Ein längeres Statement von Immortal Technique:
Zitat:
Rock The Bells National Tour & NEW MUSIC !!!!!
I promised new music and here it is...This is one of the songs that is available on the new GIJOE Mixtape on my page, it is one of a few exclusives I have that you can only find on that tape. A sneak peek, but this isn't the snippet version. It's the whole song.
Military Minds feat. Buckshot & Smiff N Wessun
(produced by King Solomon)
Throughout the years these brothers from Bootcamp kept Hardcore Hip Hop at the forefront of the game. We united to create this machine gun style representation what hardcore underground really is. Some of the most professional people I have ever worked with. The honor was mine.
It has been almost 3 and half years since I dropped a record, (all those mixtapes on the Internet besides Vol.1 & Vol.2 are fake compilations, don't pay for them, just burn them off the net.) And yet the tracks I did with Green Lantern, random mixtape appearances and heavy tour schedules sometimes with over 150 shows in a year have kept my name and the message I carry as relevant if not more, than when our people's revolution evolved into this form. Instead the call for me to release more music has grown deafening, the global power of Hip Hop is beginning to slip out of the hands of its Imperial Corporate dominance back into the hands of the pockets of resistance. The uncompromising organic, street sound that gave rise to this billion dollar business that has been exploited for the benefit of everyone with the originators, creators and producers of it getting nothing but scraps. To me I find it almost painfully humorous that this is a parallel example of what the people in developing worlds suffer with the exploitation of their natural resources. I have done years of work raising money for causes that I support in this country in Palestine, in South America and soon in other places such as Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia, and Puerto Rico to begin with... I just hope the small effort I make can inspire others with more resources than me to take up the fight. This coupled with a tour schedule that keeps me on the road has prevented me from completing the much anticipated new album.
Originally I was going to simply release Revolutionary Vol.3 as the next installment. But I stumbled upon a disturbing realization while climbing towards success. The Underground where I was completely free and ran my operations with discipline and vigor, unrestricted and enthusiastically towards a purpose, that was leading me to grow larger than it could contain. It was leading me towards success beyond the regular Hip Hop crowds, into the ghettos of other countries, and the colleges of this nation, beyond just the small venues that only held 100 people. The next step of an artists supposed evolution was towards a world that was being dominated by distributors, unscrupulous lawyers, the opportunist parasites, co-opt marketing, payola, date rape publishing deals, and 20 year contracts. It was literally the transition from ultimate freedom when songs are written without taking into account what's gonna be able to crossover, and collaborations are made based on who you respect and work well with as opposed to slavery where the label picks your songs and throws you together with who they will give clearance for. Then although you are given a loan by the label the expenses are always trumped up and you end up either never making money or barely scraping by and living off your shows and commercial endorsements. There is no consideration for some of liberties that the company take with you and you become less of yourself and more of someone else's 1 dimensional portrayal of your people. Some of these high level execs are really scorned ambiguously heterosexual lovers who throw tantrums like children with each other and treat the artists on their roster like pets and trophies to prance around in public. I decided that while I would have to have a distributor and some marketing that I would not be some porcelain doll in the collection of a grown up baby with no connection to the culture that I have worked so hard to preserve and to present to my brothers and sisters.
Hence the idea of The Middle Passage was born because this land was not stolen in a day. Nor did anyone in ..:Africa fall asleep and wake up a slave. It was a long arduous, painful process. But expressing all this didn't come cheap. I have poured my ideas, passion, misery, struggle, triumph, failures, and vision of the future into the project. But it was so much work, that it soon became apparent that it was going to be over 30 songs. I began to put together so many original songs and I talked to Green Lantern about possibly giving me some more beats and we decided that if we did something together people would be excited about it. However it's not something I can really genuinely call a mixtape anymore, all the beats are originals (most of them from Southpaw and other producers) and so are the song concepts and the lyrics, there is nothing contrived about what we have constructed. It is a project now, a complete one that will either be release with The Middle Passage or before it just so we are both on the same page people.
I take this moment when I am releasing our schedule for the summer at the Rock The Bells Tour and other dates around it to thank you all and also to apologize. I know this movement is what it is because of the soldiers and supporters we have. The people who are independent thinkers and whose political opinion and motivation to understand this world better and to try and find solutions to the problem instead of just making money milking it, deserve most of the credit. These people are not just "Angry niggaz from the hood," or leftist white kids from college, or golden era Hip Hop lovers, cultural purists or disgruntled US Military personnel, these aren't just individuals who "hate cops" or are mad at the system. These are people who are students of history, who have paid dues in their city and in the prison industrial complex, kids who are the new generation that will one day seek to the right to have a say in their own country. These are people who do not blindly follow a religion or political party. They want to and are beginning to understand the system in it's inner workings in order to find a method of changing their lives and putting as much truth that is purposefully kept from us out there.
I wish that I was that Revolutionary when I was young, I wish I had not done so many reckless things as a child but I am reminded that unless I understood that path and ended up locked up and ending up seeing all these crazy things while running the streets that I might not be here in this capacity. I'm from Harlem, NYC and I was born in Peru, a country that redefines the word poverty for the useless celebrity gossip Hip Hop crowd. But that doesn't make me real or tough, being from the hood doesn't necessarily make you hardcore you fuckin' marketing scheme managing cowards. It just means your economic situation is fucked up or that you remain in the struggle for a reason. Neither the hood nor being incarcerated made me a man, I had to be a man before I went through all that in order to succeed and emerge not only still a man in every aspect of my being, but spiritually ascend into a greater responsibility and a mission that I will not accept defeat in, in this life or the next. I never needed anyone's stamp of approval to make the type of music I make and I know what I've been through in life doesn't need a special on MTV or my video on 106 and park to validate. Being in the underground for so long didn't make me bitter or pissed at the game, it made me not want to controlled by it even more so. It wasn't like I couldn't have signed a deal, I turned those down, I chose NOT to go that route, not because I shun the public light but because it would not have allowed me to make the same type of music. And with this music, to buy my farm in Latin America, to support my family, my soldiers and to make a good living for myself speaking truth instead of selling people industry fairytales and watered down pop rap, (which I don't mind in the club because everything has it's place after all ladies and gentlemen).
I had a lot of sponsors turn their back on me because of the politics of what I do. But my work speaks for itself... My past success and failure have both coupled to create the knowledge necessary to complete my mission with more efficiency.
That said I have always put my work before anything and it sometimes was difficult when you become so involved in a project that people start thinking you're too good to do a 16 bar verse for them, or that you can't do a show or put aside your schedule for theirs. It's never something personal. I have a mountain of responsibility that goes far beyond Hip Hop Music to concern myself with. But it's not an excuse, It's just the reality that sacrifice is a part of this world and I have sacrificed many things, some I look back on and wish could have happened differently but I still will not give up no matter what sort of pressure is put on the movement. I make this promise though that from now on I will simply carry more, and when I need help I will never be too proud to ask for it from the people who like me serve a greater purpose in this Global Revolution. The building of a Nation within a Nation is coming, and I honestly don't know if I will be on these type of large tours anymore but this Summer of 2007, it is of course a great venue to see so many thousands of people but my set is early during the day, and I only have about a half hour to rock, but I promise what little time I have, I will make my stand worthy of remembrance.
I present to you. Immortal Technique Rock The Bells & Other dates… 2007
I'm bringing my brother DJ GIJOE whose mixtape I have provided a link for on my page the mixtape is FIRE !!!
Akir's video is on my page please support that. And finally I am bringing the caged animal Diabolic (first national tour) with me as well as Southpaw on the road to make moves before we finish up the last few songs that remain on the new records. We'll have shirts and CD's all day so please come by and politick with us at the short performance big events and come see the full show at the smaller ones if you can.
Der soll statt soviel zu schreiben lieber mal wieder ein Album veröffentlichen...
