Immortal Technique-The 3Rd World Full Album Zip
Cre Wallace
Amidst the head-nodding beat and haunting piano loop, this Mobb Deep vocal sample eerily foretells the horror of what is to come. It sits unremarkably in the mix, like a stranger you saw at the traffic lights two blocks back. But only now do you realise who he is, and it's too late to do anything about it. You must finish the song.
This was the choice (or lack thereof) I faced when I first confronted Immortal Technique. His aural presence entered my neighbour's dorm room in college like a ghost late one night, with little to no introduction. Josh was an avid hip hop fan; an affable young Kenyan with a big afro and diverse interests in music & art. This time, his recommendation was oddly blunt: "just listen to this".
Six minutes and fifty seconds later, 'Dance With The Devil' mercifully came to its conclusion. We both just sat there, staring at the walls in dead silence. I rewound the song in my mind. Josh waited for a comment from me but I had none at first. This was hip hop unlike what I'd ever heard before, and it shook me. But it also enticed me.
Before that fateful evening, my own story lent itself handily to the stereotype of suburban white boy raised on rock and angst; the firstborn pitfaller who had a passing interest in a few hip hop artists and a weak song vocabulary to boot. The little I was exposed to was amusing to me rather than any other feeling. Listening to Eminem's 'My Name Is' fifty times in one weekend as a 10-year-old whilst giggling uncontrollably is a testament to that.
So it wasn't like explicit language, violence, or Parental Advisory stickers on CD's were completely foreign to me. It was the bare-bones production, the bare-faced aggression, and the hunger for meaning beyond the tropes of the mainstream. I just needed to hear some underground hip hop.
Immortal Technique (one person, real name Felipe Coronel) is one such revolutionary rapper. His songs command the minds who hear them (almost certainly not on corporate commercial radio). He is uncompromising as he is insightful, and for the time being he remains underground - not signed to any major record label, and free to spout forth a manifesto many mainstream artists wouldn't dare touch.
Being of Afro-Peruvian heritage (having been born in a military hospital in Peru's capital Lima), Tech feels a close bond with the Central and South American nations, as well as the Latino community at large. He grew up in Harlem, New York and experienced much of the hard street life that is catalogued or glorified in hip hop songs. However the dangerous life he lived in his teenage years eventually caught up with him, and Tech spent a year in jail for multiple assault-related offenses after his brief period at college.
Tech's time in incarceration was when he started to write down his thoughts, hone his songwriting skills, and begin to research Latin American history. Once out of jail, he pursued hip hop, and soon his reputation become one of a 'battle emcee' - one who is known for his skills in defeating others in freestyle rap battles. Tech has taken much of this ferocious style of rapping and channeled it into three studio albums thus far (Revolutionary, Vol. 1 & 2, and The 3rd World, all released between 2001 and 2008), as well as numerous mix-tape which live freestyles and lyrical beat-downs.
At first brush, Immortal Technique appears as rabid as any wannabe gangster rapper, barking out caustic verses, which at a superficial level, could come across as just for shock value. It would be safe to assume this, as his battle-rap persona looms large over much of his music, and that clique can be difficult to understand outside the context of street-side 'cypher' circle.
Dig deeper beneath the surface stereotypes, and one realises that Tech's rhymes are impactful and intelligent, and read like an activist's archive. His songs touch on a range of topics; he weighs up politics, propaganda, conspiracy theories & free speech, preaches socio-economic theories & empowerment of the powerless, rallies against racism, governments & the music industry, and speaks the truth about crime, love & world history. Others just showcase his ostentatious skills on the mic, as Tech battle-raps a generic foe, schooling the fool with hilarious, ballsy, and brutal rhymes. The combination of dense subject matter and a rugged flow means almost every track hits you like a slap in the face, urging you to wake up and take a look at the world around you.
On 'The 4th Branch', he hypothesizes that the media is the fourth branch of the government (after the executive, legislative and judicial ones), and controls how we as the population think:
When Tech tells tales, these intricate stories stand out as some of his best work. 'Peruvian Cocaine' is a grandiose, character-driven portrait of how cocaine travels from South to North America. Each verse features a different character, as well as rapper, in the story (all together seven). You hear the plight of the lowly worker in the fields, right through a twisted path of drug dealers, border officials, and undercover cops.
He willingly grapples with the topic of love in the heartbreaking 'You Never Know', baring his soul for "the type of Latina I'd sit and contemplate marriage with" in a way that is honest and suspenseful. The track is so personal to him, a sensitive patchwork of real-life relationships, that it is rarely performed live.
But we reach our final battle in 'Dance With The Devil'. The first hip hop song to truly scare the shit out of me. Why? Because it revealed to me the power of storytelling through rap; how cold, calculated delivery of verse is far more frightening than the monster in the closet.
Tech draws you into this spider's web of deceit and darkness, spinning line upon line about a young man's descent into the depths of gangster life. By the end, you as the listener have learnt as much from the track as the rapper himself has. You've fallen, but you can still turn back - and play it again.
LinkedIn and 3rd parties use essential and non-essential cookies to provide, secure, analyze and improve our Services, and to show you relevant ads (including professional and job ads) on and off LinkedIn. Learn more in our Cookie Policy.
"Elements of Style wants to address post-modern dilemmas in an increasingly dystopian American culture with an incredibly diverse display of musical genres. We see creativity as stagnate in today's mainstream music culture and believe in inventing new sounds with an important message of truth in an ever-growing deceptive world." -Gram Wire
Elements of Style started out as a solo project from former Atlanta band Suburban Soul's lead guitarist Gram Wire. After leaving Suburban Soul in late 2010, Wire began writing an 11 song full length album containing multiple genres which would later become Elements of Style's debut album "Waves". The album was engineered at Virtuo Sound Studios with owner and head engineer Josh Hack and performed with Grammy award winning drummer of the Derek Trucks band Yonrico Scott and Grammy nominated bassist Joseph Patrick Moore and released independently on April 24th, 2012.
After tracking was finished and the album was mastered by legendary engineer Rodney Mills (.38 Special, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rage Against The Machine), Wire decided the project needed to be a full group instead of a solo project. He enlisted numerous musicians that entered and left the band, until finding the very professional current lineup of drummer and percussionist David Goodwin, bassist and multi-instrumentalist Andy Greene Ball from Wire's Suburban Soul days and front-man and MC Zach Fortner (A.K.A Zach Fortnight). The group's large, diverse influences of artists like Rage Against the Machine, Sublime, Nirvana, Minutemen, The Ramones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys, Queens of the Stone Age, Gorillaz, MGMT, Love and Rockets and Bauhaus, Immortal Technique, KRS One, 2 Chainz, Run the Jewels and Big K.R.I.T. (to name a small portion of the band's favorites) come out in alternative based, hip hop fueled songs like "Stand the Fuck Up" and "Feelin' That Music" and their live performances as a group in the Atlanta area stand out as being intense, creative, and high energy.
Elements of Style is currently in the studio recording their 11-song sophomore follow up to "Waves".
"We are witnessing the album, as it appears in the media, dying as an art form and single song streaming becoming the dominate force in how people consume music," states Wire. "It's mainly because of the one hit song then crap filler formula of making albums the corporate music industry has taken on doing lately. We completely disagree with this because as Prince says "Albums matter," and we think album streaming on sites like Spotify, if the album is actually done well, will be the future. Adele's "21" or Jack White's "Lazaretto" are perfect examples of excellent modern day albums that true music fans stream constantly or even purchase the vinyl versions of and listen to. Learn how to write or get a great writer and make a great album. You'll be better off obviously."
"Contrary to what is constantly being said about me, I don't enjoy playing difficult music," Marc-Andr HAMELIN said the other day over the phone from his home in Boston. "I wish this stuff would be easier."
This claim is not entirely incredible. It is possible to imagine a mountain climber who simply likes the view and the fresh air, and wishes all the peaks he scales were flatter. But the least that can be said about Hamelin is that he puts up well with the difficulties life throws his way.
The Montreal-born pianist, 49, is one of the world's foremost classical music soloists. His reputation for technical command of the keyboard is unparalleled. His mastery of music's subtler and more enduring charms is, at last, beginning to be noticed as often as his fast fingers. Alex Ross, the New Yorker writer, has lauded Hamelin's "monstrously brilliant technique and his questing, deep-thinking approach." Ross rarely lets Hamelin sneak into Manhattan without sounding the alarm for New Yorker readers.
7fc3f7cf58