Right next to the slave castles where the water is cursedįrom where police brutality's not half as nice Stronghold Grip 5.I'm from where the gold and diamonds are ripped from the earth For those brave enough to follow the album's "open your eyes" message they'll be rewarded with one of the year's most important (and banging) releases. While Marxist world revolution might not be everybody's cup of tea, Immortal Technique, like Chuck D 15 years before him, has the skills and mic presence to back up the urgency of his message.
Production from Green Lantern, Buckwild (the hard-body "Stronghold Grip"), Scram Jones, and others are typically roughneck New York tracks perfect for Tech's dispatches from the urban battleground. But even if Tech cracks a smile, there ain't a damn thing funny going on in The 3rd World. While giving himself a chance to show glints of humor, "Reverse Pimpology" exposes how the playas get played in politics and the rap industry. One of the album's standout tracks is another lyrical reality check that let's Tech take his foot off the gas, if only slightly. "Harlem Renaissance" uses a radio talk show format at the platform for a discussion on the human costs of gentrification in Harlem. That means for every revolutionary call-to-arms ("Lick Shots," the Spanish-language "Golpe de Estado"), Tech takes time to break down the issues, which is where he's at his best. As he describes himself on "That's What It Is": "I play the role of Abraham/Idols get ripped down." The rapper's intensity and righteous fury could be exposed as a weakness, but The Third World wisely knows when to pause to reel its audience back in. Some of it is conspiracy theory, some could be discovered by simply picking up a newspaper, but Tech's gift is returning the hardcore edge to political hip-hop that has been lacking since Public Enemy's heyday. The mantra oft repeated through the album is "open your eyes" to the tightly controlled system that keeps the poor serving the rich and insulates them from being attacked. If listening to that makes you a little uneasy, then it's working. "I come from where the gold and diamonds are ripped from the earth/right next to the slave castles where the water is cursed/Where police brutality ain't half as nice/and it makes the hood in America look like paradise", raps Tech. The title track, produced by GL, strikes the appropriate tone with its growling drums and menace.
Backed by DJ Green Lantern, Technique delivers another edition of incendiary intellectual hip-hop that builds upon the manifesto he began on Revolutionary Vol. While other rappers kick around the edges of geo-political struggle, Technique draws the battle lines and dares anyone to cross.
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It's made to expose other so-called "conscious" rappers as paper revolutionaries and show the super-thug MCs how to really ride for the cause.
Instead, the kind of knowledge Tech drops on The 3rd World is meant to make hemp-sandal wearing beatniks spill their soy milk chai tea and have Republican Party donors check under their beds and in their closets before going to sleep at night. Immortal Technique is not that kind of conscious rapper. Because of many reasons-some legitimate, others off-base-the perception is that these "conscious" rappers are a "safe" choice for listeners it's the kind of less aggressive, positive hip-hop that makes people feel good about themselves. In the last decade, that term has become the label most associated with artists like Mos Def and Common, emcees who generally write more thoughtful lyrics based around urban politics or community issues as opposed to the rims and guns oriented thug themology. Some people might consider Immortal Technique a "conscious" rapper.