Bio:

dead prez is comprised of emcees/activists stic.man and M-1. The widely known group has been praised as the most politically conscious hip-hop ensemble since Public Enemy, dead prez debuted the group's radical style with "Food, Clothes and Shelter," a track on the Loud '97 Set Up tape.

They went on to work as producers for Big Punisher's Capital Punishment in 1998 while releasing incendiary dead prez singles like "Police State with Chairman Omali" and "It's Bigger Than Hip-Hop," which hit #43 on Billboard's Hot Rap Singles chart in 2000.

Let's Get Free, the debut dead prez album, reached #73 on the Billboard's Top 200 album chart and #22 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart.

dead prez joined labelmate Killer Mike on the prestigious 2003 Lyricist Lounge tour and went on to perform on the "Get Free Or Die Tryin'" Tour, hosted by Erykah Badu.

With RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta, M-1 and stic have repeated the feat by giving hip-hop a cohesive creation that's timely and timeless. Where Let's Get Free dealt with world politics and theory, RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta shifts the focus to the hood and street knowledge.

RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta stands for many things. It's hip-hop, but can't easily be categorized by one sound or production style. It mixes elements of soul, blues, reggae, rock, and more in natural flowing ways.

"We always have a new sound vision where we want to fuse certain things," informs stic. "We think about music that we like and certain artists from back in the days to right now whether it be Dr. Dre or Lil' Jon or Trick Daddy or Sade or Portishead. We take all these different things and we fuse elements from that and we feel like it captures what we're trying to capture."

RBG: Revolutionary But Gangsta's "Walk Like a Warrior" features Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's Krayzie Bone: "If you gon' bang then bang for change/ Don't bang for crazy thangs/ If not, don't bang/ If you gon' ball, play the game how it should be played/ Can you dribble a grenade to save your life?/ . . . This is only a rhyme, now don't get skurred/ Listen to the message in the word."

"Hell Yeah" features an electric guitar and desperate rhymes told from hungry bellies that do anything for a meal including sticking up the pizza delivery boy. "It's talking about different things that being oppressed and living in poverty'll have you resorting to," says stic.

On a lighter note is "20," the saga of a small bag of weed traveling from Jamaica to Brooklyn, which was inspired by a late night smoke session. "One time the Marleys came through with Mr. Cheeks and that's the time we almost got booted out of the studio we were renting out," says M-1. "I brought a bong to the studio at 4 o'clock in the morning and '20' is the type of conversations that happened. It ain't meant to make such a deep and profound political statement. It's a fun song, but it's food for thought. I hope that dead prez never comes off preachy or presumptuous or self-righteous, and that song in many ways acknowledges our non-discipline as well as the fact that we're still human as well."

"It's time you gonna smoke some weed, there's times you wanna get some p*!$y and there's a time to go to war," says stic. "A man gotta be balanced. You can't just be about the pleasures."