Immortal Technique

:. e-mail this article :. print this article :. comment on this article

Don't think of an elephant.

Who could have guessed that this seemingly nonsensical phrase would become the driving force behind the Democratic Party's attempts at reinventing itself in the wake of a disastrous election? But here we are, in the midst of a controversial war, with drugs and violence still rampant in these United States, and we're doing our damnedest not to visualize a pachyderm. The inspiration behind this trend is George Lakoff, author, thinker, and, for now, advisor to prominent leaders of perhaps the world's most confused political conglomerate. His plan? The DNP doesn't have to change its ideology, as many have suggested, but must instead "frame" its messages in a way that will convince the American public that they in fact do support a more liberal agenda. It's all about words and the way you use them, creating images and emotions in your audience through simple manipulation of key phrases.

Any of this sound familiar? It should, because hip-hop artists have been attempting to do this for years. Politics and hip-hop go hand in hand, and it doesn't stop at choosing sides in the Biggy-2Pac feud. Through shuddering beats and twisted cadences, many MCs have thrived by spitting out controversial material in a manner pleasing to the ear. From Grandmaster Flash to Outkast, hip-hop has tackled the issues of the urban black community in often innocuous ways, so that the listener can do nothing but nod his head to the beat.

Of all the kids, from the 1980s to today, mouthing the words to "The Message," how many really consider the song's social significance? "Broken glass, everywhere/People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care". The opening couplet screams of a culture of poverty the likes of which many of today's hip-hop listeners cannot comprehend. Flash goes on to paint a picture of his upbringing in the ghetto, and his words endure today because he framed them within an infectious beat and let the shards fall where they may. He left the decision up to the audience about how to respond to these problems.

Compare this method to that of many so-called "political" hip-hop artists, such as Public Enemy, N.W.A., and, more recently, MCs like Mr. Lif and Immortal Technique. Instead of attempting to obscure the hard-hitting issues in their songs, these artists do things the hard way, beating the audience over the head with uncomfortable images and theories. Calling attention to the many social injustices in this country, their songs discuss enemies both concrete and intangible, and work off the premise of giving the downtrodden a voice. Whether it is N.W.A. shouting "Fuck the Police" or Chuck D. urging us to "Fight the powers that be", this "frame" consists of always having someone (or something) to blame.

I could never really get into Public Enemy, or any of its contemporaries or followers. I understand why they have been so powerful, and how much of an impact they've had on so many young people struggling to make sense of the world. And I can appreciate that their full capacity is only just now being realized as evidenced by campaigns such as "Vote or Die". The youth (and corporations) of America are learning that using entertainment to get people involved in the political process might not be such a bad idea. But while I appreciate the intent behind the music, I have problems with its delivery. These artists tend to take issues critical to their experience with the world and paint them in broad strokes. For me, this reduces their power, and causes me to view their messages skeptically, colored as they are by anger and distrust. Now, there is a population, and a substantial one, that relates to these messages and the way they are presented. And that is, in a sense, who this music is made for. I can't help but think, though, that as hip-hop continues to grow as a cultural phenomenon and expands its scope beyond the inner-city audience, those artists who offer their apocalyptic visions by way of overstatement and caricature will likely find their voices falling a bit flat.

It's no surprise that I didn't like Public Enemy, really; as a white, upper-class suburban kid, I was a part of the problem Chuck D. et al sought to resolve. But it doesn't end there; the disconnect is not simply one of social class, but also one of experience in the political world (though the two are not mutually exclusive). Unlike much of the intended audience of such rappers, I was raised in an atmosphere where discussion of political ideas was encouraged, and it was expected that I would grow up to vote and possibly play an active role in local and community politics. My mother was in the PTA, my father worked in civil liberties law. By the time I was old enough to vote, I had learned to expect carefully reasoned debate and rehearsed, if mixed, messages from my politicians. These were the experiences I knew, and which aided my development as an observer of, and infrequent participant in, politics. I say this not to seem superior (as I have a lot to learn), but simply to draw attention to the distinction between my cultural background and the culture from which hip-hop music stems. Certainly there is a rich heritage of political action within the urban black community, but it is often of a different tenor than my own experience.

The urban black population has a history of being marginalized: its concerns are often not represented by the politicians we elect. After years of such treatment, a feeling of hopelessness and anger undoubtedly festers, and arguments for action, however simplistic, might be the only logical way out. What seems like simple fear-mongering to me might actually resonate with the rappers' desired audience. I was not taught to mobilize in such a way. The frame doesn't work for me, and it doesn't work for most of my peers. This doesn't mean we can't enjoy the music, it just doesn't carry the intended impact. For instance, when Immortal Technique, the closest this generation of hip-hop has come to Chuck D., offers his theories on the connection between Colombian drug dealers and the September 11th terrorist attacks, holding the White House to blame, I listen more with amusement than inspiration. I just don't fully buy his ideas; you can only hear the world is ending so many times before you stop believing it.

The question then becomes, what is it that my peers, the young white upper class, deem valuable and relevant? What moves us to action, and why? It would seem that complexity is paramount. We have been taught, from a very young age, that the most important things are those which we cannot fully comprehend at first glance. How else to explain a fascination with so-called "classic" art; we take pains to decipher the hidden meaning behind those lyrics, paintings, and literature held up as canonical in our world. For instance, Bob Dylan is often hailed in this circle as the be-all and end-all of political discourse in music, his anthems dense with deconstructed images, backhanded comments, and intense allegory. We love Dylan as much for his complexity as for his ability to capture the emotions of the moment. Similarly, we fawn over such difficult works as James Joyce's Ulysses, equating them with genius even if, or perhaps because, we are unable to actually plow through them. Our elite education has taught us to adore that which withholds its beauty, only offering it to the audience in elliptical fragments, laced with irony and symbolism. No wonder, then, that we might perceive hip-hop's political messages as overly simplistic.

Hip-hop is, at its core, very personal music. Take away all of the frills, and what you have is a man and a microphone. As such, the messages transmitted are, more than in most other music, left hanging more nakedly in the air; wordplay can only accomplish so much. Chuck D.'s statements were intended to be rough and raw, with little room left for misinterpretation. He challenged the listener to do something, to react. Subtlety and pretense were not concepts he chose to embrace. Difficult, then, for a white upper-class audience to consider his words with anything but a polite smile, and, undoubtedly, some fear. This was completely different from anything we had been taught; even our most forceful politicians were skilled in double-speak and elaborate explanation, their rhetoric composed of words we often struggled to understand. By placing politics on a more accessible level, artists like Public Enemy succeeded in speaking to those from similar backgrounds, those who may have grown up with street-corner politicians and evidence of suffering at every turn. But for those of us accustomed to politics and art taking a little more effort to interpret and decipher, political hip hop can seem a little sophomoric.

This need for complexity may explain the meteoric rise of hip-hop collectives such as Oakland's Anticon and New York's Definitive Jux. These conglomerates focus on creating vast soundscapes full of distorted beats, obscure references, and ten dollar words. Their leaders, Sole and El-P, have been characterized as modern-day Dylans and Kerouacs: hip-hop poets for the new millennium. Their mostly white audience revels in the insularity of their songs, struggling to decipher what they might mean, and thinking that the nuggets of truth they do find are all the more meaningful because of the search. This mode of transmission, in which messages are confusing and the artist is unwilling to elaborate, is what many of us relate to as it convinces us of the legitimacy of their ideas. Of course, this style of hip-hop is often dismissed out of hand by urban, black fans, who feel it is nothing more than being weird for the sake of being weird.

While it is unlikely that many of the brashest political rappers will begin to emulate the avant-garde, some have succeeded in securing a large white audience sympathetic to their ideas, while still advocating involvement with difficult social issues. They have done this by creating a kind of middle ground where ideas and high art blend smoothly. Picking up where Grandmaster Flash left off, these artists are able to disguise their messages within catchy beats and poetic lyrics, creating a more welcoming frame. Such so-called "conscious" rappers, a group which includes the likes of Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Blackalicious, and Common, use politics as it relates to their everyday experiences, instead of presenting threatening information and conspiracy theories as a world-ending truth. Instead of aiming their harangues at a cold world they are already suspicious of, and asking listeners to take their suspicions as fact, their music stems from the belief that all art is political, and that you don't have to resort to paranoid images to attract attention.

Perhaps these artists have been more successful among white, upper-class fans because their ideas hit home, they play upon the same sympathies that we have grown up caring about; the issue becomes more real to us. Ranting about an "evil government," as Public Enemy loved to do, ends up being just as abstract, and causes as much overreaction, as Reagan evoking the "Evil Empire" or President Bush evoking the "axis of evil". However, reasoned arguments that make bureaucratic corruption concrete in ways that don't involve bombs and dying Iraqi children have the chance of making a more lasting impact.

Of course, there is still a frame here, albeit a different one, and it limits the impact of "conscious" rappers as well. Some fans, upon hearing the name of Talib Kweli, will immediately think that they will be preached to about some societal problem, and will shut down. Interestingly, those same people might be devoted fans of Nas, whose songs include any number of discussions of eradicating the ghetto, yet he has mostly escaped the "conscious" tag. The very term "conscious" assumes that other rappers have no opinion on matters of social standing, when in fact, were their songs to be examined, the truth would be quite to the contrary. Perhaps this assumption is reflective of a larger problem of prejudice regarding black, urban hip-hop culture and its capacity for political discourse. Or maybe it just means that people like to keep their music and their politics separate. As it stands, artists probably have their best chance of influencing a large audience if they engage in some subtle trickery to get their messages across, and they have to decide whether that is in their best interests or not. This is something that Public Enemy, N.W.A., and similarly charged artists might view as too big a compromise, but the best politicians know how to adapt to their audience.