Let's Get Free

dead prez, the duo of stic.man and M-1, made a debut album about Black liberation, and they chose a cover from history. The sleeve is a red-tinted archival photograph of a crowd of young South Africans raising rifles in the air, celebrating during the struggle against apartheid.

The concept came from Stuart "Kamau" Lyle, with art direction and design by Kerry DeBruce, illustration by Lorraine West and photography by Anthony Cutajar, while the archival images were licensed from Corbis. Placing armed African youth on the front of an American rap record tied the album's songs about schools, police and food directly to liberation movements abroad.

Many American retailers refused to stock the album with that image, and it was sold in a number of outlets with a censored cover. Released by Loud Records on 8 February 2000, Let's Get Free became a landmark of political hip-hop, and the photograph remains one of the boldest statements ever put on a major-label rap sleeve.