Jared’s debut hip hop full length LP is available now from BlackBox Tapes
At the forefront of underground radical art for over decade, Jared Paul has toured relentlessly as a spoken word artist, emcee, and revolutionary organizer. Get My Ghost is the culmination of the last ten years of protesting, touring, and learning. This full length album showcases Jared’s unique storytelling abilities, making it more of a rap-album-as-memoir then a heavy handed political manifesto.
Get My Ghost is produced by Sacramento engineer & multi-instrumentalist; Tommy Fox. Fox utilizes antique vinyl, analog synthesizers and one mpc to create the album’s dense soundscape. The record also features poetry from nationally acclaimed Viking Press author, Karen Finneyfrock, as well as verses from Ceschi, Guante, and Sole. DoomTree legend, P.O.S., makes an appearance reenacting a scene from Henry Rollins’ seminal punk tour journal Get In The Van. The all-star guest appearances continue with sharp cuts from DJ Pain One and a haunting collaboration with platinum artist, Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace. Black Box Tapes enlisted engineering virtuoso Skyrider to master the project, and the artwork is designed by revolutionary artist & Alien Body clothing designer; Pictureplane.
Equal parts activist and writer, Jared’s social justice driven poetry has received standing ovations at protests, festivals, rock concerts, and Hip Hop shows across the country. Getting his start as a featured act on tour with Sage Francis in the mid 2000’s, Jared qualified for the Individual World Poetry Slam finals multiple times and became one of the highest ranking slam poets in the world. He went on to form the radical Hip Hop-Punk hybrid band, Prayers For Atheists (PFA). Sage Francis’s label, Strange Famous Records, put out the first PFA project, and the band did 200 shows across the U.S., winning Album of the Year for their second record in Providence’s Motif Magazine, opening for Anti-Flag, Flobots, Mouth Sewn Shut, and headlining the Socialism 2011 conference.
Over that time Jared was arrested for non-violent direct action at anti-war demos, climate change actions, and major party conventions. He received international attention fighting an unlawful Conspiracy To Riot charge during the 2008 RNC. Supporters around the world rallied to support the legal defense fund and the story was picked up by news outlets across the states. All charges were dropped. Jared scored another significant legal victory in 2014, when after ten years of fighting, he was part of the largest protest-related, First Amendment civil suit in U.S. history—defeating the NYPD and setting federal precedent against the legality of “group probable cause.”
Jared Paul isn’t a name you’ll hear in Rolling Stone, but his work has won the respect of many of the acts you read about in major music magazines. He’s not the 4 Star General, he’s in the trenches with the troops. Get My Ghost shines a light on his journey—from apolitical working class kid to full blown radical, while staying true to both the golden era underground rap and early 2000’s indie-rap that pushed him to get involved in politics and start writing. This isn’t just a Hip Hop album, it’s a documentation of the modern American revolutionary movement, from someone who’s been on the frontlines for over a decade. Guts, blood, and craft from an 18 year vegan, socialist-atheist revolutionary: Tom Joad raised on Chuck D and Bad Religion.
