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Part 1

http://www.sfbayview.com/News/Display_Front_page/Information_age_M1_of_dead_prez_interviews_Mumia_Abu_Jamal.html

M1 of dead prez after a recent concert in Frisco

This was an unscripted conversation between one of the most revolutionary voices in the media today, that being the "voice of the voiceless" Mumia Abu Jamal, talking to one of rap music's most revolutionary voices, M1. What makes M1 and Mumia different from Malcolm and Sam or Huey and Richard is that in their cases, Malcolm and Huey were the organizers, while Sam was a talented singer and Richard was a legendary comedian.

In this case, although M1 is a rapper and Mumia is a journalist, both have long histories of organizing in the Black community. M1 is currently with the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, and Mumia Abu Jamal is a former member of the Black Panther Party. Check out what these two veterans of our struggle talked about, when they finally met for the first time, through some phone lines. - Minister of Information JR

M1: This is M1, the People's Advocate, one-half of dead prez and the Minister of Culture of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee signing in for Block Report Radio, and I am proud and honored to be on the phone today with Mumia Abu Jamal, the voice of our people and the voice inside our struggle behind enemy lines. I got a few questions today, and I can't wait. I'm honored to be talking to you here today. How are you feeling?

Mumia: Good, brother, the honor is also mine. I know of you, not musically but politically, and this is good enough for me.

M1: Good, good. I want to jump right in. A partner of mine, Rosa Clemente, and I often talk about the concept of media justice, and you as the voice of our people's resistance, what information do you feel is the most pertinent in these days of distraction, i.e. Republican versus Democrat? What is the most important thing that we need to know?

Mumia: The most important thing that we need to know right now is it doesn't matter who gets elected, honestly. I know people heard that years ago when Ralph Nader was running, but I mean in the grand scheme of things, because what we are talking about is differences of degree. We're talking about two imperial presidents, you know? One will be a pretty brown face, a pretty brown young face even. One will be a less pretty old white face. But essentially what they are talking about is imperialism. So what people need to understand and really really need to get is that they should demand through their actions ...

THIS CALL IS FROM THE STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION SCI GREENE, AND IS SUBJECT TO MONITORING AND RECORDING.

Mumia: They should demand through their activities in the streets and everywhere else what kind of system they want and what they oppose. If they feel that everything is honkey-dory if you get a Black president, then they'll be just like the people in Philadelphia who believed that everything was great when they got a Black mayor. t really doesn't matter what color someone is, it matters ... what their mind is like, what they are thinking about - if they are in support of empire or really in support of democracy.

If you think about this war that we are in the middle of, in order for this war to happen, the government had to ignore not just millions of people in the United States but millions of people, tens of millions of people all around the world in some of the biggest demonstrations in the history of the world. So we're talking about an anti-democratic system. And that can only be changed, not by that system, but by the people.

M1: Good, well, going forward I would like say that yesterday we celebrated African Liberation Day, and that's in the memory of Kwame Ture, and also remembering Malcolm X and his birthday just passed, we see the importance of great organizers who were able to galvanize the best that our people could give to our struggle and to our movement. And also we see the importance of organization. What is your vision of the organization that will defeat imperialism worldwide?

Mumia: Well, it has to be a global organization. By that I mean the new name of imperialism in the 21st century is really globalization. And when you think about that, when you read about that, when you study about that, globalization really means the globalization of capital. You don't hear people talking about the globalization of labor. But you know that working people all over the world have more in common with each other than they have with their own so-called leaders or the rulers, the ruling class that is of those societies.

So people should globalize resistance. And that means talking across cultures, learning other languages. It's easier now in the age of the internet than it was 30 years ago, but it is still necessary, you see? Because we need to break through these illusions that the media puts in people's heads. I mean, there are millions of people who hate people that they have never met.

If you mention the name of the president of Venezuela or the president of Iran, people will base their hatred on stuff that they heard on the news. And more likely than not, it was erroneous exaggerations or just straight up lies. Why should people hate someone that they don't know based on misinformation? You could only do that if you know the role of the media in a capitalist society, which is to support the rule of the rulers, you see?

M1: Great, it's so much to learn. I'm so happy to be soaking this up.

THIS CALL IS FROM THE STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION SCI GREENE AND IS SUBJECT TO MONITORING AND RECORDING.

Conclusion

POCC Minister of Culture M1 of dead prez isn't afraid to show his political loyalties. Here at a recent Frisco concert he displays his famous coat picturing Black Panther leader Fred Hampton Sr.

There hasn't been a lot of public dialog between veterans of our struggle from past generations and those of us who are on the front lines today. The POCC: Block Report Radio show has been working to change that with some of the work that we have been doing to hook up the souljahs, political artists and supporters of today with some of our veterans and political prisoners to discuss whatever is on their minds.

The POCC has recorded a number of interviews with political prisoner Imam Jamil Al-Amin that have been broadcast but not published, as well as we are starting on a series of interviews with Mumia Abu Jamal, where he is interviewed by different people in our community. The point is for us to actively lessen the amount of isolation that the state imposes on veterans and prisoners locked behind enemy lines by allowing them to add their uncut voices to the dialog surrounding current events and political happenings in our community.

This is Part 2 of the interview by the POCC's Minister of Culture M1 with the prolific revolutionary journalist and one of our many political prisoners, Mumia Abu Jamal, in their first conversation ever. - MOI JR

M1: As a member of our People's Army, as a member of dead prez and also on behalf of my partner stic.man, I would like to say that we are apprentices of your work and that you are truly the People's Minister of Information and Culture. As Harry Allen once told P.E., "Don't believe the hype." What advice do you have for me, as well as for hip hop today?

Mumia: Well, I would hope, I would really hope that people take from the examples of people that they look up to and admire from their own generation. I'm speaking about Tupac, of course. People know of Tupac's songs, they might memorize some of his hits, but they don't know that this dude was a serious student, and he kept different libraries all across the (country), with friends and so forth.

And he studied everything, because he was a serious student of life, of history, of politics, of anything that he could get his hands on. He wasn't rapping, you know, because he could get a good rhyme or a good beat. He was trying to study and learn, then put that information into his raps.

I would also say this: The brothas and sistas here have little or no idea how powerful they are in the Hip Hop nation. I say that to say, I read a book several years ago, "The Vinyl-Aid Final," and it was about Hip Hop all around the world. I'm talking about brothas in India, Pakistan, England, France, Japan, Tanzania, Hawai'i, and I'm talking about people of color all around the world who are deeply influenced by what young brothas and sistas are doing right here.

And even though their inspired and they're fans and they're Hip Hop heads, in many cultures what they do is take that inspiration and translate it into their own experience and into their own language, so they're creating, you dig what I'm saying, their own based on their inspiration that came from Black and Latino and young people from the ghettos of the Bronx and Brooklyn, you know what I'm saying?

That's power! That's power! And you got people all around the world nodding their heads to what people are saying. So when you are conscious of that, then you could do more than just say, "This is a hustle," "I'm trying to make my bread" or "That broad got a big ass." Come on, there's more important things in the world. I know you and stic do it every day, but I know that y'all ain't on MTV, you dig, y'all ain't even on BET. Come on.

M1: Right. Exactly.

Mumia: And there is a reason why you ain't, because you're conscious, and they don't want that out there, you see? Thank goodness there are other outlets, you dig, so ...

M1: Well, we want for you to be on our new album. It's called "Information Age" and it's easily done and hopefully it's happening right now as we speak. And I'd like to say, just like Melle Mel would say, "Rats in the front room, roaches in the back, junkies in the alley with the baseball bats (laughing)."

If we talk about oil and gas skyrocketing and we talking about food rationing and super inflated prices for basic necessities, contaminated water supplies and it's all too many people struggling and not enough people in power, you know that I would like to pose this question to you, kind of in a poetic sense but it is reality: What if the lights go out?

Two hip hop artists, M1 of dead prez and Cuban sensation DJ Leydis, enjoy each other's company at a recent concert in Frisco.

Mumia: Well, it ain't what if, it's when if, 'cause guess what's happening? It's going to go out. Listen, we're living right now in a time where the tap is about to go off. I mean you have wars fought for oil. They just didn't go over there because they thought that it would be easy; they knew it would be hard. They lied to get in there, but they wanted to get their hands on that spigot before it went dry.

But guess what, in 30 or 40 years, it's all going to be gone. So people are not thinking that far ahead, because you know politicians think in three or four year blocks, "Can I get elected," "Can I get re-elected," you know, "by my party" and all of that. They are not thinking about 30 or 40 years down the line, because they're making their money now.

The point is, this whole energy construct was built on cheap gas. That is why you have suburbs outside of cities, so people could cheaply go to work in the city, drive back to the suburbs. But you can't do that any more. We're seeing the beginning of that. Americans are crying about $4 a gallon of gas. They spend $10 in England and $12 or $13 in France, you see? And it's never ever, in my opinion and I may be wrong, but I don't see it ever getting cheaper, so people are going to have to adapt to a whole new way.

M1: Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, you know, I just left Denver, Colorado. And they are talking about re-creating '68 out there. I see we're in a whole new context in our time. As a political animal and social scientist, I know that we are going to have to do more than re-create it.

YOU HAVE 60 SECONDS REMAINING.

Mumia: I'd say go further. We can't re-create '68, but I'll tell you, you could make 2008 much deeper and much hotter than '68, and that's what it is about.

M1: Yes, sir. So I just want to say that we are on the front lines. You know that we are your resource. Use us at your will. We are the souljahs. We are your eyes, ears and feet on the ground.

YOU HAVE 20 SECONDS REMAINING.

M1: This is POCC Minister of Culture M1, and we're doing this for the Block Report, our brotha JR, Fred Hampton Jr. and the people. So we're happy to be here with you, brotha, and it's nothing but revolutionary love.

Mumia: That's what I'm talking about. All Power to the People! Ona Move! Long Live the Revolution!

M1: Long Live!

M1 can be reached through his comrade, POCC Minister of Information JR, at blockreportradio@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .



You could hear this interview in its entirety at www.blockreportradio.com. Email POCC Minister of Information JR at blockreportradio@gmail.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and visit www.blockreportradio.com, hiphopwarreport.com and myspace.com/blockreportfilm.

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