Home : Freestyle 101 : Freestyle 101: Immortal Technique..

Like Chuck D of Public Enemy and Zach De La Rocha of Rage Against The Machine before him, Harlem by way of Peru rapper Immortal Technique represents the truth.

His lyrics tackle such weighty issues as US political policies, strife in South America, social ills around the globe, poverty, genocide, racism, terrorism, religion and other important topics. And he does his homework too, educating listeners on political figures such as philosopher Karl Marx, revolutionary leader Che Guevara, Malcolm X, César Chávez, Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers, Amadou Diallo, and Marcus Garvey.

He is also a co-founder of the Grassroots Artists MovEment, which provides healthcare for underground artists, and created the blog “Police State Chronicles: Excerpts from the Street,” which rallies behind victims of police brutality and abuse of authority. Tech recently kicked off Project Green Light as well, an effort with non–profit human rights organization Omeid International (www.omeid.org) that is building an orphanage/ clinic/school called The Amin Institute in Kabul, Afghanistan for children who have been left without families due to war and disease. He’s even organizing a charity concert to raise the funds and necessary awareness to complete the first phase of this program. So the man not only talks it, he walks it.

He also doesn’t grant many interviews and to our knowledge has yet to step in the booth in front of a camera and spit a freestyle, so G4 was honored when Immortal Technique agreed to step into DaMan Productions in New York and kick a rhyme for us over a sick Lord G beat.

He was out promoting his latest effort, The 3rd World, the follow up to his classic albums Revolutionary Vol. 1 and 2, and the street single “Bin Laden” (the song that accused the Bush administration of destroying the twin towers on 9/11, and inspired remixes with Mos Def, Eminem, Chuck D and KRS-One). The 3rd World (on his own Viper Records) is a neutron bomb of an album laced with incredible reggae-influenced hardcore beats, thought-provoking lyrics, and cameos by like-minded lyricists such as Chino XL, Crooked I, Psycho Realm, Ras Kass and Poison Pen.