Let’s Get Free begins with “Wolves,” an impassioned speech by Uhuru Movement’s Chairman Omali Yeshitela, a lifelong activist, as well as stic and M-1’s ideological forbear. In 1998, as hip-hop leaned into conspicuous consumption and aspirational excess, dead prez first released the single “Police State,” stic.man got to the heart of the matter when he proposed that we “organize the wealth into a socialist economy.” It was a deadly-serious track that broached the topics of police violence, militarization, and state surveillance, years before there was or a Patriot Act, or police departments regularly trotted out military-grade equipment to quell protests, as they did in Ferguson. These days it’s common to see criticism of capitalism in the public sphere - calling out the ills of this economic system is no longer a mainstream taboo - but it wasn’t back then. The album is as prescient of today’s zeitgeist, as it was a sober examination of history and the world of its time. To my young mind, Let’s Get Free became a guide to the world as seen through a politically-educated, pro-Black, pro-working-class lens, and a tool to challenge all that I had been indoctrinated into, by my formal education and the media I consumed. Released on March 14, 2000, the 18-track debut by the Florida/New York duo of stic.man (Khnum Ibomu) and M-1 (Mutulu Olugbala), is a piece of art-as-propaganda, meant to provoke and inspire.
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