walking down the street in their own hometown getting a two hundred fifty dollar fine for leaving your house doesn't make you feel like you're living in the greatest country on earth i mean it sure didn't when they put a curfew in my neighborhood in the ninety's but that's just my opinion. it was very interested that does it with dropped out of the sky the roar back up that was shifted a few degrees. of the circle in combat at a speed but you know just astronomical speeds. what's really good folks know rob lowe filling in for abby martin this is breaking the set so with all the terrible news going on in the world right now we thought it be nice to feature some of our favorite musical performances on the show from the

last months so coming up you'll see abby's interviews with am one from dead prez performing sacrifice and also prolific lyricist the nurses it's performing leap of faith now let's break the stage. the the the please please take the you very hard to take a little look at the long. life that he ever had sex with that her great they're looking to the police. the the league. little. little league.

dead prez is a group that has been in the rap game for almost two decades and you'd be hard pressed to find a hip hop duo that's more politically active. a little better known by his stage name and one clayton gavin aka stick man have toured all over the world in order to raise awareness about everything from the prison industrial complex to gaza and now dead prez in d.c. to speak about the human five five political prisoners who were thrown in the crosshairs of the us as a vendetta against the small island nation well earlier am one join me to break the stage and talk about why it's so important to use music as a way to inspire grassroots action against the powers that be so here he is performing sacrifice. all power to the people. yet freedom all. trucks. there to kill

so the fight. to shut the fuck their children all for setting up their. present to life. to look the same time to make the top of the games but the someone else said it. that is the flames i can remember things to claim in this lifetime and then lose everything became indestructible it's a cool open a door to the police when the people in the little break look to the cue ball to permit it they struck dumb remember this now that you're going to try. and say they can in making this joint and the kids think its older brother was told he had the heart of a thousand men come with me i think about trying so now we can win. this kid could you to junk could you feel when you did that you just paralyze the time you tested me take that. if you want to do with. a fight. you think you'll sacrifice to show no mercy. this is the life you

know no right to kill sacrifice that you wish to kill sacrifice you with. this is the life. this is the life this kid yeah yeah. it's so serious for this is cardiac arrest if you can see the protests this is the reality it's not a test look. down with the be a like he was sixteen when he picked this team a sacrifice was made when i say sacrifice i don't mean to texas to put this a patient is the best education is that you know good money don't make somebody that's what they say get the speaks for you so sweet person sakin to get the piece a rabbit families of the cow would be streets down this time if you put it in let's get to duplicate. to the slaughter the next to change the pictures we get back to the son daughter back to the women of the crown

a crown colony the mouse policy that's what about the palestinians and the mexican easy. is that when it can be a bad way politicians saying show me the benjamin is the one. but the profile was you know this is the lies right this is the life. they kill sacrifice. ball to kill sacrifice because you know no this is the life to which now yeah yeah yeah. and when you're in town to perform for the five cuban five what is it about these five that you're so passionate about well i think the question of political prisoners comes up and the secret that america holds the heroes and she roles that are buried and it's

dungeons warehouse in this prison industrial complex you know these are people who have done valiant acts while community but who languish in prison who want to celebrate and celebrate it so what if you got five it's awesome because it also talks about the relationship this delicate relationship between the united states and cuba so two very important issues it's been decades since the cold war yet cuba is one of four states that the u.s. government has deemed a state sponsor of terrorism why socialism is has been a bad word in the ugly word in the political circles for years but the reality is there's some things that we can learn from you know this this government and you know it's important i mean i think especially in the crises of capitalism we have to dare to imagine what how can the system be better what system is better and i think cuba has done a fantastic example if you look in south america and its relationship with venezuela and in some places in europe we see some fantastic relationship so you

wonder why the embargo or the sanctions against cuba exacted by the united states let's talk more about political prisoners why do you think obama hasn't used his his clemency powers to grant amnesty to people like them. to people like leonard peltier who are serving life terms not only them but i guess just anyone i think bush pardoned away more people before there's more in his presidency well i think in the case of media and people like many here you know you bring up freedom fighters you know this is an oprah winfrey issue if i make. hard core issues they do with the belly of the beast of american society it's also. real liberation and what it means to have freedom in this country when you talk about which of all especially as it relates to the police and the brutal terrorist acts that happened against our community we don't talk about those acts in the same way but the exactly the same in two thousand dead prez but at the police state the lyrics say f.b.i.

spying on the radio antennas and then they didn't cameras in the street like watching society with no respect for the people's right to privacy i mean hell this is before nine eleven i mean what are your thoughts now looking back at how insanely huge the national security has gone i think we were clear about america's agenda and much more things that they planned to make you fear however information is key especially political or political education the more we know the more we are able to say ok we saw a king alfred plan and we see other. plans and agendas that the united states has to continue to violate our rights so we can't be surprised by it as a matter of fact we have to be proactive we have to sort of networks to defend ourselves and defend our rights so anybody who awake in two thousand and fourteen has to be on one side or the other it's forcing us to choose a you know just you know where i understand in the trajectory that you guys understood a long time ago that it's just going to get worse unless we stand up and fight it and you also want to gaza

a few years ago and then subsequently went on the speaking more called from the get go to gaza what prompted the trip initially and what message are you trying to relay with the more ultimately the same kind of sanctions and embargoes that have been exactly against cuba and zimbabwe happened against gaza and you know we know the united states' relationship with israel like they were violating the human rights of those people actually went on a human rights mission the crew was called and in that convoy of maybe two hundred people i met some really important artist and activist an artist and. it made me want to know wall. yes we were able to get into gaza but not without tearing through miles and miles of political red tape and being watched by the government only because we want to present a. diapers and things that people need who are on a war and undeclared war basically and two years later i was able to go back on the

other side to ramallah and to some of the camps displaced palestinians have been. and use hip hop as as a way to learn and teach resistance would accrue coexistence is resistance so there was a d.v.d. made of it and it's called hip hop is bigger than the occupation so we were trying to teach through music about what's happening in the so-called middle east and why palestine is so important and our relationship. why it matters inside the united states from the get go to gaza and some grossly misrepresented here in america considering this strict allegiance that this country does have with israel one of your group's album is called gangster what the cause why do you feel it's so important to have a cause instead of just. how many other rappers are correct he was called revolutionary by gangster montra mainly because the back of them are. from the letters red black and green which were made. available to me by marcus garvey one

of the first human rights activists if i will but definitely the father of the black power movement inside the united states and for me why do we have to be revolutionary against the why does it have to be a cause because if we don't organize ourselves around something then we are being organized and i think a lot of times we don't understand the agenda desk before as we have to be conscious of where we place our next steps in and how we see our future for our children and for elders who carry the torch for so that's why they call us and know better frequency then to communicate it through then this medium of culture music and turn it into our propaganda that's why in an interview in. wired stick man the other half a dead prez called capitalism the enemy of mankind i was wondering what you thought about that assessment if you agree with that and if so what would the second american revolution look like. i think stick was exactly right the enemy of mankind because capitalism was born. it was born.

one from the brigandage and bondage blood sweat and tears of africans that produced the primitive capital start up capital for what's happening today and then the pedestal that imperialism is today and what's happening so if we look at what it's all rome you know in order to stand up on its edifice the correct way you have to turn this system upside down and what would it look like what would this revolution look like you know sometimes the names get in the way i think we things today there are so many about what they are it's i do think that natural antagonistic capitalism is something that looks like socialism why because it gives to everybody who was involved in producing i think that's fair and i think we've got to talk about whatever a system would be that would be a fair one exactly in the right way we look at some of the movements that have happened especially coming out of the african community the non violent ones as

well as. skirmishes erupted in our community that sent us through i think we have to find a way i think we have to find a new way that has not been here before and learn from those ways so i look forward to this revolution is happening and i look forward to it heightening and i look forward to being there so we can make some solutions and i couldn't agree more of these isms are really stunting the debate really stumped in the forwardness of consciousness and that's what's happening and we're having a revolution of consciousness right now and you better get on board. a man to really appreciate it and one dead president and have you on thank you.

this is the media lead us so we believe that maybe. the seat cushions to cure the play your part of the physical. questions that no one is asking with the guests that deserve answers from. politics only on our team. so now we're in a deflationary spiral where resources are scarce and people are going to war to get control of the remaining resources the workspace everyone against everyone everyone's at each other's throat because all that money printing did not work it was a failure it calls the very depletion they said it was going to eliminate they have failed miserably and as a result everyone's got up to their neck in blood. sweat and or fed run to brain d. to join nato that would provoke some sort of free action on the part of russia as

this is why as far as the military calculus is concerned none of what faces humanity peace the west north and south none of it can be solved by military means or fighter aircraft or satellites or nuclear weapons military is outdated it should go like cannibalism and slavery and child labor it doesn't belong to civilization to kill each other. dramas determined to be ignored to the. stories of others who refused to notice. the food since changing the world. cup to picture those two days you know. from rooms to blow.

up to. it's rare to find artists that can bridge cultural divides so seamlessly this is exactly what makes my next guest unique his name is the scene i saw him on that are known as stage name of the narcissist and are seen as it is an iraqi born canadian citizen who grew up in the united arab emirates this global perspective and politically charged lyrics make him one of the most socially conscious artists today and so without further ado here's the narcissus performing leap of faith.

yeah. leave. the muslim habits. and if. you sell a cd deep this is. the cost of if your heart is telling you to keep the moxie to sleep better finish. the fret yourself but you should. never be scared. if this is the scofflaw see these kids to try to. have a plan a search of the purpose of the afterlife only know what happened to. the troops if they caught the past.

would. they so easily choose. a public. policy to treat a life lesson. is hard to see he took a leap of faith the strings attached was the topic to see everything except the kid is what is c. . nothing mobs upset me life is expected to know what you want to. show me like a piece of shit to put nice cold sweat. to proceed to the floor sucked up with. this is a look at the why if i hit. the something like the palm to speak to take.

they. upset. you. up. justin you just performed a song called leap of faith and it you talk about a prophet can't save us how can a church synagogue or mosque pray and hope it works what's the message the message

of the song why do you write it well leap of faith was really the story of my life in a way you know many of us in life have moments where we have to decide you know a or b. so that song was more about my life and my parents' life and the decisions they took in order for me to be in the position that i'm in right now but when i ask those questions obviously it's also related to the religion becomes institutionalized and how that affects our understanding of our faith or our spirituality so it was really a point in my life where i was questioning everything so i put it down on paper like saying you know what if these institutions that are teaching us how to believe don't really know how to believe you know where they were it was well said iraq and they're going to have one foot in north america one foot in the middle east how do people react to music when you perform in places like jordan and elsewhere in that region it's you know there's very diverse audiences everywhere i go so especially if you go in there you know every country is very diverse now there's

a lot ex-pats so the crowd is sort of multinational every every city that i perform and so they're always going to have people that don't agree with your politics or your opinion but then most of the time my shows are more light hearted and about the energy and positive exchange of energy so i've had a great experience that got so far. as in iraq i can't imagine what your perception is of the horrific violence and destabilization going on on the ground right now in iraq have you ever performed in iraq. in over two decades you know we've sort of moved our family slowly out of the country as the wars wars progressed. and i wouldn't want to go perform in iraq the first time that i go back after all this time because. a country that deserves justice. more than it deserves a concert so i would like to go there and listen instead of speak the first time that i go in and take in the experience and really learn my roots as i know them

i'm very attached to the nation and the culture and my family always kept that alive so hopefully i get to go back and visit before i go perform you're talking about some aid work that you were doing in syria with some friends or helping do talk about that i have an arabic album coming out when i did that arabic album we fundraise for a couple of iraqi kids that were from basra from my father's own town who had a congenital disease and we raise money to get them to go and have surgery and get cured so that was during the process of recording and a lot of the artists are of arab origin on the album it's all in arabic it's called they're not just the project so i want to continue that humanitarian work and when we release the project we're doing a video for a song called and within that we're raising money for one hundred children who need new limbs who are amputees and it's using three d. technology to sort of do limbs that are easily produced within syria or outside of syria and turkey and things like that so we're slowly putting the project together

right now i can't really give full details but it's it's very important for us to use our art to be able to channel that power that we developed making music into direct change as opposed to just fund raising and throwing money at something i'd rather see that directly affect somebody that needs to you said in the past that nine eleven politicize you and your family and i was wondering if there was a certain moment in a post nine eleven world or was it just the rampant islamophobia that i guess the world was encountering at that time i mean being at the and growing up between the east and the west and going back and forth and you know i've experienced three gulf wars through the media so there was always a backlash and also growing up my father was a big movie buff so movies like true lies are indiana jones there was always that like evil arab character that was there but i took it for. i was young i didn't really understand but as i started studying media and experiencing it i realized that it's always been there it was before september eleventh it was sort of. a

self-fulfilling prophecy in a way through the media but when september eleventh happened obviously our identity was questioned everybody that was of arab or muslim origin was like is this person a so in the beginning we took a very defensive stance with our music and it was we are not terrorists but you know now i think in the last five years whether we'll be visual artists or musicians or any form of creative we've decided to create our own narrative and sort of instead of being defensive we have a proactive and this is who we are this is we don't say this is not who we are this is who we are yeah yeah i think that's more important than anything is to shift the narrative ourselves if we can you know media is in our hands now so we've got to take it take it within our own grasp and do it ourselves and you taught a university course that this is really interesting on the hip hop and the muslim identity how have you seen the muslim identity and just identity politics change within hip hop since you got started in your career i started in early two thousand and eight before two thousand and one and i started seeing you know you tube wasn't

around then twitter wasn't around there facebook wasn't around so we were connecting by email and sending m p three s. teach other but as you started seeing people in palestine and lebanon in tunis in libya in iraq or like all these arab artists were doing their thing simultaneously but weren't aware of each other so when i went and did my thesis i wanted to sort of encapsulate all of that as a independent movement. that is happening on its own in a grassroots level and to see where it is now a lot of the times in the media it's represented as like a revolutionary only speak about revolution and politics but there's such a diverse sounding voice coming out of arabia right now within hip hop music or within music itself so we're working on a couple of projects to just sort of bring all that together. as content on line to represent the diverse background that exists in the middle east and you also were involved in a film study of life a couple of years ago took place in dubai are you could be venturing more into

other film other mediums of art like you're saying right now with the medium where you where you're headed next we did our show called arab winter so that was a multimedia arts show in montreal where i live i also recently wrote and acted and did up sort of code directing a film called rise which is a short film based on my next album we have online channel that we're trying to build right now for arab musicians to put up their content so there's a lot of different things i have my hands in apart from teaching and i'm just trying to keep it moving you know i'm very i'm a gemini some all over the place so we'll see what happens in the next year my mind might change thank you so much man really are you coming on thanks.

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still searching. the first. still searching. there was very interesting because they were dropped out of the skull of the rohrbach a little shift across a few degrees. of the a circle and about the speed but you know just astronomical speeds.

i was trained. in december two thousand and ten. more likely to be raped in college than in the real world. i don't think people did that to each other when they knew each other i thought it was strange and the precious. girl complaining about the son of an alumni who gives millions of dollars to the school why listen to somebody who's going to lose money at a school if schools that make money based decisions are much more common than they would ever admit publicly. the zone just soldiers this spits no soldiers russia's internal special forces but being tough and good with a gun may not be enough for these extreme terrorists. only the most capable will be to the end. of. those whose dreams can melt away your jewels in the ranks

put themselves through fine smoke and water but not from money or promotion. is the coveted crimson beer with. the ukrainian army says it's fighting government forces in the streets of. old russian trucks with humanitarian aid for struggling civilians are being stalled at the border. ridiculed online reports that one of my genius has been destroyed in ukraine with no evidence or records to back up the allegations from kiev. vehicles and sniper rifles.