dead prez: Let's Get Free 25th Anniversary 2LP Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This 25th anniversary 2LP set was pressed in the EU. The album reached No. 22 on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and came with five singles, including "Hip-Hop" and "I'm a African."

This edition

2LP set
25th anniversary edition
Pressed in the EU

About the album

Some duos meet at a club; stic.man and M-1 met through stic's time at Florida A&M in the mid-'90s, then moved to Brooklyn and formed dead prez in 1996. They signed with Loud Records the same year, and it took them a few more to get this one exactly how they wanted it.

They produced most of it themselves, with extra help from Lord Jamar of Brand Nubian, Hedrush and a young Kanye West. "Hip-Hop" rides a massive, rattling bassline, "It's Bigger Than Hip Hop" lays out their mission, and "Be Healthy" and "Discipline" keep the heads nodding. Songs like "'They' Schools" take on the education system head-on. M-1 has said everything they learned in those years is what you hear on it, and it plays that way, start to finish.

It came out on Loud and Columbia in February 2000 and has been passed hand to hand ever since. Twenty-five years on it still sounds sharp; we checked, twice, at a volume the upstairs neighbours have opinions about.

Also at Kops: more dead prez on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B