Dead Prez broke out in a big way in 2000 with their debut, LET'S GET FREE, a brutal but ingenious and thoroughly learned record which stirred up controversy while finding its way onto many a year-end top-10 list. Unfortunately, the duo of M-1 and Stic.man were mysteriously dropped from their label (the official story was lack of projected sales), and the finished follow-up, RBG (standing for "revolutionary but gangsta"), got caught up in the interminable red tape. GET FREE OR DIE TRYIN is the second of a series of "mixtape" discs Dead Prez has released in the interim.
Although not an official Dead Prez release, a majority of the tracks features M-1 and/or Stic and definitely carry the busting-down-barricades spirit of the duo. True to the rebellious yet thuggish nature of the group, all the tracks forge a balance of violent street fury and beatification of knowledge; on "Baby Face," Bronx rapper Divine conjures up martyred icons like Huey P. Newton and Emmitt Till while lecturing young ganstas about the perils of ignorance. All who appear on the record combine for one of the more provocative songs in music history, "F*** the Law," a chanted war cry and exhortation to revolution.