Rediscovered: Dead Prez, ‘Let’s Get Free’

Thematically, the insight offered throughout Let’s Get Free feels immediate for the time of its release as it does evergreen in hindsight. “I’m a African,” which is the most obvious in revealing the duo’s Florida rap DNA from a production standpoint, embraces a simple truth that should be evident, but through American conditioning, is too often lost in the psyche of Black folks whose family lines have been on these shores for generations. In the song, M-1 starts his verse with, “No, I wasn’t born in Ghana, but Africa is my momma,” and the rest of the song is a tribute to enslaved Africans of the past, freedom fighters like South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, and the Black socialist Uhuru movement. It’s a needed reminder that, no matter where on the world map Black people reside, there are forces working overtime to keep them in a repressed existence, and the first step in quelling those forces is trying to get on one accord.

“Police State” takes a macro look at mass incarceration on the heels of 1994’s Crime Bill and Prez’s assertions couldn’t be put more plainly: a disproportionate amount of Black men rot in prison and, partly due to that, the Black community suffers from a social and economic standpoint. And even if a few negroes are enjoying high-paying corporate positions, how much of a win can it truly be if it has no real bearing on the community’s overall condition? At other points, like in “Psychology,” stic.man laments the nightmare of seeing his father smoke crack, which is already difficult at the most basic emotional level, but acutely infuriating when you’re conscious of how that predicament was largely engineered.

I didn’t mindfully encounter Dead Prez’s music until I first entered my 20s at the top of the 2010s. It was a natural progression for me. My upbringing was an Afrocentric one; Orthodox Ethiopian crosses on the walls of my house, African artwork on display, a mixture of Black American and Caribbean presence in my family that helped establish, at the least, a surface-level understanding of diasporic plight across imaginary borders. But it wasn’t explicitly political. There were regular conversations around race relations.

Baltimore, like many other places that have considerable Black populations in this country, was and still is flagrantly segregated. The neighborhoods I occupied throughout my childhood and adolescence were worlds apart from the ones where white people resided. So being intrinsically aware of disparities was common. What wasn’t common were conversations around how thoroughly those disparities were engineered and, even better, how to actively combat them through education and organizing.

In a household where artists like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Gil Scott-Heron were in regular rotation, I knew what politically motivated Black music aimed to convey. But it wasn’t until I reached college age, ventured out of my hometown for the first time, and started to interface with non-Black people on a regular basis that the struggles of my own family members, my community, and my city, at large, became painfully apparent. It wasn’t until then that I realized everybody doesn’t have a family member wrapped up in the carceral system, or a family member deeply struggling with addiction, or a grandmother struggling to make ends meet. Anger set in and Dead Prez justified those feelings. With those life experiences already loaded into my psyche, I was destined to be deeply affected by stories in Let’s Get Free like Fred Hampton Jr. potentially being framed, as if his father’s assassination wasn’t enough. Or how both members denounced Christianity at a time when I was recognizing the faith I was raised in was not working for me, or anyone else in my community, by my estimation.

Now, 25 years later, I am even more impressed with not only the fact that Dead Prez accomplished getting a piece of work so radical released through mainstream music industry channels, but their instincts and assessments were largely prophetic. It is common knowledge in 2025 that police forces throughout America are heavily militarized and not interested in proactive community work — not that they ever were in non-white areas. I experienced that truth firsthand in 2015 when, in response to Baltimore’s uprising for the police killing of Freddie Gray, military officers were deployed into the city and, to even walk down a certain block, I had to ask permission from men in full combat gear to pass by in fear of my own life.

“Be Healthy,” looking back may be a bit cheesy, but with the information we have now about our food industries in America, veganism is a mainstream way of life. “Hip Hop,” in 2000, acted in opposition to the direction the genre was headed with microwavable acts being preyed on by labels and now, in 2025, when artists are lucky to have 18-month-long runs, the general public is more privy to how predatory entertainment industries are.

Dead Prez wouldn’t stick around in the mainstream for long. After their second album, 2004’s RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta, was released (and scored a Jay-Z feature), the duo began releasing independent work and strayed away from the fickle fandom that comes with widespread visibility. But that didn’t happen before their initial messages created a lasting ripple effect that’s been spreading for a quarter of a century. This is the power of intentional and principled art. It identifies an issue, addresses it with an emphasis on finding the balance between entertainment and truth, and is uninterested if it makes the creator a fortune. What is most crucial is that you speak truth to power in a way that dismantles generational divides. Let’s Get Free urges that being wrapped up in any other superficial outcome further places us in the quicksand we’re already sinking in.