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Tell us a little about
your name, what does it signify?
Sun Rise Above is basically a call out to the oppressed people of the world to do like the sun and rise up and above ya dig? That's what I'm representing and that's who I'm fighting with (and for).
How did you get started rapping?
Basically I was listening to a
 lot of hip-hop, and I wanted to be a part of the culture. So I just started rhyming, but I also Djed and did Graffiti. I wasn't so great at Djin or Graf though so I stuck with rhyming. Haha.
From the very beginning I just did my own thing. I never really thought about what other rappers were doing or getting any record deal or anything like that.
I would just record some tracks then put them out on a tape or cd. I would put out like 50 copies of these underground joints and people
would buy them up, so I started putting out more, and one thing lead to another.
Who were your musical influences?
In Hip Hop my biggest influences were the Wu and Esham. Really the Wu is what got me into hip hop. When I heard 36 Chambers the first time I was buggin out. To me that's still the greatest album of all time. So for the first few years that I was listening to hip hop I wasn't really listening to anything but Wu and Esham. I mean I was bumping some shit like Onyx and
Tribe Called Quest too.
I've got to mention Kool Keith too. He was an early influence for sure.
I'd also say I was influenced by cats like Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and The Doors.
Tell us about your 3 albums? How has your style changed with each?
Well it's definitely progressed. Everything I've done has had a different theme. Global Warning was the beginning, lettin people know what's really goin on out here, then Prisoners of War is talkin about what we've got to do to change it.
This Means War was to let people know that the battle don't stop, and that I'm still out here struggling, and the United Front joint I did with 7Wounds and Lazarus showed three brothers in struggle against a common enemy.
How did you get to do a collabo with dead prez? What was it like working with them?
Basically, Paris wants to get my name out there more before my album comes out, so the track with Dead Prez on the Hard Truth Soldiers compilation was a part of that.
My verse on there is from a song from the Prisoners of War album. They just put it on there with DP and T-K.A.S.H. So I wasn't in the studio with them or anything like that, but it was still dope to work with those comrades.
Why do you think most Mcs are afraid to do political
songs?
Damn man. Well, there's this whole machine out there that controls what comes out. You know they were ignorin Hip Hop at first until they found out they could make some scratch off of it, so then they started pouring all this money into it. That's what commercialized the music and took it from a sort of folk music to what it is now. Is it better or worse? Well, you decide next time you see Barney Rubble rapping about fucking Fruity Pebbleson the idiot box.
So I mean you've got these capitalist scum bags pulling the strings, and deciding
 what they're going to put in their stores, on their television stations
and their radio stations. So obviously they don't want to put nothin out that's goin against them and talkin about takin them out of their positions of power. It's a battle of ideas.
So there are definitely Mcs out here doing the thing, talking about what's really going on around us (and here's a hint, it ain't $100,000 platinum chains), but they're not getting put out. And even if they do manage to get put on somehow on some sort of independent or somethin, they're still getting fucked, or at a major they're putting a sticker over your album
cover like they did to Dead Prez.
Some of the people that's out now would probably gettin more into reality too if they wasn't so worried about gettin sales and gettin paid, cuz they just want to do what the industry expects from them.. they don't want to go against the grain.
Not me though. I was born poor and I'll die poor, so fuck it, I'm going to say what I feel and try to uplift my brothers and sisters in the process.
What artists that you have not worked with do you really want to work with?
Esham is definitely one, but we're supposed to collab actually in the next few days for this compilation, so that's about to go down. Who else.. Killah Priest, GZA, RZA, Masta Killah, Public Enemy, DJ Premier, Prince Paul, Neil Young..
There's a lot of folks.
Have you or would you ever work with anybody from the Wu or the Wu Fam, if so who and why?
Who even is Wu fam? People have a lot of different ideas on what is or what isn't Wu fam ya dig? But yeah I would definitely get down with a lot of cats from Wu. Especially cats like Killah Priest, the GZA and the RZA.
We got some cats from the Wu fam on this compilation we're putting out in May too. We've got a lot of dope artists on there.
I did two tracks with Lethafase too, who was down with U-God. He's an ill MC. He should have been on a long time ago.
If you could bring back 1 and only 1 dead hip hop artist,
who would it be and why?
If I could bring people back it wouldn't be an MC, it would be the tens of thousands of children that died today from curable disease and starvation.
But as far as Mcs, Ol' Dirty, with out a doubt. That's my ace yo. He was one of the illest cats to me. But we can't bring no body back man.
What do you think will happen after George Bush's term
ends?
I know what will happen. The system will keep on like it has been. One individual doesn't bring the world into a crisis like we're seeing now. It's the capitalist system we live under.
And it doesn't matter if they elect a Demican or a Republocrat, cause they're both representin the exact same class. Ask the Vietnamese how peaceful the Democrats are in office.
Of course the theft of the 2000 elections marked a dangerous shift from traditional bourgeois democracy in the US, and there's been a rise of Christian Fascists that is going largely unnoticed. Really we need a popular movement of the oppressed to solve these problems, cause no election or
expiration of a presidential term is going to do it.
What should happen in order to make our country better?
Two words: socialist revolution. That's basically what it is fam. If you don't have a change in the class that controls the means of production, you're not gonna have any real change.
For the latest album, title "This Means War" can you talk
a how did you come up with this title?
That fits in with my other album titles. Everything I put out has war in the title somewhere: "Global Warning," "This Means War" and "Prisoners of War."
Basically with that I'm just representing the class war that we're all a part of in our every day lives, whether we realize it or not.
Also though, This Means War was originally supposed to hype Prisoners of War which was supposed to come out around the same time.
I see a red star, hammer and sickle around your website. Are you Russian or how do you see imagery of Russian Revolution related to your music?
Haha, nah I'm not Russian man. But I am a communist. So you know that the hammer and sickle represents the unity of workers and farmers in struggle. It's not specifically a Russian symbol. It just so happens that that was the first place the oppressed took power and kept it.
So the hammer and sickle relates to the music cause that's what I'm doing. My music is Hop Hopraganda b, I'm doing this to spread a message. At this point of my life, the music is just another avenue of my political work.
If cats that are reading this want to find out more about all of that they can check my website: www.sunriseabove.com
I've got a lot of information on there.
What are some of your future projects?
I don't want to sound like one of these cliche cats, but right now I'm involved in a few things. First I've got the Prisoners of War album, which is gonna be in stores everywhere sometime this year, but I don't know when. That's up to
Guerrilla Funk.
Second, we're putting together this compilation called "The Resistance" to raise money for an organization called the Free People's Movement. We've got a lot of dope cats on there like Esham, Beretta 9 and Shogun Assassin of Killarmy, Bronze Nazareth, Lethafase, Origen, Tribe of Judah, 7Wounds, Shadowyze and some others.
That'll be coming out big in New York and on the net in May, so stay tuned to
www.bareregular.com for that.
Also some of my people are working on albums like Tribe of Judah, Lazarus and
7Wounds.
What message do you have for your fans?
Hopefully I've got comrades and supporters instead of fans.. But get down with the revolution yall! Us at the bottom are the only ones who can change this fucked up society. Workers to power! Peace.
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