Finally some good rap music

It is not often these days to come across really good music. I’m talking here for both the lyrical sense, and the melody. Every now and then I stumble across a really great artist, and it’s usually through an online search, a reference from a friend or even searching through you tube, and never from watching MTV.

A few months ago while sitting with a bunch friends, one guy got up and played “Tell the Truth.” The song caught my attention and when I went home I searched for it on you tube. From there I searched for Immortal Technique and found a bunch of his songs. It took 30 seconds of listening to “The 4th Branch” and I was sold.

Immortal’s words are stunning. I have never heard rap sung with such passion and with such deep lyrics. I have heard lots of rap and most of it amounts to nothing but a pile of crap about sex, booze, and cars. It’s refreshing to hear some real music after being deprived for so long with the nonsense flooding the air waves.

To give you an example of Immortal Technique’s lyrics, check these excerpts from The “4^th Branch.” (Video Embedded)

The voice of racism preaching the gospel is devilish
A fake church called the prophet Muhammad a terrorist
Forgetting God is not a religion, but a spiritual bond
And Jesus is the most quoted prophet in the Qu'ran
They bombed innocent people, tryin' to murder Saddam
When you gave him those chemical weapons to go to war with Iran
This is the information that they hold back from Peter Jennings
Cause Condoleeza Rice is just a new age Sally Hemmings

….

Embedded correspondents don't tell the source of the tension
And they refuse to even mention, European intervention
Or the massacres in Jenin, the innocent screams
U.S. manufactured missles, and M-16's
Weapon contracts and corrupted American dreams
Media censorship, blocking out the video screens
A continent of oil kingdoms, bought for a bargain
Democracy is just a word, when the people are starvin'
The average citizen, made to be, blind to the reason
A desert full of genocide, where the bodies are freezin'
And the world doesn't believe that you fightin' for freedom
Cause you fucked the Middle East, and gave birth to a demon

The 4^th Branch of government is of course another name for the Media. The song ends with a harsh, but well deserved criticism of Fox News.

In “Leaving the Past” you can gain an appreciation for Technique’s metaphors.

Hell is not a place you go, if you not a Christian
it's the failure of your life's greatest ambition
It's a bad decision to blindly follow any religion
I don't see the difference in between the raw and the wrong
Soldiers emptyin' the clips at little kids and they moms

…

I hate it when they tell us how far we came to be
as if our peoples history started with slavery

…

Try to confuse you, makin' it hard to follow this:
capitalism en democracy are not synonymous
You swallow propaganda like a birth control pill
sellin' your soul to the eye on the back of the dollar bill
But that will never be me, cause I am leavin' the past
like an abused wife with the kids, leavin' your ass
Like a drug addict clean and sober, leavin' the stash
unbreakable Technique leavin' the plane crash
I'm out with the black box and I refuse to return

Many of Immortal’s songs are on You Tube, some of them with the Lyrics as well. So if you’re looking for good music to drive to, listen to, and definitely enjoy, I suggest you buy the album from Immortal Technique’s website.