MP3 Pelé - The Verdict

Pelé's political insight astride two cultures, and the insurgent tone he uses to express it, as well as his natural flow and vivid lyrical imagery, make him an important artist and an MC to watch.

16 MP3 Songs in this album (68:05) !
Related styles: HIP-HOP/RAP: Rap, HIP-HOP/RAP: East Coast

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Details:
We so defiant, like Prometheus we carry fire

Their guns for hire ainât no match against our hungry lions

The revolution ainât over âtil we remove the tyrants

My people no more cryinâ this is the timinâ grab your iron

â âFreedom Fighterâ


They donât call Philadelphia-born, South African-bred Pelé âRapâs Revolutionaryâ for nothing. Peléâs song âFreedom Fighterâ is a tribute to the late Lucky Dube, South Africaâs biggest-selling reggae artist, who first came to prominence protesting the institutional racism of apartheid.


Pelé, too, speaks out against injustice wherever he finds it, be it in the halls of government or his own backyard. In 2004, his father, an Olympic athlete and South African national hero, was wrongly convicted of fraud, the result of a politically motivated prosecution. This searing experience is captured in the song âNo Respect,â from Peleâs forthcoming album, The Verdict.


Featuring Stic.man of the politically oriented rap duo Dead Prez, the cut finds Pelé illuminating: âMy fatherâs naysayers say he tried to run off with company profits/ Now we facing major losses/ Couldnât even tell you what four years of court cost us/ You know I ainât a killer/ But pops needs an acquittal, and my younger sister so little/ Growing up without a father/ I wanna bring her daddy back/ They trying to lock him up â naw, I ainât having that.â


Of course, even truth-tellers need to bust loose every once in a while. Exhibit A: The Verdictâs âCome With Me,â produced by frequent Pelé collaborator KJ Conteh (himself a Gambian American), which is getting spins at Johannesburg-based YFM 99.2 â South Africaâs most popular youth-culture station â and blowing up on dance floors around the world. âCome With Meâ is also the feature track of Peléâs new major music video by the same name. The music video was shot in 2009 in both Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa, a departure from the typical monotony of most American rap music videos, âCome With Meâ showcases the rare and untapped beauty that the South African nightlife and landscape has to offer the world. Meanwhile, The Verdict single âDrumma Boy,â which further demonstrates Peléâs range, jumped to #4 at YFM. The cut âTwinkleâ has likewise found love there, debuting at #7 on the outletâs hip-hop countdown and moving further down on the charts to number 5.


What 23-year-old Pelé heard on the radio when he was growing up â born in Philadelphia, PA and spending 10 years there before moving to South Africa â was the distinctive tongue-twisting style of East Coast rappers like Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z and Big Pun. But his smooth, sophisticated delivery has been equally influenced by the work of Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross, two favorites of his mother, who is American. Into this mix came his South African fatherâs idols: Miriam Makeba, Lucky Dube, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Paul Simon, who established himself as a proponent of African musical forms with the landmark 1986 Grammy Album of the Year Graceland, much of which was recorded in South Africa with South African performers.


Pelé gained his first foothold in the marketplace with his debut album, Back to the Roots. Aptly titled, the disc was distributed through an old-school grassroots network that generated brisk street sales in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Miami and Los Angeles. The disc was warmly received and thus opened the door to 2007âs The Vyndication, also recorded under the banner of Peléâs production company, Ubuntu Universal (formerly KPEntertainment).


As an independent artist, and managing Ubuntu Universal at the same time, Pelé was able to further the scope of his music through digital distribution with prominent companies like iTunes, Rhapsody, and many more.


With The Verdict, he continues to assert his unique position astride two cultures and as such, to embody the 21st-century emergence of hip-hop as a multifaceted global force. At the same time, Peléâs embrace of hip-hop as an agent of social change places him squarely in the tradition of rap pioneers like Public Enemy and KRS-One. His political insight and the insurgent tone he uses to express it, as much as his natural flow and vivid lyrical imagery, make Pelé an important artist and an MC to watch.