Culture » June 30, 2005

Respect the Technique

By Anna Grace Schneider

Immortal Technique rocks a crowd in Chicago.

Critics frequently trash hip hop because commercialism dominates the genre. But, as Bakari Kitwana notes in his new book Why White Kids Love Hip Hop, the music serves a higher purpose as a “voice for the voiceless” and a bridge across America’s racial divide. Artists like New York-based rapper Immortal Technique provide that voice, heightening awareness within a community desperate for change.

For both jaded hip hop heads and political activists, Immortal Technique’s music is refreshing. At a sold-out venue, teenagers fall silent as Immortal Technique—also known as Tech—kills the beat and reminds them: “Blacks and Latinos get the worst education/ while devils run America like Birth of a Nation/ affirmative action and reversed discrimination/ that shit is a pathetic excuse for reparations.”

On a recent trip to Chicago, Tech toured Roberto Clemente High School in Humboldt Park and then attended a hip hop open mic night down the street at the Batey Urbano, a youth center in the heart of this slowly gentrifying Puerto Rican neighborhood.

Tech encouraged the kids to be revolutionaries by working together and contributing to their community. He explained that the only way for black and Latino people to find a way out of poverty is to own, produce and maintain control over their resources. By empowering themselves, he says, these kids can overcome the racism that he argues is a distraction, a side effect, of our society’s corrosive inequality. “America speaks one language: money. America’s religion is capitalism, ever so much more than Christianity,” he said. “But believe me, the white left is still racist.”

Tech’s activism and authenticity derives from hard life experience. He was born in Peru 27 years ago and his family left when he was 4, fleeing an escalating civil war. They landed in Harlem and, while not delving into his childhood, he admits it was rough. “I tried to go to [college] but I ended up going to prison,” he says.

His epiphany occurred as he rode the corrections bus upstate. “Prison is not the rite of passage that makes you a man. All that hustlin’, robbin’, stealin’, that didn’t make me a real nigga at all,” he says. “When I came home from that and I put money in my mother’s pocket to help support my family, that made me a real nigga.”

During his time behind bars, Tech devoured books about history, religion and civil rights. He wrote often in jail and when he got out, he took that material and eventually produced two albums, Revolutionary Vol:I and last year’s Revolutionary Vol:II. Ambitious titles, but the man has big goals, and with his multi-faceted appeal and a new album, The Middle Passage, scheduled to drop in early fall, he is poised for battle. Vol:II sold 45,000 copies on Immortal Technique’s own label, Viper Records. Moving that many units is an impressive feat in today’s music industry, in which five companies control 90 percent of the music distribution. He and a few other rappers, including M-1 of Dead Prez, organized a hip hop union last fall called G.A.ME. (Grassroots Artist MovEment), whose members receive free healthcare in New York and Philadelphia. “You make more of a political statement by owning a record label than anything you could possibly say on a record,” Tech says.

Despite his progressive political message, sensitive ears will be offended when Tech raps graphically about abortions or what he would do to the mothers and girlfriends of his enemies. But getting caught up in the language misses the point. Tech’s gritty irreverence is precisely what lends him credibility among wary, young hip hop fans. As one aspiring emcee at the Batey told Tech, “I don’t usually like underground hip hop or Latino rappers, but your shit is raw, I love it.”

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• Reader Comments

  “Tech—kills the beat and reminds them: “Blacks and Latinos get the worst education/ while devils run America”

  Blacks and Latinos are like oil and water. There is no affinity between these races. How do blacks south of the border live?

  When Aztlan is created in the American Southwest, Blacks will be as much welcome there as they are in Mexico, where blacks are routinely depicted as savages.

  Posted by Jill Henry on Jun 30, 2005 at 1:21 PM

  Jill-

    You wrote: ‘Blacks and Latinos are like oil and water. There is no affinity between these races.’

    What if Latinos are black?  This is indeed the case of Immortal Technique, who is Peruvian with a black parent, and grew up in a mixed Latin and black quarter of NYC.  Latinos are not so much a race as an ethnicity. 

    ‘Latinos’ does not equal ‘Mexico’.

  Posted by rocco on Jun 30, 2005 at 1:41 PM

  Anyway,

  I bought Revolutionary vol 2.  It was quite refreshing.  Tech seems to understand that racism is a product of capitalism.  The entire concept of race was invented in 1492.  It coincides with the birth or our epoch.  The ancient Romans divided people between civilised and barbarian.  But barbarians could become civilised.  The medieval Europeans divided the world between Christian and heathen, but heathens could convert to christianity.  Capitalism creates a category that is biologically predetermined and unalterable: race.  How else could one justify the treatment of natives and African slaves? 

  Actually the first justification was that these people were savage heathens.  But as some of the natives and Africans became civilised Christians, a new justifications was invented.  Race is still used today, often to divide the working class whose only strength is in its unity.  And Immortal Technique is right when he says the left is racist too.

  His only weakness is his susceptibility to the whole illimunati theories.  I also don’t like his whole “Yo mama’s pussy, that’s aaiight.”  That’s just stupid.  Hey noones perfect.

  Posted by Maximillian Al-Dakari on Jun 30, 2005 at 4:12 PM

  Max,

  About racism, I couldn’t disagree more.  Racism is a manifestation of the primative, genetic, vestigial survival instinct of tribalism.  We all have it to one degree or another. Further, racism is not the only manifestation of tribalism.  This primative instinct manifests itself in virtually all aspects of human existence.

  However, this genetic trait is most prominent in conservatives.  That’s why they are so hateful and suspicious of anyone different than themselves.  That’s why the first thing Bush said after 9/11 is you are either with us, or you are with the terrorists - classic “enemy camp,” us against them, mentality. 

  The same genetic trait is what causes all humans to be somewhat fearful and suspicious of those different from ourselves.  Liberals are able to overcome the instinct with reason and intellect.  Conservatives cannot.

  Posted by Lefty on Jun 30, 2005 at 9:13 PM

  ”... what he would do to the mothers and girlfriends of his enemies…”

  WHAT??!!  Why the hell is it acceptable for a male political hip-hop artist to be disgustingly misogynistic, even if his other lyrics support oppressed people’s struggles?  DUDE.  Just because you have enemies DOES NOT give you the right to treat their wives or girlfriends like objects!

  This is not acceptable.  This makes a mockery of women who are fighting patriarchy & sexism, and of other men (like myself) who are trying to destroy the patriarchy & sexism within ourselves.

  Posted by brotherman on Jun 30, 2005 at 9:58 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 33 posts.

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