Rapper Immortal Technique takes on the 'American Dream'

“Imperialism is sponsored by corporations – that’s why Halliburton gets paid to rebuild nations,” is a line typical of Immortal Technique, the New York based MC who combines the anger of the early hip-hop era with hard hitting political lyrics that set him apart from most rappers today.

Few MCs can claim to use the war in Iraq, Islamophobia and the occupation of Palestine as material to rap a-bout.

But Immortal Technique – real name Felipe Coronel – has never been one to shy away from controversial issues. He is not just a rapper, he’s a political activist.

His track “The Message Or The Money” talks of the pressures he and other MCs face to trade lyrical independence for corporate recognition. Technique released his first album, Revolutionary Volume 1, on his own without being signed to a label. He won a huge following in the underground scene.

“Hip-hop was created with the duality of not only speaking about things revolutionarily, but also being party music...It wasn’t that black and Latino people in the 1980s were enjoying what they were living through – it’s more that they wanted to speak about what they thought could be possible. They imagined certain riches, or imagined themselves in a better place. So they had these rhymes where people would talk about the kind of money they would make – and they had the more revolutionary aspect, the militant flow. And these things crossed each other – it wasn’t that this person just rhymes about this, or this person’s a party MC, or this one a political rapper. A rapper had to be a complete artist.”

But the influence of the music corporations soon transformed this early hip-hop scene, he added. “At some point, when corporations got involved in the marketing of hip-hop, they snatched one aspect out of it. They said, ‘We like it when you dance and sing, but we don’t like it when you talk about everything else. We don’t like it when you talk about Africa or Palestine’.”

“The technology right now allows for people who cannot afford that million dollar studio to get their message heard. Now you can circumvent the corporations by saying I’m gonna make my own music and I’ll promote it through the internet, through the street, through mixtapes.”

He also cautioned against thinking a black president will fundamentally change things. “I’ve learned this the hard way. In Latin America we said as soon as we have an indigenous person as president, everything would change. But it didn’t necessarily change. There are presidents that are black in Africa and there are Muslim rulers in the Middle East. Does that mean there’s less oppression there? No!”

Despite his scepticism, Immortal Technique said he voted for Obama in the primaries, mainly because of his more liberal stance on immigration. But he warned, “Just because I voted for him doesn’t mean I’ll endorse him as a candidate and run around with Obama posters!”He added that contrary to common belief the class system is alive and well in the US.

“I would say there is an American economic aristocracy – people who come from privileged families and influence. So that sort of system exists inside the US and has existed since its conception. And it’s tied into racism, which was created to justify classes and slavery.

“The greatest enemies of democracy have always been the ruling class. Do you think Bush or Obama is going go over and tell the king of Jordan or Saudi Arabia to hold an election?
That will never happen unless the people themselves rise up and reclaim that power. That is the way we truly start to facilitate revolution.”

The 3rd World by Immortal Technique is released on 24 June on Viper Records.