Zacarías Manuel "Zack" de la Rocha (born January 12, 1970) is an American rapper, musician, poet, and activist best known as the vocalist and lyricist of Rage Against the Machine.

Zack de la Rocha's father, Roberto "Beto" de la Rocha, played an integral part in his son's cultural upbringing. Beto (of Spanish-Jewish descent, and born to Mexican-American parents) was a muralist and a member of Los Four — the first Chicano art collective to be exhibited at a museum (LACMA, 1973). De la Rocha's grandfather was a Sinaloan revolutionary born in Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, who fought in the Mexican Revolution and worked as an agricultural labourer in the US. Later, de la Rocha would see the hardships his grandfather endured reflected in the struggles of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.

When de la Rocha was a year old, his parents separated. He and his German-Irish mother, Olivia de la Rocha, moved from East Los Angeles to Irvine, California, where Olivia attended the University of California at Irvine and earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology. Zack described Irvine as "one of the most racist cities imaginable. If you were a Mexican in Irvine, you were there because you had a broom or a hammer in your hand." It was also at an Irvine grade school, where young Zack met his friend and future Rage Against the Machine bandmate, Tim Commerford.

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Lawrence Krisna Parker (born August 20, 1965), better known by his stage names KRS-One (an acronym for Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone), and Teacha, is an American rapper. At the 2008 BET Awards, KRS-One was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for all his work and effort towards the Stop the Violence Movement as well as the overall pioneering of hip hop music and culture.

Lawrence Parker was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York during the summer of 1965. Parker left home at 16 to become an MC, coming to live at a homeless shelter in the South Bronx where he was dubbed Krishna by residents because of his interest in the Hare Krishna spirituality of some of the antipoverty workers. By the time he met youth counselor Scott Sterling, he was also writing graffiti as KRS-One (Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone). Together he and Sterling, a.k.a. DJ Scott La Rock eventually created Boogie Down Productions, releasing their debut album, Criminal Minded, in 1987. KRS-One has been a vegetarian since his youth.