Independent American Rapper and urban activist Immortal Technique engages in an enlightening and provocative discussion with Free & Equal’s Christina Tobin. Immortal Technique is a headlining performer at Free & Equal's United We Stand Festival on May 10th, 2014 at UCLA. www.UnitedWeStandFest.com
Born Felipe Coronel in Peru in 1978, Immortal Technique now lives in Harlem, wealthy in terms of love, community, and self-respect having kept his message real. He reminds us that although many people define “success” in terms of material wealth and control, there are a lot of people whose “idea of success is just to be free and equal."
He talks about traveling to Afghanistan in 2008 and working with Omeid International (Omeid.org) to build an orphanage, school and start a medical center there and how he values the positive effects of music as much as music itself.
They discuss the downside of party politics, noting that even the socially concerned wing has turned a blind eye on the drug-addicted population, who need medical and psychological treatment; they don’t need to be sold to the prison industrial complex. Immortal talks about how he is open minded about different forms of government. The problem, he says, with the two-party system is that “not everything has a yes or no answer.” People tend to like some things on one agenda, other things on another agenda, but not the whole agenda of any one group. This is why independent politics are so important—and why independent music is so important. He says that extreme agendas are inexcusable considering “the range of ideas and the range of intelligence that human beings have. We can’t be married to one political ideology.” He advocates diversity and tolerance.
His message is spreading to a wider population as poverty spreads from its concentration in minority communities to the former middle class. His new album will be released some time this year by Viper Records (www.viperrecords.com). Always an honest leader who will not compromise his integrity, Immortal Technique says it straight. The most shocking thing these days about his lyrics is probably not the profanity, but the fact that now his message is directed at about forty percent of the population: “We act like we share in the spoils of war that they do. We die in wars.…We don’t get weapons contracts. We don’t get cheap labor for our companies. We are cheap labor. Turn off the news and read, read, read, read.”