NOT FOR PROPHET: THE ONE PEOPLE'S PROJECT INTERVIEW

Poet. Musician. Artist. Revolutionary. The X-Vandals and Ricanstruction frontman talks about where he comes from and where he is going.

Omar Villegas

When OPP asked me to interview with the artist known as Zro Prophet aka Not4Prophet, i thought about the many conversations he and I have had through the years and the various places they were had – brief moments of discovering who this person… artist… and revolutionary was… where he was coming from, and where he would be going.

I have been a fan and friend to Not4Prophet since back in the proverbial day – followed his career from CBGBs to the mountains of El Salvador. I have shot hours of footage and got a lot of shit out (of my system) in the mosh pit at his shows too.

In the beginning, it would always blow my mind how someone could front a loud and angry band like his first one, Ricanstruction; a hardcore salsa sancocho of reggae and “puerto punk,” with a voice that would cry out with so much soul and grab you by the collar and make you wanna listen… carefully. And then after the show, disappear like Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects, somewhere deep into the crowd…and when you’d find him… he’d been transformed into this soft spoken – i almost wanna say timid – man, with so much to say clearly and cogently about what is important to him and to his gente…his barrio…his seeds…his patria… His life as an artists, a “rebelutionary” and a father!

Years have passed since those days of being in awe of a “stage presence” and I have gotten to know this “doomed man”, as much as he allows…  i’ve also bared witness to the reinvention ie evolution of the artist. Allowing my own personal interpretation, it is like trading in Bob Marley for Chuck D, as Not4Prophet transforms from his Hardcore Puerto Punk rocker meets roots reggae, to a street Hip Hop agitator who is coming at the audience with the same intensity that Public Enemy always came with, spitting a fire and brimstone that have long been dumbed down and drowned out of the genre by the corporate capitalist machine.  

So i take this opportunity to ask a few questions…questions i would ask, or possible have already, in many a conversation in those few minutes before or after another intense performance.

Omar:  Are you self reflective? What do you see when you see yourself? Do you see the evolution, or a recreation?

ZRO:  I don’t own a mirror…. But we be constantly evolving AND recreating too.

Omar:  What is “the struggle” for you, and are there more than one?

ZRO:  To me “the struggle” is and are many, and are part and parcel of life under capitalism, colonialism, corporatism…. La lucha is all part of “the game” we know as the struggle….

Omar:  So what changes “the game.”…what kills the beast inside the machine…what equals change?

ZRO:  Life is constant and continuous change, but you change “the game” only by constant and consistent action and you kill “the beast” only by driving a dagger directly thru its heart and dismantle the machine by throwing what Eldridge Cleaver called a “nigga wrench” into the works!

Omar:  are you a racist or a a counter racist?

ZRO:  I think “race” is a bullshit construct! But, having said that, racism is still today very real, so to live and survive and endure in “America” in this day, I would have to be an anti-racist!

Omar:  Do you feel that the Trayvon Martin murder case was completely about race?

ZRO:  Completely, no. Inherently, yes.  

Omar:  But why is so much importance still put on racism and races and cultural differences today? Have we not evolved?

ZRO:  I don’t think “racism” ever evolves; just kinda keeps festering. This particular nation is founded on race and racism and continues to thrive under it (even when it’s cloaked in the trappings of “post-racialism” and “Black presidents”).

Omar:  But when does that conversation change?

ZRO:  When the concept of race and the institution of racism is abolished,  deaded! And any (white) privileges that came about through racism (and it’s white privilege), are killed (off) as well….

Omar:  But is it race, or really class and classism that we should be worried about, talking about, fighting about?

ZRO:  In THIS particular country, racism and classism go hand in hand and arm in arm. But in many cases, people have been led to believe that it’s (gotta be) one or the other. But it’s not…. Racism and classism are blood brothers and the blood is poison.

Omar:  But isn’t it really the corporations we should be fighting against?

ZRO:  Yes, but racism and classism are (some of) the vestiges of the Corporate, capitalist behemoth and its “master” plan. So, yeah, you fight one, you fight em all. When the revolution come…. WHEN THE REVOLUTION COME!!! we destroy and than transform the whole damn paradigm.

Omar:  But realistically, can there be a revolution in America? What are the people, people in general, willing to give up and do for change, real change, to happen?

ZRO:  Depends on who we are talking about when we say “the people.” The people i know ain’t got nada to lose, so they are willing to risk all because it’s all or nothing. It’s only those who (believe) they have lots to lose, and a vested interest in maintaining the drunken boat and keeping it afloat, that will risk nothing. But yeah, making real change is a full time job, and a lifetime mission, but never a prosperous career. But I’m less interested in revolution than i am with rebelution!

Omar:  So what is rebelution to you?…is it only a fight, or is it more a recycling of thought or process akin to evolution?

ZRO:  Well, real revolution, what i call rebelution, may start with a “fight” but a fight with no forward thought is just a brawl with nothing to show for it except some bruised knuckles and a couple black eyes and hurt feelings… or worse. Real revolution, as Malcolm said “destroys everything in its path…” But the purpose is to destroy, not so much to re-build as to re-create or ricanstruct.

Omar:  But is there really a way to “take the power back?”

ZRO:  I’m less concerned with “taking” any power, as I am with living (and creating) an autonomous community of indigenous tribes who live freely and by they own rules; who live their lives and ask (for) nothing and expect nada from no one or anything from OUTSIDE their community of ghetto indigenous tribes. More about self-empowerment and self determination that about “taking” or seizing “power.” But some would say this is not realistic and akin to panacea.

Omar:  Is there a line between reality and art and can the two exist together?

ZRO:  I don’t think there has to be a line; some of the best art is based on reality and some of the best reality is based on art.

Omar:  But in the process of blurring or getting rid of that line all together, is something sacrificed in the process?

ZRO:  I don’t think anything has to be sacrificed, but sometimes art becomes propaganda and that doesn’t always make for the best art. And some times propaganda tries to become art, and it’s a bad idea. So rather than a line, there’s gotta be a kind of balance.  

Omar:  But who decides what art is and what defines it in our culture?

ZRO:&nbs
p; The artist knows when he is making art, and the audience either affirms or denies. But often, “art” got nada to do with it and the creation just becomes a “product,” to be bought and sold, masquerading as an artistic endeavor.

Omar:  So does art instead become more commerce than actual expression?

ZRO:  Sometimes, and maybe most times. Especially with music, but not JUST with music, where art is made specifically to be shopped and sold to an “audience” of hungry buyers who are not hungry for art, but for the latest hot property or  “product” or something that looks good over their sofa or by the soda fountain and adds to there already abundant prestige and “personal worth.”

Omar:  Is that evolution?

ZRO:  More like de-evolution i’d say….

Omar:  You started out as a graffiti artists, right? Where graffitti is now is in the board rooms and on chalk boards…paint is buffed on the sides of trains right away, yet stickers the size of billboards are the new top to bottoms selling a product.

ZRO:  We’ll ill-legalist graffiti still exists, but these days we call it vandalism. But yeah, the corporate commodification of all things art and culture related, particularly as it relates to Black cultural creations is in full effect. Seems like we may need to go back to move forward in this here recycled revolution.

Omar:  And going back to move forward means what exactly?

ZRO:  It means smashing the shitstem, mashing the matrix, pulverizing the paradigm, changing, crushing, from top to bottom from the bottom up, everything that is hurtful and counter productive and counter revolutionary and contrary to life and love and living, which means deading capitalism, corporatism, con-sumerism and no longer feeding the culture vultures who continue to corrupt our creativity…..

Omar:  Do you expect to see all this “change” happen in your life time?

ZRO:  No. But like Huey said, “the first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man…”

Omar Villegas can be reached at [email protected]