Equipto

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Equipto is the stage name of Ilyich Yasuchi Sato, a rapper and political activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area.[1][2] In his teens, Equipto founded Bored Stiff, a long-running hip-hop group, and has performed and toured with many notable hip-hop acts, including KRS-One, De La Soul, Mac Dre, and Nas.[3][4] He has also released music with Andre Nickatina.[5]

Equipto led the Frisco Five hunger strike outside San Francisco's Mission District police station, to protest police brutality and killings of unarmed civilians.[6][7][8][9] The hunger strike has been discussed as direct action similar to that of Martin Luther King Jr. by three law professors,[10] while another scholar argued that the hunger-striking rappers exhibited the same type of political power as Malcolm X when he attempted to thwart the military draft.[11]

Equipto is of mixed Japanese and Colombian ancestry. He is named after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union.[12] His father, Art Sato, was born in a Japanese internment camp in Colorado.[13]

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