In 2003 noted poet and novelist Ishmael Reed chose 'Police State' for his iconoclastic poetry anthology, From Totems to Hip Hop. Reading dead prez beside T.S. Eliot is a bit like imagining Malcolm X as secretary of state. Ever since their incendiary 2000 debut M-1 and stic.man have provided the sole voice of radical Black Nationalism in hip-hop. Their music, and 'Police State' most dramatically, constitutes an unlikely fusion of conscious and gangsta rap. Part Public Enemy, part N.W.A., dead prez is, as the title of their most recent release puts it, 'Revolutionary But Gangsta.'

'Police State' offers a moodily atmospheric track built on haunting synthesized horns, sampled vocals and police sirens atop a spare beat. Lyrically, it presents a powerful premise: the social maladies that plague black America -- urban poverty, high incarceration rates, police brutality, substandard education -- are causally linked to the actions (and inactions) of the state. Therefore, the only way to solve black problems is to subvert the system by any means necessary.

'Lets Get Free' hit hard like a hip-hop Anarchist's Cookbook. It offered a revolutionary program on how to eat, train, love and prepare for revolution. Even the cover art was incendiary, displaying on one side a group of young black men with arms raised in a forest of rifles, and on the other a slave with a whip-scarred back. dead prez introduced the hip-hop generation to a m‚lange of revolutionary ideologies (provocatively, if promiscuously, combined), dropping references to the Marxist theory, Marcus Garvey and the Black Panther Party. But what "Police State" lacks in coherent political methodology, it delivers in its sense of urgency and spirit of opposition. Uhuru.

About the Author

Adam Bradley is a freelance writer based in New England.