Artist: Cipes and The People
CD: Conscious Revolution
Single: “Free Me” Free Mee
Press Release:
“And one love is our love/We can free the world.” “Free Me”
“Reggae is the weapon of the future,” explains Greg Cipes about The Conscious Revolution, the debut album from his group Cipes and the People. “It’s the music that unifies everyone and everything.”
An accomplished actor on hit TV shows House, Ghost Whisperer, Without a Trace and Deadwood, a voiceover artist on Disney Channel’s W.I.T.C.H. and Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! along with Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans and a professional junior surfer, the Florida-born Cipes comes from a show business family. His grandparents both acted professionally and his father was a TV director who became successful in real estate, then traveled extensively with his family, often taking them to the Bahamas, where Cipes heard reggae music for the first time.
“I was divinely placed in a position to see how the music made those living in poverty feel so good,” he says. “The culture and the warmth of the people always intrigued me.”
Citing reggae, hip-hop and rock as his main influences, the 27-year-old packed up his yellow Nissan Xterra and moved to Los Angeles to study directing at USC, but dropped out within weeks when he landed a pilot at Warner Bros.
“Music has always been part of my life,” he says, citing such disparate inspirations as Bob Marley, the Doors, Sublime and Miami bass rappers 2 Live Crew, whose battle for freedom of speech attracted a young Cipes as much as their music. “But it only started to take this form seven years ago.”
The album’s lead single, “Free Me,” is also the first song Cipes ever wrote seven years ago, inspired, he says, by his dog Timber and the spirit of Bob Marley.
“I called on Marley spirit to work its way through me,” he says. “I couldn’t even sing growing up. I just prayed to him to let me spread his message and be a conduit of his love, power and wisdom. And it happened.
“I’m talking to Mother Earth in the song as a female whom I’ve disrespected. And this is my plea to heal that relationship. The other element is my own earthly relationships with women. My heart has been broken at least four times. But I’ve never stopped loving. I don’t regard women as the opposite sex anymore. I wasn’t always strong enough to do that. But I’ve vowed not to have sex until I’ve found my one true partner out there.”
Cipes’ music is part of his Conscious Revolution, his attempt to unite people’s beliefs and bring them together. “I do everything in the service of God,” he says, explaining that he no longer drinks, smokes, watches TV, goes to the movie, listens to the radio or has sex. “I’m being lifted up so I can shed light on others who have the knowledge, experience, heart and drive to unite cultures, religions and races. Reggae is all about the positive message, the positive vibration. It’s a music that unifies everyone and everything.”
The video for “Fade Away” gives a plug for Save the Earth, while “Jah People” is inspired by Marley’s assertion that “God loves everyone.”
“God is part of every one of us,” he explains. “Whether it’s Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, Jah or Allah. I’m a firm believer in experiencing all religions so you can understand where everybody is coming from, so you can communicate from a compassionate place. I may not know anything, but I understand everything.”
The album’s musical styles range from the hip-hop dancehall toasting of “Ones Up,” featuring Houston rapper Big Boss, and the Two-Tone speeded-up ska of “Pain,” which tells the story of visiting an ex-girlfriend in the middle of the night and getting picked up by the police, to the singer/songwriter balladry of “Fly,” detailing his decision to leave Florida and go to California. “That’s about letting to and putting myself in God’s hands,” he explains. “This album, produced by newcomer and friend. 23 year old Greg Whitman, is about unifying all races, religions and genres of music. All of those things are in me.”
Cipes and the People has coalesced into a core 11-person line-up, which includes two horn players, three back-up singers, lead guitar, bass, keyboards and a DJ. The band was featured in the MTV show Twentyfourseven, which spurred more than 200k people to check out their music on MySpace, where they were the site’s #1 unsigned reggae band earlier this year.
For Cipes, it’s not about either fame or success, but bringing people together. “Music is a celebration, a time for people to rejoice in their connections,” he says. “At our shows, we hve hippies, hip-hop heads, rockers and Goths. We’re uniting people that ordinarily wouldn’t come together because our message is so universal.
