DJ Matt Werner’s interview with hip hop artist Ise Lyfe originally aired on Fresh Air: The Alternative on March 3, 2009.

Ise Lyfe wrote and performed in the best play I saw in 2008, a one-man play entitled “Who’s Krazy.” Having followed Ise’s early work in Youth Speaks since he was a teenager, I was excited to have a phone interview this author, educator, hip hop artist, actor, and community organizer from East Oakland, California.

In the hour-long radio broadcast, Ise Lyfe talks about the commodification of poverty related to the exploitation of black culture in the U.S., the BART police shooting of Oscar Grant, his latest album Prince Cometh, his forthcoming book Pistols and Prayers and forthcoming mixtape Take Them to School, the fears of Obama’s assassination held by people in East Oakland during the 2008 presidential campaign, and how Obama’s election is not the end of racial struggle in the U.S.

The show also features a dispatch from Joe Sciarrillo on the New Year’s shooting of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer in Oakland, California, and the subsequent protests. Amanda Mohammed speaks at the end of the show about her March 13, 2009 event in Berkeley, California raising awareness on the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

For more on Ise Lyfe, please visit his websites: http://iselyfenation.com and http://www.myspace.com/iselyfe

(Right click and select “Save Link As” to download the large, 125 MB mp3 audio file)

Click on the player to listen to the hour-long interview and feature on Ise Lyfe.

In the future, this site will host podcasts of DJ Matt Werner’s exclusive interviews on Fresh Air: The Alternative with a great array of artists, ranging from hip hop artists Ise Lyfe and Talib Kweli, to rock artist Dave Smallen, spoken-word artists George Watsky and Dahlak Brathwaite, beatboxer Kid Beyond, and modern symphony composer Fr. Bruno Clifton.