This is a reply, of sorts, to an article posted by Ted North of Communist Students in the latest Communist Student paper. Given that that paper is dedicated to more explicitly political interventions in serious areas of controversy in the student Left (and its limitations in terms of space and frequency), I have decided to post this here, in the hope that we can really begin to think critically about one of the key developments in recent left music.

The subject of Ted’s article is limited to the debut album of revolutionary hip-hop act Dead Prez, Let’s Get Free. Unfortunately, it seems that we have here a typical over-rapturous left review of a left cultural artefact, along the lines of those who endlessly fete Ken Loach and so on (it is worth noting here that I will be recapitulating many points made directly by the small Rotten Elements collective, although I fail to see how their paradoxically respectful repetition of Situationist formal devices contributes to – or, indeed, avoids actively undermining – their critique). At least, we think almost pre-rationally, they’re out there doing real records and they’re on our side!

For my money, the first issue arises very early on. Ted declares that “[Dead Prez’] debut album Let’s get free (2000) stands, in my eyes at least, as one of the greatest hip hop albums ever produced.” The problem here is that of the formal construction of hip-hop. In the so-called “Golden Age”, it will be recalled, hip-hop was considered a four-fold culture. There was the MC (who rapped), the DJ (who cut breaks together across turntables, and later using primitive samplers and drum machines), the graffiti artist and the break-dancer. In the age of Ted’s despised 50 Cent, this has become stripped down to the MC – the DJs (as performers) have been supplanted by “mass” producers in the manner of Timbaland and the Neptunes who knock out hit after hit for dozens of front-artists; the graffiti art has been replaced with slick simulacrum-gangsta PR (typographically obsessed with that pseudo-gothic lettering); the breakdancers are usurped by MTV booty-shakers and booty-gropers.

Where does this leave Dead Prez? Firmly on the 50 Cent side of the divide. It must be said, of course, that they have entirely shunned the ghastly booty-grope music video and aesthetic entirely, but the vast majority of Dead Prez (and M-1 and stic:man’s solo projects) tracks are entirely in the aesthetic style of modern gangsta rap – the only exception to this is the very album Ted concentrates on, almost a decade old now, and even that features a Kanye West production. Indeed, their follow-up record was entitled Revolutionary but Gangsta. This aesthetic fidelity to the faux-gangsta mainstream makes its way into the lyrics – a song which essentially glorifies drop-out existence (credit card fraud and the like) gets the title “Hell Yeah (Pimp The System)”. In effect, this has a crippling effect on the subversiveness of the whole deal. Dead Prez essentially come across like two good little Christian boys, following their White Lightning-toting peers around explaining that under-age drinking “just ain’t hip, cats!” (never more so than on Let’s Get Free‘s positively diabolical track “Mind Sex”, a slow jam extolling the virtues of a good conversation and croutons in a sort of divinely embarassing left-rap Spinal Tap moment. I mean, croutons?).

Dead Prez represent an odd permutation of revolutionary rap, with painfully self-aware lyrics and painfully mainstream beats. An opposite number might be found in Immortal Technique, with severe and sparse production riding tough drums, and an infamously aggressive turn of phrase. The Coup don’t really fit at either pole with their electro-funk and disco influenced tracks and jokey songs about killing CEOs, and one may also throw in the ever-present Rage Against The Machine, whose dim butt-rock guitars and utterly naive sloganeering put them firmly at the bottom of the pile.

Those are only the four most prominent artists in this tradition – I am not exactly any sort of hardcore hip-hop crate-digger, and my knowledge of this sub-sub-sub-scene is fairly pitiful. So I will end with questions:

1. What aesthetic approaches militate most effectively against capitalism, and its astonishing vulgarisation of hip-hop culture?
2. Is there a centre of gravity, so to speak, in terms of production and aesthetic style in the genre?
3. If so, what does this tell us about the relationship between revolutionary rap and dominant rap styles and culture?

We can do all the superficial lists of the political positions of our favourite MCs, but we will never get under their skin unless we drop the reverence for a minute and critique them as we would any other comrade.