In the last two years, Immortal Technique’s voice has steadily gotten louder outside of his normal underground surroundings. The Harlem-bred lyricist is weighing his options before he releases another album, he said, but he spoke at length about where he’s headed.
“I’m coming back to the roots, what made me Immortal Technique – real raw. [I’m bringing} the brutal lyrics and at the same time a lot of conceptual substantive in the next album,” he told AllHipHop.com. “If I make something and it doesn’t feel like an original idea from me, then I can’t put it out. It’s formula man [and] that’s limiting. Put that with the others.”
On Revolutionary Vol. 2, which was released last year on his Viper Records, Technique spoken brazenly about the state of political affairs in America and his Harlem hometown. The buzz, which has been increasing for years, has gotten the attention of the majors.
Having shunned a major label deal, Technique said such a move would be highly unlikely, because of the type of artist that he is.
“They call a couple of times sometimes during the week asking me what I’m doing, what I want to do. It’s not just the major labels it’s the under major label [large independents],” he said, taking the interest with a grain of salt.
“It’s not what you rhyme about though because you could rhymes about being a revolutionary or you could rhyme about streets, your ice, your 24’s. The labels are going to look at you the same way, they don’t care what you rhyme about. You can talk about anything you want to. At the end of they are going to look at you the same.”
The rapper, whose rhymes are drenched in commentary, said he is more interested in applying his income and business savvy to more practical things.
“I think economical power equal political power, if you don’t have economical sovernty, you won’t have political sovernty. You don’t the control the economics of your neighbor hood you don’t control the political side,” he clarified. “If everybody in Harlem owns those brimstones – they own all those businesses.”
Advising, he rationalized, “Invest in things that people can’t take away. Get someone in your family to invest in a college education scholarship program. Can’t nobody come back saying you’re an idiot give me back your college education. It’s something that you are going to have for the rest of your life. I’m invested in that and I chose carefully what I invest in.”
While he was a college student at Penn State University, Technique was incarcerated and eventually incarcerated on aggravated assault charges after a group racially harassed him and others. He intends to pick up where he left off one day, he stated.
“I got like a semester left to do in school. I feel that I definitely will go to school to get my degree. It’s just that it’s so much drama right now music,” he explained. “I might have to do some online course or something to get my degree I don’t have the time to go to a regular class room.”