Discovery X: Ashahed M. Muhammad TEI Interview with Immortal Technique

Discovery Series X: TEI Exclusive Interview With Immortal Technique
Revolutionary Lyrics and a Journey Through the Middle Passage

Ashahed M. Muhammad with Immortal Technique
(Photo: TEI Enlightener News Service)

Immortal Technique first entered the consciousness of many Hip Hop fans with his controversial CD inset which included a artists rendition of a murder scene in the Oval Office After a night of inspirational and revolutionary activism at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois in which several hip-hop artists came together for a benefit concert “Lyrics for Liberty II.” Several rappers performed such as Akir, and Patriarch, all with a revolutionary message to “Free Palestine.”

Revolutionary thought and lyrics are a threat and with the added weapon of being bilingual, Immortal Technique is a problem for those who desire to keep the masses in ignorance.

His lyrics are razor sharp, his perspectives are crystal clear, he is Immortal Technique and he sat down with TEI Director Ashahed M. Muhammad.

ASHAHED M. MUHAMMAD (AM): What brings you to Chicago?

IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE (IM): I was reached out to by the SJP, which is an organization of Students for Justice in Palestine and they were working out of DePaul University . They wanted to bring some light to the situation (in Palestine) and decided to come together on this project to raise money for a children’s organization there and also to let people know it’s not an issue that’s going away.

It’s not an issue that we’re going to allow the media just to give their side of it because we know that here in America , there’s an obvious bias when it comes to speaking about Palestine .

AMM: What do you hope to convey in your lyrics?

IT: People ask me what type of music I make a lot and I tell them that’s it’s not Conscious Rap, it’s not Positive Rap. It’s just a round-about maybe murder and destruction of the streets. Everything else is just perceived as being different other types of hip hop mess out now because we are not afraid to deal with controversy. It’s not that we run to it. It’s that we don’t run from it. We don’t make excuses for the fact that it exists. The music that I make revolves around reality that exists not only in the urban areas here in America but also in the Third World . That’s what I try to relate. That’s the connection I try to make.

All the more reason to be accepted by America and they were willing to go through all sorts of lengths in order to be accepted to change their vernacular and to change the appearance to even adopt American culture and here we are saying that’s not something I feel I really need to do. Why don’t you change and adopt some of my culture. Isn’t this a place where everyone is supposed to embrace other people’s culture. I mean that’s what people say it is. That’s not what it is. There’s an obvious misunderstanding. We look at all sorts of cases. I mean I just came off this thing called “The Invasion” tour where—

AMM: Why “The Invasion” tour? Can you expound on that?

IT: Because I felt like it was a play on people’s words. They said, It’s the immigrants’ invasion, and I started laughing because I was like ‘we’ve been here before and there was no such thing as America , you know what I mean? I mean African people have been here before White people to this side of the world. I always told people America has a very bad memory, you know what I mean, or it has a selective memory because America used to pride itself on being the colonial conqueror of the world, the nation that put the White race above everybody else and now it seems as if you don’t want to wear that hat no more. You were proud of that. You were real proud of that before being a ruler of the world and now you want to be seen as some sort of humanitarian bastion of democracy?

AMM: Do you think they really want that or is that a game to try to fool people?

IT: I mean it’s obviously a play on their imagery. I mean everything’s public relations now. I just think that the Invasion Tour was made to remind people and that’s what I try to do in between the songs. Sometimes I talk to people about certain things and that’s something that I express to people in the Invasion Tour, too. I was like, if you look at the history of immigration, for example, a lot of Europeans themselves were treated like garbage when they first came here to America . People who were sharecropping, Italians, Irish people, there was at one point in the history of America , America actually banned Chinese people from entering America period. It wasn’t like you had to pay money to get in. If you were Chinese, you were not coming into America .

And every time you see the news and you saw some of these organizations that are anti-immigration, of course, they always came here legally. All the White people came here through Ellis Island . I’m sorry. All White people did not come here through Ellis Island and you all did not get here on the Nina, Pinta or the Santa Maria . You snuck your way in here just like everybody else.

I think that’s what you’re forgetting and you did it because you wanted to achieve something better for your family, some sort of economic stability and if you’re going criticize other countries, which is what America likes doing, from human rights abuses. I know they love to criticize Cuba . Oh, it’s Communism, that’s why it’s acceptable for those people to come here and I’m thinking in my mind, really. I mean, starvation doesn’t care what your politics is. Don’t care what your politics is in Western Africa . Don’t care if you’re a Capitalist or a Communist.

And on top of that, if you look at the actual history of Central American countries that have been the victim of CIA infiltration, for example, we were talking about El Salvador, $1.8 billion a year in military aid to a nation that has a horrible human rights record in Central America to carry on a civil war where civilians are the primary target. We can’t beat their guerillas. So what do you do? You cut the life line of the guerillas and that’s the people.

AMM: Now, you’re talking about the globalization of the struggle. You know there’s a current that runs through all the revolutionary struggles. How long have you been rapping? What is the root of your consciousness, your political education because of your obvious grasp of political affairs and the geo-political landscape?

IT: I started around about when I was nine years old. I could always write, spit a little freestyle here and there. It was something I really didn’t take seriously until I was locked up in 1998 and right then and there I started writing more and actually constructing songs. When I got out of prison I was on parole and I couldn’t get no regular job. So to me my solution to it was to find any side hustle I could get a job or whatever it would be and then on the side I would do these MC battles and I was successful. I won most of them in New York City . I realized that I wrote a lot of the songs based on that concept of revolution, whether it was global one like we’re talking about or whether it was one that was happening in Harlem to combat gentrification or whether it was one that was happening where I was hanging out in Washington Heights up there where it was just a drug game.

Those Dominicans are on the planes bringing drugs into the country, you know what I mean and that heroin grows in Afghanistan where the Taliban live and they were being funded by America at the time and kept in power because the bottom line being – you know – it doesn’t matter what your human rights record is, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a communist or a capitalist country, if you support the economy of America through its corporations, you get a free pass.

So I mean it just dawned on me that a lot of these songs are about these specific things in my hood and other hoods so I called the album Revolutionary, Volume One and started hustling the street. Sold the album maybe 5, 6, 7,000 and then I started working on the next album and that’s when I connected myself with Viper Records which was at the time wasn’t really doing much. I was connected with a man who later became my financial advisor and then I became associated with Viper Records. This is the short story. I definitely learned a lot about the music industry. I choose to stay independent so that I can have the ability to say what I want to say.

There’s a lot of rappers—I’m not going to shout them out because they don’t want to be shouted out and I respect that because they know what side their bread is buttered on; but they understand what I’m talking about and they know but they just cant’ say it because at the end of the day, they’re afraid to lose record sales. They’re under pressure from their rich, White corporate bosses who run labels that say we can’t make a song about this or take this off the record.

AMM: You said last night at the concert which is related to what you just spoke about -- mainly, if you sell drugs, you work for the United States government.

IT: To me that was my way of saying…I mean I’m sure you can point out instances in history, in recent history, where there have been actual CIA agents who have been documented to work for drug cartels or whatever it is under the guise of infiltration. The same way America used the excuse that “oh, we were giving the Taliban millions of dollars because we wanted them to curb the heroin trade” and then when you look at the actual statistics after the invasion of Afghanistan , the heroine trade disappears for a month.

But after the Northern Alliance assumes control of the country which was the primary military counterpart with the United States Army in Afghanistan , they inherit the heroin trade, not only for the country of Afghanistan but also for the entire region. So heroin sales go right back up, higher than they were in the previous year. So how are you going to tell me you were doing that to specifically stop that? I mean your hypocrisy is written within your actions.

You just have to look behind a person’s words. They can say whatever they want to. That’s the thing that people always take things for face value. Like words mean something here in this country. That I find that humorous because a person’s words mean nothing to me if they’re not backed up by action and not backed up by a history of being honest.

If someone that you know your whole life to be a thief in your neighborhood, you going to ask him to watch your house when you go on vacation with your wife and your kids? Oh, yeah, watch my house. Here are the keys to my car. You’re a thief and a drug addict, you know what I mean. That’s what America is, a thief and a drug addict. I’m not going to let you watch my house. I don’t trust you. You’re worse than a thief. You’re not after my money. You’re after my reality and that’s the real issue.

That’s why wherever I go I choose to not harp on people because I don’t tell nobody else what to think, but I demand to be included into scope of hip hop because it seems as if we’ve decided to make it to be either gangster sh-- or club records. It’s either got to be some kill your mother sh-- or it’s got to be “I’m a pimp.” You’re not a pimp. You’re getting pimped right now.

Reading The Synagogue of Satan

(All Photos: TEI Enlightener News Service)

Immortal Technique

Spittin' "Lyrics For Liberty" for the Students for Justice for Palestine at DePaul University. A capacity crowd turned out for the event featuring several Palestinian Right of Return groups and activists.

AMM: Who are some of the personalities in hip hop that you respect that you look up to? Are there any? They can be historical hip hop or present.

IT: There’s a lot of people I look up to but more than anything else I think what I learn the most from is hearing a lot of rappers who are veterans of the game, true school MCs for example, Lord Finesse, KRS- 1, Chuck D. When I have conversations about music with them or even about the politics of Africa or America , we talk about the record business, we talk about the classic albums that have been made in hip hop and they’ll tell me what this artist got paid for them like “remember that album done by so and so. Yeah, I know that, he got a $1000 for the masters of that album.”

And I’m looking at it like, man, that’s such a classic record; and that to me I think is the other aspect of being revolutionary. It would be difficult to take me seriously if I didn’t incorporate it into my business. I make $5 to $6 a record. I own my masters. I own my publishing. I own my marketing. At the end of the day, I write, I arrange, I co-produce records at times. I don’t take all this from other people that say can you do this, can you do that. At the end of the day, I have to be the driving force behind all of it -- not only in terms of a business sense, but in terms of other things, too, and I rely on my people to help me become a better leader and you only grow by the pain of self-criticism which is very hard to do because it’s hard to face your faults and it’s hard to face the issues, but I don’t feel the necessity to run from that.

I’m not a boy, I’m a man. A lot of rappers that I meet are real immature. It’s like they’ve had somebody take care of them their whole life. They’ve had the label which has been their surrogate parent. I don’t have that.

AMM: Talk a little bit about some of your projects – Green Lantern.

IT: Green Lantern, that’s a mix tape that’s coming out and after that I’m going to have a record that relates t what we are talking about. A new album called “The Middle Passage” The reason I call it the Middle Passage is very simply because as an underground MC, I can say anything, I can do anything. I don’t need to clear this sample. I don’t need to clear this artist. You want to make a solo, let’s make a solo. Put it out, F--- it. Let’s sample the Beetles. We can do whatever we want to do. I don’t have to pay nobody else to make the music.

Once I become involved in the commercial mainstream, it’s like a transition between freedom and being a slave and what was the Middle Passage? It was a transition between freedom and slavery and it was perpetrated by people who understood. And when you understand and you steal a lot of people, it gives you a devilish nature. I don’t blame a Masonic design for everything, but I will say that since America is founded by Masons, these were people who had intricate knowledge of not only European history but of African history. I mean these were holders of knowledge. These were people who understood about their development of metallurgy in Africa and the development of scientists, all sorts of science there, astronomy that existed in Central and South America . And to try to convince these people that they’re lesser of a human being in order to justify your rule, means that there’s something inherently devilish about the way that you want to set up the world.

AMM: Palestine , the immigration issue. What are some other issues you think are important right now for the hip hop community and others to be aware of?

IT: Well, before I say that, it’s something for me to get involved with things because at the end of the day I have to make the final decisions about everything from what songs go on my album to how the cover art looks, every aspect of it, I have to have the final word. It doesn’t go if I don’t say yes. Therefore, it’s in my control and it’s my desire.

If I lend my support to a specific cause, it has to be something that I look over and that I have a complete understanding of and it’s not just some extracurricular bull----.

I see a lot of that in Black politicians and I see a lot of that in Brown politicians, too. It’s sad because these are the people that you never see when it comes time for us to come together or when it’s something that has to do with police brutality in our neighborhood, when it has to do with gentrification. Only it seems like they’re there for the photo op but they’re not there for anything else.

AMM: You’re Peruvian is that correct?

IT: Yes, I’m Peruvian and my grandfather’s Black and that’s something my mother always told me from when I was growing up because there’s racism in my family. They would be like ‘why are you hanging out with those black kids from Harlem ?’ My mother would be like ‘hold on, if you don’t like that, you can get out of our house. Don’t teach this child the ignorance that you learned yourself.’ That’s why I’m very thankful to my mother for trying to instill that pride in me for telling me, “Don’t ever be ashamed because you’ve got Black blood at all because you have Indigenous blood in you. That makes you what you are. That’s who you are. “

We’re always talking in our school classes that our future and our history started with slavery, that’s where we started. We were in a slave castle in the West Indies somewhere.

AMM: Right, what were we before slavery?

IT: We were before that. And what was the process of slavery? The greatest lie told to our people is that we came quietly. You didn’t beat us in combat. You beat us by lying, by cheating, by using other tribes against us, by using religion and that’s what I tell people. Religion is another factor for me in terms of my consideration of what colonialism is. Because I tell people ‘do you know what was done to Black and Brown people?’ Imagine if somebody really invaded the Middle East, and I don’t mean that bull-sh-- in Iraq .

Imagine if somebody toppled every single nation, I mean from all the way in Pakistan to all the way in Turkey, all those nations Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, every single Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, all those places and convinced those people that the Qur’an was a book of poems and that Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Unto Him) was a lie, he never existed. That’s what was done to our people. Imagine if somebody came to America and they said that Jesus Christ was a myth so they killed him, that’s what was done to our people. I don’t think people understand the scope of that. It’s not just a physical holocaust that we endured, it was a psychological, spiritual holocaust.

AMM: You are dangerous to the enemy for a variety of reasons, first of all, you have a message in your music you have a fan base and you’re bilingual. That’s dangerous to those who fear the spreading of a conscious revolutionary message. Do you feel that?

IT: You know, I kind of want to see how they’re going to do that.

AMM: With the press and things like that?

IT: Not just press but the best way to destroy a movement is to become part of it and corrupt it. Infiltrate it. If you don’t like the guerillas, what are you going to do? You just start bombing civilians and you claim that it’s them. You start killing people and you claim that it’s them. If the government really finds revolutionary hip hop to be a real issue, they’ll just bankroll somebody who has a similar message to mine but is much more in line with their politics. They’ll look more rational than me by their standards by conforming to American society and saying all right, ‘this is what it is.’

AMM: As opposed to taking a conscious message and stripping it like they did in the ‘90s?

IT: They can never fight it.

AMM: That’s what they did when there were conscious rappers such as Brand Nubian and Public Enemy, The Jungle Brothers?

IT: They’ll accept the capitalists, the king of hip hop is always the poster child for capitalism no matter who it is. Me, I don’t think nothing about no damn king of hip hop. You can call yourself whatever you want. That don’t mean you earn my loyalty. To me I’ve always focused the way history repeats itself. Twice, the first time it’s a tragedy and the second time it’s a comedy because it’s funny that mother-------s don’t see it coming around the second time. In every movement, we’ve always been infiltrated and we’ve always had people telling in each other.

There’s a book by Herbert Aptheker called, “American Negro Slave Revolutions,” and it talks about all the slave revolutions that have not just the ones that we’re told about, but it talks about maybe 5,000 other incursions. It talks about several dozen larger ones and it talks about the fact about how they all were betrayed by your house niggers. They’re all betrayed by one person who is afraid of stepping outside of the status quo. It’s always your own people, and the sad thing is we can look at our people and it makes some of us hate some of our people but the truth is they’re being talked to in their ear by the system that promises them something better.

So whether it’s this message, you know what I mean, or whether it’s this one, it don’t matter for them. You’re stopping their paper, you’ve got to go. I’m not stopping their paper yet. I still make money for the distributor. If I find a way to press my own records and distribute my own record and I start a distributing company and a publishing company, then you’ll have my head on a wall somewhere.

AMM: What’s next for you? What are some of your plans?

IT: One of my old friends has been working on a documentary about the inner workings of the business and kind of like my rise from an ex-con as somebody who couldn’t really get a job to someone who had to accept the personal responsibility of doing this. Some people might look at this and see what I’m doing as trying to be self-righteous but it’s really not that. I just want to make myself a better man. There are a lot of things I know I have to change in my life and in all honesty – it’s a process. It’s slow sometimes. I’m not perfect. There are still times when someone comes out their mouth at a show and try to get crazy and they’ve got to get dealt with.

There are several words in my vocabulary that I would like to edit out. I wouldn’t want to say B---- or N----- around my children as a grown man, you know. I think those are things I would like to edit out of my vocabulary and eventually adopt a more mature manner of speaking. Not that I don’t think I have one now but I think there’s always some room for improvement, but it’s just the way I grew up talking. I wasn’t king and then all of a sudden I move to Harlem and I’m a nigger now. Are you crazy? That was the culture.

AMM: What’s the perfect world for Immortal Technique?

IT: The perfect world for me is to find some sort of inner peace. I believe that a man that walks with God can walk anywhere. I think just because I choose to question religion, that doesn’t mean that I’m spitting in God’s face, it’s the opposite.

I’m tired of people spitting in God’s face. I’m tired of seeing these divisions over a different type of Christianity, over a different type of Islam. When you look at Sunni and Shiite, you see that their division comes from who would control the culture of Islam. That isn’t about the sanctity of the religion, that’s about who has the power. are they related to the Prophet or are they not? If they weren’t related to him, there’s no way you would become related to him. You couldn’t become his son all of a sudden if you were already born. It was the same way the Catholic Church did the same thing with its succession of Popes. I as a student of what they have done see it as so disturbing that one of his primary functions was to destroy liberation theology in Latin America, an ideology that promoted that Jesus Christ more on the side of poor people than he would be on the side of rich people, that was Cardinal Ratzinger’s position before he became Pope.

That’s what he was doing. He was busy destroying those documents, destroying the idea that Jesus had more to do with the people that he walked among than individuals that stole his image; that painted him White; that decided to use him to justify everything else.

I would love for him to come back. Everyone always says, when Jesus comes back, bring him back! Because I would love for him to face what is happening and to really have some sort of perspective. In that same respect, I’m sure that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) would be disgusted by what some people use his name to justify.

If I can find some inner peace in exposing some of this truth to people, you know. Hopefully, I will come back the way I want to which is come back to the fight. I think that’s where I’m going to be at peace. It’s strange to say but when I’m combating against these things, I’m focused. It’s like the eye of the storm, everything around me is swirling but I’m like ….. I’ve got to be that way, man. It’s going to be a long year, man. It’s going to be a long year. We’re finishing up the album, we’re finishing up the mixtape and we’re planning to do a tour in Europe . We plan to do a tour in the Middle East and a tour in Africa .

AMM: You’re going to a lot of places.

IT: We have a lot of ground to cover. There’s no room for procrastination.

AMM: Thank you.

IT: Much respect to you.

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