Hip-Hop Heavyweights Dilated Peoples Are Back Again Innovative Video For New Single Features Cameos From B-Real, The Alchemist, Los Angeles Lakers Forward Lamar Odom And Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Stars The Gracie Family;
New Album 20/20 In Stores February 2006 For Immediate Release: Dilated Peoples return with Back Again, the hard-hitting new single from theirfourth album, 20/20, which is due in stores February 2006. The innovative video for Back Again follows Rakaa, Evidence and DJ Babu as they travel around a Los Angeles rooftop evading chemical agents, confessing their sins and donning bulletproof vests. The energetic clip features cameos from B-Real, The Alchemist, Defari, DJ Rhettmatic, Los Angeles Lakers Forward Lamar Odom and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Stars the Gracie Family, among others. After scoring the biggest hit of their career last year with the Kanye West-produced This Way, Dilated Peoples return to their artistic roots on Back Again and 20/20. We ve done a lot of experimentation, worked with a lot of different people and tried a lot of different things, Rakaa explains. With this record, we wanted to really get back to a real, uncut pure vision and get back to the pure, boom-bap sound that really made us all get together as people and want to make music together. Since emerging in 1997 on ABB Records (also home to Little Brother and Defari), Dilated Peoples has been among the most respected rap groups. The success of the 1997 single Third Degree b/w Confidence and Global Dynamics made the Los Angeles-based trio a fixture on the tour circuit. Their shows, typified by brilliant tag-team rhyming between Rakaa and Evidence and turntable supremacy fromDJ Babu, demonstrated that hip-hop shows can be entertaining and prominently feature a DJ. Dilated Peoples first three albums — 2000 s The Platform, 2001 s Expansion Team and 2004 s Neighborhood Watch — are hailed as exemplary examples of quality hip-hop. The same can be said for 20/20.