With the likes of T-Pain and Lil Jon being the pop music representatives of hip-hop, it seems that the narcissistic materialist is officially the new standard. Fighting the power is just not all that cool. The average kid today associates rap with the glamor of Lil Wayne and Soulja Boy rather than the fury of Ice-T and NWA. Meanwhile, Ice Cube and his suburban-friendly movies have him looking more like Bryant Gumbel than Malcolm X, and Flavor Flav has been reduced to a pathetic court jester. What the hell happened?
Although this cultural trend seems to only be gaining momentum, there is at least one formidable force working against it.
As an independent artist, Immortal Technique might not be armed with the promotional forces that allowed Public Enemy and NWA to be commercial successes, but his rapping skills and razor-sharp sociopolitical commentary have netted him a surprisingly large audience. Like a tornado siren shrieking directly into the ear of the privileged world, Tech's presence cannot be tuned out.
After arriving with the first and second volumes of his Revolutionary series in 2001 and 2003, Tech quickly established himself as worthy of the album monikers. As lyrically fierce as these releases were, Tech returned in 2008 with what might be his most piercing material yet. A highly anticipated release this past June, The 3rd World proved to be worth the almost five year wait.
"Death March" puts the album in motion with an ominous thumping beat that sounds sort of like a funked up twist on the Terminator theme song. As the album title may have tipped you off, this release is more than just a little bit concerned with the dehumanizing behavior of western imperialist states:
They called us terrorists after they ruined our countries / Funded right-wing paramilitary monkeys / Tortured a populace, then blamed the communists / Your lies are too obvious, propaganda monotonous.
The 3rd World possesses an abundance of delightful attacks on the rap industry, and "Reverse Pimpology" may be the most biting and well-stated assault on the farce ever to be recorded. Rapping over an overly club-friendly beat, likely for ironic purposes, Tech goes to the throat of mainstream hip-hop both over its lack of artistic merit and obsession with useless commodities.
The best track on the album must be "Payback," a shockingly caustic and ruthless verbal beating on a certain someone and his cronies. I don't want to disappear into the Nacht und Nebel, so I'm not going to quote any lines from this one.
As good as The 3rd World might be, there is one track that demands the skip button. "Lick Shot" has solid verses thanks to the raw talent of Tech and his affiliates, but the chorus and the track as a whole is awkward and ill-conceived. I didn't have it in me to finish this one.
Besides that blemish, this album is both fierce and hateful to the bone without compromising a bit of articulateness. Tech's combination of flow and vocabulary is truly unmatched. "Lick Shot" really tanks the rating I'm giving The 3rd World, but this is a very good album.
Tech's lyrical content is almost always concerned with matters of injustice and hypocrisy, but what makes his music refreshing is that he doesn't sacrifice flow or bravado amid his revolutionary rants. Even without bitches, bling, and moronic self-worship, the point is clearly demonstrated at all times: he's the fucking man. The complexity of his rhymes and the acidity of his rhetoric leave no doubt.
