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''Let's Get Free'' is the debut album by the Alternative Hip Hop duo Dead Prez , released on February 8 , 2000 (see 2000 In Music ) on Loud Records . Critically acclaimed upon its first release, ''Let's Get Free'' was called a "return to politically conscious rap" and "the most politically conscious rap since and Stic.man excoriate media, the music industry, politicians and poverty, and rap about Afrocentrism and Black Power . '' Rolling Stone '' gave the album four stars and lauded its equation of "classrooms with jail cells, the projects with killing fields and everything from water to television with conduits for brainwashing by the system" [http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/cd/review.asp?aid=62149 . OVERVIEW The record opens with a speech by Chairman Omali Yeshitela , of the InterNational Peoples Democratic Uhuru Movement, describing a method of hunting which lures wolves to suicide, and makes the analogy to self-destruction fueled by crack in the black community. The duo's radical Pan-Africanism is brought up a notch on the album's first rap, "I'm a African", which contains the lyric "I'm a Africa n/Never was a African-American ". The same song explains their musical stance as "somewhere between N.W.A. and P.E. ", referring to the two major hip-hop groups of late 1980s Hip Hop , West Coast 's hard-edged, violent Gangstas , N.W.A., and East Coast 's militant activists, Public Enemy. "They Schools" assaults the dominance of whites in the Public Education system in the United States , from the accusatory title to the opening, "I went to school with some Redneck crackers/right around the time 3rd Bass dropped '' The Cactus Album ''", referring to an East Coast duo who were white and middle-class. "Hip-Hop," the most well known song from the album clearly states their beliefs concerning the modern music industry being over-commercialized. They also illustrate their beliefs, stating "Who shot Biggie Smalls/If we don't get them they gon' get us all, I'm down for runnin' up on them crackers in they City Hall." "Animal in Man" is a retelling of George Orwell 's '' Animal Farm '' and begins with a sound excerpt from the movie Beneath The Planet Of The Apes . "Behind Enemy Lines" namechecks Black Panther Fred Hampton . Among the rallying cries for black liberation/socialism, Dead Prez include entreaties for self-respect/love: "Be Healthy" is about eating right ('Lentil soup is/mental fruit'); "Mind Sex" is about getting to know your lover and appreciate a person's mind as well as their body ('maybe later we could play a game of/chess on the futon'); "Discipline" is a how-to for achieving one's goals; and "Happiness" is about warm weather as a tool for the liberation struggle. Dead Prez also disclose their atheism in the track "Propaganda" ('I believe man created God out of ignorance and fear'). As well as hip-hop beats, many tracks contain live instruments, such as "Psychology", "Animal in Man", and "You'll Find a Way." TRACK LISTING ALBUM SINGLES CHART POSITIONS Album chart positions Singles chart positions PERSONNEL
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