Former Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack De La Rocha and Public Enemy's Chuck D are among the artists featured on the forthcoming album from Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death-row in a Philadelphia prison for the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal, who worked as a journalist and activist prior to his conviction, has maintained his innocence for twenty years. Artists like Rage Against the Machine and the Beastie Boys have been long-time supporters of his cause, as have other civil rights groups like Amnesty International.

Abu-Jamal's album, due June 26th on Alternative Tentacles Records, is titled 175 Progress Drive, the address of the prison where Abu-Jamal has been jailed. The album will contain both spoken word and music. Unbound Allstars, composed of Dead Prez, Pharaohe Monch as well as Chuck D and De La Rocha, perform on the track "Mumia 911." The spoken word component of the recording contains Abu-Jamal's interviews with Bob Marley, Jimmy Carter, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, Hugh Masekela and others. Actors Peter Coyote and Ruby Dee as well as Rubin "Hurricane" Carter and Black Panther and Black Liberation Army leader Assata Shakur read essays and poetry written by Abu-Jamal. This will be Abu-Jamal's third recording, all on Alternative Tentacles, which was founded by former Dead Kennedy's frontman/activist Jello Biafra.

His previous recordings were both spoken word: 1997's Man is the Bastard, which featured Henry Rollins , Biafra and poet Allen Ginsberg, and 1998's All Things Censored, Vol. 1, which featured novelist Alice Walker and actor Martin Sheen.

CHRISTINA SARACENO
(May 21, 2001)