Realized Music was born in in 2000 with its first single, Mumia 911. Mumia 911 was an unprecedented gathering of hip hop's finest emcees rallying together to raise awareness about the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal. With Diamond D at the controls 20 emcees organized by hip hop activist and executive producer Frank Sosa came to bless the mic in what might be the biggest posse cut in hip hop history: Tragedy, Black Thought, Pharoahe Monch, Chuck D, Dead Prez, Zack de la Rocha, Afu Ra, Goldii Lokks (Mumia's step daughter), Aceyalone, Peace, Wise Intelligence, Slimkid Tre, Sayeed (anti-pop),Gene Grey, Hakim and Tuffy from Channel Live, Divine Styler, and The Last Emperor were all there.The single was soon followed by the full length title, The Unbound Project Vol 1. Wanting to avoid the pitfalls found in a lot of agitprop works previously heard artists were expressly asked not to write songs about Mumia but to be inspired by Mumia. In other words ask the question, "what Mumia would do if he were behind the microphone?" He would likely write about freedom and the system that keeps us from achieving total freedom as he does on in his tireless writings and radio commentaries. The results were 16 solid tracks from Talib Kweli & Hi Tek, Mike Ladd, Medina Green, Aceyalone, J Rocc of the World Famous Beat Junkies, Blackalicious, Ursula Rucker, muMs the Schemer, Poor Righteous Teachers, Rakaa-Iriscience, Jerry Quickley, and Saul Williams.Realized Music is currently organizing around making sure The Unbound Project again sees the light of day (its initial effort was snubbed because its distributor went out of business) and that there be a follow up in the much anticipated Unbound Project series. The time for conscious hip hop and to rally behind political prisoners has never been greater.
