Zack De La Rocha guns his black Ford Explorer through a red light, careening left on Los Feliz Boulevard into the hills east of Hollywood. To the right are wide streets lined with stately homes and meticulously landscaped grounds. "That's where a lot of the rich Hollywood types live," says De la Rocha, the 27-year-old frontman of Rage Against the Machine, waving his hand in that direction while looking the other way. Still, De la Rocha, born of Chicano, German and Irish heritage, chooses to live in one of the more upscale areas of this racially and economically mixed neighborhood. "[Los Feliz] is a nice place to live," he says tentatively. "When I was living in East L.A., my car was stolen a bunch of times, and it took the LAPD several hours before they would even respond. But, just recently, there was an incident here, and within minutes you had the cops and all these security guys at my door going, 'Just wanted to make sure you're OK, Mr. De la Rocha.' It was crazy."

He pauses. "I've lived here for eight months, but that's just enough time to make me want to get out and go back to East L.A.," he says. "I need to get back to my people."

De la Rocha is uncomfortable living like a rock star. Over the course of Rage Against the Machine's six-year career, during which the group has sold more than 7 million records and become one of America's most popular bands, they have used their position to rally around numerous domestic and global causes. The band has played benefits for the Zapatista rebels of Chiapas, Mexico, and for imprisoned black militant and journalist Mumia Abu-Jarnal; last April, Rage attempted to hang two American flags upside down during their performance on Saturday Night Live to protest NBC parent-company General Electric's ties to the defense industry.

Rage's latest move, however, may be their boldest yet. Beginning on Aug. 8, the band launched a six-week, 30-city tour with Wu-Tang Clan, America's hottest hip-hop group. The Rage/Wu-Tang shows offer a collision of two of pop music's most volatile, provocative and outspoken groups, and De la Rocha says the tour aims to take its inherently political message straight to the nation's conservative heartland. "We're not going to play to the [mainstream]; we're going to hijack it," says De la Rocha, parking his Explorer on a hill leading up to the Griffith Park Observatory and overlooking the Los Angeles basin. "The tour is going to incorporate everything which the rich, wealthy classes in America fear and despise. Each of the 20,000 people in the audience will be reminded of their independent political power."

It's ironic that such a strong statement comes from De la Rocha, who is painfully shy with the media. Wearing loose-fitting green combat pants, a white T-shirt and Converse sports sandals, the diminutive singer frequently starts and stops the interview, at one point shutting off the tape recorder and asking if we can "have a cigarette and chill. I don't like our ideologies filtered through the press."

De la Rocha loosens up when conversation turns to Wu-Tang Clan and hip-hop's political import. "One of capitalism's secret weapons is to equate freedom with the buying of products," he says. "In hip-hop, people go out and buy their champagne and their mansions, and when you reinforce that principle where people are free because they can buy products, I say, 'Fuck that, you can keep it.' I want my freedom. Those are the values that [rappers] Chuck D., KRS-One and Wu-Tang hold true."

Particularly at a time when conservative political and religious leaders have tried to prevent controversial groups like shock rockers Marilyn Manson from touring, De la Rocha says, he wouldn't be surprised if the Rage/Wu-Tang tour runs into trouble. "America is filled with sections of racist conservatism, and they're misled in thinking that us or Wu-Tang are a threat to their communities," he says. "I expect we will run into problems somewhere in the country. Honestly, part of me hopes we do."

De la Rocha first experienced the controversy surrounding hip-hop in the mid-'80s. Then a student at University High School in the mostly white, suburban community of Irvine, Calif., he and some friends took up break dancing during lunch hour. "We would troop out to the football field with our cardboard and break it down with the footwork," he recalls. "But then, almost immediately, the majority of my white friends stopped speaking to me. Hip-hop, at the time, hadn't reached the level of acceptance [that it has today]. To them, that's the kind of stuff that they do, the blacks."