanted to have mastery of the words like the last poets did.
Stic.man: We were friends way before we decided to become Dead Prez. I wanted to not be homeless, that was my big deal. We wanted to get in a position where we can take care of ourselves economically, because you can be an artist like a motherfu**er, but rent is due, you know? So I wanted to move from being a student MC with the studying, battling, learning about music structure and different things like that. I studied the history of groups like us and studied the game and I’ve got to take advantage of the opportunity to be a billionaire off what we do. But definitely, I had to be smart and use the resources that we got to sustain and make it sustainable in terms of the music itself, choices like the types of car and house, I mean, I aint just trying to be on MTV cribs, I’m trying to be smart so it will last and I can invest. I was able do my company Boss Up, I got to create my publishing company and be able to help some other people in terms of employees and things, so that was my goal in terms of survival.
TWU: So do you feel that Dead Prez have achieved this?
M1: I’m never quite satisfied, development happens, people’s thoughts develop and people’s reactions to some ideas that are imagined are manifested in the real world. Even though I might have been close to target, I feel like the journey has just begun. It’s an elusive thing to get that feeling happening, so when you do feel it; it’s only for a short period time, a short period of satisfaction.
Stic.man: Yeah, I realised survival is a continuous process, you know? I used to think you would get to a place where you’re straight, but even if you happen to become economically straight, then how is your health? If your health is good, what about your relationship with your family? It’s a constant thing you have to maintain, so it’s a constant reassessment. But at the same time that’s what gives you new inspiration and that’s why 10 years later I feel like we’ve just started, you know what I mean?
TWU: Totally! Well this year marks the ten year anniversary of the album, ‘Let’s Get Free’ and the track ‘Hip-Hop,’ which still remains iconic and as relevant as when it first came out. Why do you think this is?
M1: I think it touches some very important genres that are not being touched and then you’ve got other elements that give it a higher meaning. That kind of composition, it’s not contrive, you can’t just come up with it at a snap of a finger. It’s just not going to happen. But I think when it does; its forever and I think that’s why you feel that feeling or why certain songs don’t get old. It’s hard for me because we gave birth to the song, so it’s hard for me to judge it, even ten years later.
Stay up to date with Dead Prez on MySpace - www.myspace.com/DeadPrez
Words: Leanne Petersen
Online editing: Joseph 'JP' Patterson
