When Dead Prez came on the scene in 1997 they brought a political awareness to hip hop, the likes of which hadn’t been seen since Public Enemy. Speaking on subjects such as oppression, racial inequality and the conditions of inner city neighborhoods, they were determined to educate people while fighting the system. In addition to making music with a message, member M-1 is also a spokesperson for his “The Grassroots Artist Movement” organization. They work to not only bring awareness of the industry, but also have been providing free health care for artists for the past eight months. And as he gets set to release his debut solo project, Confidential, M-1 sits down to talk about the politics of the business, shedding labels and pimping the system.

Tell me about this solo project that you have coming out.
It’s my first solo album, it’s called Confidential, and the whole angle around it is the fact that there’s this world that’s been created around the secrecy and privacy of what human beings are doing. Some of us they call radical, but the reality is that we all have the potential to take the power and control over our own lives. Confidential is a look in, from the outside, almost from like an FBI point of view, at the life of someone like me. At the bottom of it all, you find it’s just a regular human being. But we are the ones who are being spied on and whose rights are being taken away. It boils down to a political statement about what is so secret and why the government moves the way it does.

It’s crazy because these FBI files really do exist.
There’s a book called, Black Americans: The FBI Files [By: Kenneth O’Reilly.] Everyone from W.E.B. Du Bois to Paul Robeson to Malcolm X to Langston Hughes has an FBI file that’s deep. As deep as: who they’re having sex with, what they said at a public rally, what they ate for dinner…things that you wouldn’t even think that you would know. I learned more about these people by looking at the FBI files than I did through their autobiographies. So I thought [the concept] is a great way to get to know M-1 through those eyes and particularly for those who didn’t know that this is happening – it’s happening to you, not just me.

How do you feel about the current political climate in this country, as well as the world?
M-1 is an international person, a man without borders. The physical borders that bind people I think have a lot to do with the politics that restrict us. What’s going on in the world has everything to do with what’s going on elsewhere. The US is in a very unstable place: economically, socially and in the government. There’s crisis all over. But it’s the illusion that everything is o.k. And I can tell you this because I visit Europe, South America – outside these borders all the time. I know the perception and I also know the value of the dollar. What’s going on inside America is a fight for the truth, the fight for information. And I think ultimately it’s a diversion. If we really pay attention to what’s happening, not only with the leadership of this country, but why people aren’t moving in a different way, then you’ll see an emergency - a red alert. But people aren’t in red alert mode… It didn’t take Hurricane Katrina for me to say that George Bush don’t like black people. Or for a lot of people it didn’t, for that matter. But I’m glad that the hurricane has been able to open a lot of people’s eyes. I knew that there would be a crisis like that and that we would have to deal with it. That is the state of America, and the state of our community. I’m not a quote-unquote activist. I don’t go door to door with leaflets; I don’t hold rallies or meetings. I do show up at them from time to time, and I support those programs. And I damn sure fight for my rights. But I kind of participate from this place – the place of an artist who recognizes that our culture is a weapon. Continued on page 2 »