For the past couple of years, M-1 has continued to tour alongside stic.man as dead prez while building his own career outside of the highly political duo. Behind the scenes, he’s been taking the revolutionary messages of the music and transferring the same energy to film through his production company. The studio has already produced some fairly poignant documentaries including From Gangs to Gardens. Ten years from his debut solo project Confidential, M-1 is set to drop his sophomore follow-up Between Me & The World. Between new civil rights movements springing up around the country and the upcoming elections for United States president, there’s plenty to talk about with outspoken emcee.
Speaking with DX, M-1 talks his production company JLove&M-1 Productions alongside his upcoming solo album Between Me & The World.
M-1 Talks Upcoming Series From Production Company
“I’m working hard on a lot of different platforms by just pushing forward for our liberation and our movement to be free, but moving it from different angles. Obviously, I’m still working on music as I just got off tour with dead prez, but more so culturally transforming that through things like TV, technology and film. I have a television platform called JLove&M-1 Productions and I’m writing and creating content. I’m creating content in every form you can name just so I can infuse everything I’ve been doing before with a whole new way of presenting it. I started a show called M-1’s The Message. That show is about transforming the content of the substance in the music and in culture itself by combining two of Hip Hop’s elements graffiti and emceeing. I’m coupling two of my favorite graffiti artists and a legendary MC to see what kind of message they could create for the world to see on a wall. It’s basically seeing culture in that way. The way we arrive at that is through a revolutionary project.”
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“The idea is to create something new. The premier episode is with Joey Bada$$ who is one of our first guests. I’ve gone on to JLove & M-1 Productions for other shows as well. We have another show called M-1’s The Sound of Revolution which is also talking artivist and supersize the ability of an activist or artist to be able to make more of an impact on society. Whether you want to create a song about something that’s happened from a police shooting or action that takes power like protesting Hillary Clinton or whatever. We want to give the activist the ability to do that on a higher scale. It’s unscripted reality television. These shows will have different elements with different change makers and revolutionaries. These will be transformative tools through culture and storytelling. It’s about shifting the paradigm of television. It’ll be sexy as well. I just want to revolutionize the way we look at content. We want to be able to and have introduced some of the most beautiful women and beautiful minded people on the planet as well. We already dropped a docufilm called From Gangs to Gardenswhich is about a revolutionary man from Denver,Ietef Vita. We also have a meditation album that I released as M-1 because I use meditation as a primary tool to achieve a higher vibration.“
Upcoming Presidential Elections Are About “A Selection & Not Election”
“I feel the same I way I do about the other elections before. Those who follow us know about the song dead prez has called “Politrikkks” which dropped around the first time Obama got elected into office. We’re in a similar predicament. We corralled back by the extremist-right Republican perspectives and pushed into a corner where we’re given very few choices in the name of Clinton, Cruz or whatever. It’s the lesser of two evils. Once again, we are left to pick from the lesser of two evils which isn’t a choice to me. It’s not a good choice, almost as if we’re getting forced. It’s a selection and not an election.”
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“President Obama Did What All Imperialist Governments Do”
“I feel like President Obama has stood with and on the same side as the presidents of the United States. If you weighed his work against President Bush, he has engaged just as much war or more. He has definitely made changes with health care and I do understand he was met with opposition from members of the government. We all knew that wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. What else did we expect? I couldn’t have expected that they were going to lay down and have him do whatever he wanted. It’s not about the color of your skin when it comes to the presidency. It’s about the moves, initiatives and policies to make or break. For the most part, Obama did what all imperialist governments do; continue on with the same power that America has been having through white power and the same bondage and violations of human rights. That’s how I see it.“
Expect New Music From dead prez
“Yeah man, we’re actually working on something new. We’re working on something right now. Just look out. We’re going on tour as dead prez like we normally do. Our tour new tour starts in March in Europe. Expect new music from dead prez.”
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Death Of Hussein Fatal & Unreleased Tracks With The Outlaws
“Come on man. That dude right there gave life to The Outlaws in such an amazing way. He was an amazing beacon of life. I had a chance to kick it with him a couple of times. They were blessed because they were able to be in the life of Tupac and be affected by him. His rhyming and style will always be remembered. Long live Hussein Fatal.”
“We always recorded stuff but we hadn’t put it out. E.D.I. Mean and Young Noble are the homies, but we never finished a new project. We do have stuff recorded and in the vault, though.”
New Solo Album Being Inspired By Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between The World & Me
“It’s interesting. My new album is called Between Me & The World and I wrote the album in the process of a lot of things happening such as a lot of murder and death. I mean watching from the inside out to outside in. I recorded it in Italy from outside of the United States watching the reaction to Mike Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray. I read a book by Ta-Nehisi Coates called Between The World & Me. That book really influenced the title track of the album. At the end of the day, I feel like examining the situation going on in the world in different ways. Soon there’s going to be a solution that was the same as it always was. People aren’t going to accept the same old conclusions about how we’re treated here and what justice really means. I can’t wait to see what that looks like. I think liberation means power changing hands. By that, I mean power being in the hands of the people who have been the most oppressed. That’s what freedom looks like. I don’t want to see anything less than that. Between Me & The World should be out in May but you should hear singles from it soon. One of the first singles is “Number One With a Bullet” featuring Prodigy of Mobb Deep and the homie Divine. You should hear something each month so start preparing.”
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