Mumia Abu-Jamal

Product Description:

Personnel: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Assata Shakur, Bob Dole, Allen Ginsberg, Jello Biafra (spoken vocals).

Man Is The Bastard: Wood, Kenyon (vocals, bass); Beattie, Lawrence (vocals); Rollins (spoken vocals); Connell (drums).

Engineers include: Blangton, Janice Leber, David Rubin

Principally recorded at the State Correctional Institute at Green, Waynesburg, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1996; Radio Havana Cuba Studios, Havana, Cuba in March 1997; Huntingdon State Prison, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on August 16, 1993 & April 16, 1994; Senate Floor, Washington D.C. on May 17th 1994; New York University, New York, New York on Feburary 20, 1997; Offices of Alternative Tentacles Records, San Fransisco, California on August 30, 1997. Includes liner notes by Noelle Hanrahan and Jane Henderson.

Cold-blood cop killer or political prisoner? You're free to make the call, although this necessarily self-serving album of Mumia's musings on his years on death row (plus tributes from the likes of Allen Ginsberg and label head Jello Biafra) is unlikely to change anybody's mind. The former journalist is, nonetheless, on the evidence here, an eloquent writer and a gripping speaker who provides riveting takes on the death penalty, life on death row ("the fastest growing public housing tract in America"), and corporate control of the media. As for the music, there's some ambient stuff plus a few tracks of extremely angry punk noise.