The Green and the Red

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, Alex B. rediscovers Marxman, the Irish hiphop group of the early 1990s:

Labeling a group "the Anglo-Irish answer to Public Enemy" may carry with is a great amount of street cred, but the folks at the BBC obviously balked. Their single "Sad Affair" gained a great amount of attention upon release, but was ultimately banned from the airwaves after Hollis uttered the words "tiocfaidh ar la"--the unofficial slogan of Irish Republicanism--in the song. Though it was obviously the move of paranoid producers at a time when the memory of the Troubles was still fresh, it had an adverse affect on the group's career, and after two albums, Marxman went their separate ways.

The video below is from their first album 33 Revolutions Per Minute, released in 1993. Featuring singer Sinead O'Connor (perhaps you've heard of her?), it is an iron-hard rebuke to worldwide oppression, tying together the colonization of Ireland with the entire bloody history of British empire, and in turn with modern wage slavery with effortless rhyme and flow. It is a mesmerizing track that stirs solidarity and militancy within all but the most cynical. Not only further proof that Hip-Hop engulfed the globe long ago, but that its natural instinct is toward freedom and equality, no matter who picks up on it.