In a world where there is a few wars being carried out that should be making the average person with half a brain’s blood boil it is refreshing to hear that one of hip hop’s outspoken MCs, Braintax, has just jumped into the firing line to vent his anger at the war on terror and other social and political issues that are as just as disturbing. Braintax’s (AKA Joe Christie) new record Panorama sees the Low Life Records boss bring hard-boiled political issues back to the hip hop front line.

Braintax has laid low in the public eye in the five years since Biro Funk became an instant UK classic. The Low Life Records boss has instead let the many artists on his roster shine including Skinnyman, Rodney P and Mystro, while Braintax has been working behind the scenes making Low Life one of the UK's premier indie labels. With Panorama, Braintax has used his politically and socially charged lyrics to act as critique of the current political climate over an entertaining mix of ragga and world beat influenced hip hop. And it's sure to be controversial. Braintax tells the story of a Palestinian suicide bomber through the suicide bombers eyes on The Grip Again (A Day In The Life Of A Suicide Bomber), as well as venting about US/UK foreign policy on Syriana Style: 'This was a war about energy supply the word about terror that's a goddamn lie and it's even been proved that our leaders lied and the war on terror is racism in disguise' spits Braintax. The Low Life boss says he is amazed that not many other UK rappers are rhyming about this subject.

“It's such a big subject and its something that is part of my life everyday, you know what’s going on in the world and it's something that I'm always talking to people about, as well,” says Braintax. “So, it's something that I thought well fuck it if no-one else is going to talk about it I'm going to talk about this shit. But like I said it’s just something that I think about everyday, so its only natural that it came out in my lyrics. I'm getting to thinking now that maybe people don't really care much or maybe people really just want to get on and live their own lives and don’t want to worry about what's going on. I'm not sure what the reason is but I find it pretty amazing that there's not more people talking about the war in Iraq for example especially in hip hop, which is usually quite a political form of music.”

Braintax believes people should be talking about this subject because the actions of his Government are curbing peoples' freedom in Britain. “And what’s alarming about it more than anything is that it's affecting our daily lives. It is affecting what’s going on now because the Government is bringing in more and more policy to really clamp down on our freedoms at the end of the day. And it amazes me that people aren't taking more notice. I think people are generally unaware and hopefully my album will add a little bit of awareness to people that are listening to it.”

Throughout the album Braintax has used spoken word samples from left wing heroes such as comedian Bill Hicks and Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk, as well as sampling the voice of the right via US president George W Bush. Braintax says the process he used for the spoken word samples was instantaneous. “I'm kind of lazy I do things at the last minute all the time especially when it comes to deadline being met. I was literally there the evening before I had to finish my album going 'shit man, where am I going to get a Bill Hicks sample?' I was crawling the net and it was actually quite surprising how difficult it is to find samples of kind of left wing speakers and left wing journalists and left wing politicians it's actually hard to find on the net.”

Braintax stepped back into the live arena days before this interview and the late nights are killing him. “That was kind of hard to get back into man. My lifestyle has totally changed and yeah that was hard work but it’s been really good, the reception has been amazing absolutely amazing. Yeah, so it’s nice, it's nice to be doing it but it’s not the part of being an artist that I enjoy.” Also the UK rapper maybe coming out to Australia, not as a performer, but as a resident. “[There] is a possibility of me moving out there. Yeah we'll see what happens next year but that's part of the plan definitely.”

Panorama is out through Shogun