thaFormula.com - How do you avoid getting caught up in some of the mistakes that groups of the past like Public Enemy, X-Clan, Poor Righteous Teachers etc. might have made as far as being pigeon holed as just political rappers by most people?

Immortal Technique - I talk to a lot of people that have been involved in past struggles and they explained to me a lot of things that they didn't do right. Things that they witnessed among themselves and among peoples relationships with women. Their relationship with money and how that's been the cause of a lot of failures. We can take it back to the fall of Spain to the Europeans because you had Black Muslims and Arab Muslims and their primary disagreements over the interpretation of the Qu'ran, the role of women in their society, where as the African Muslims had a much more puritanical view because they took religion for what it was. They took the religion and read it and were like "look I'm not trying to make money off of this." Your telling me to believe this for real, I'm gonna believe this for real. Kind of the way that Latino people, we take Christianity more seriously and hold it more to our regards then White people in America seem to. We love us some Jesus. We're willing to turn the other cheek. We have turned the other cheek for 500 fucking years. I have never seen America turn the other cheek. So I mean there is so many times when we realize the mistakes that we are making aren't new mistakes, they are old mistakes. That's what I try to look at first. I look at the relationship that we have with our women. I incorporate a lot of sisters. I'm trying to do that a lot more now in the movement with female soldiers and these women are here to work. You know, I'm not trying to fuck you baby, I don't need that. I don't need pussy thrown at me, I need you to get a job done for me. I need to have these things finished. I need you to go here, I need you to go there, I need things done. I have brothers that work with me that understand this code. They understand that it's loyalty above all. You don't tell people what the hell we're doing. I'm not gonna sit here and speak on what operations I have in movement right now unless I've cleared that with my staff or with my Lieutenant and say "alright we'll move on this and move on that and now we're gonna start the P.R. campaign about what exactly were doing." They've got to be a lot more organized. I'm not saying that the past wasn't organized. You can't say that the Black Panthers wasn't organized but there were fringes on the outside of it where it's like you know what, damn if you look at the history of it, you can understand how they were targeted specifically. And now that we have seen that in the past, we can expect that now.

thaFormula.com - Do you feel that for all the time, work and effort you have put into your music and work, that you have gotten back everything you deserve?

Immortal Technique - I try not to even think about that. I try to focus on making the music and you know if it happens in this lifetime fine. If it happens after I pass on, it will serve a new generation of people. They say that there is "Generation X" and then there is the "9/11 Generation." That's what propagandas call it. They call it the "9/11 Generation," but let me tell you something. If you were like a teenager or pre-teen adolescent years before 9/11 was going on, I think you should still not pretend like that's where history starts. It wasn't like America was attacked and then we start from there. No muthafuckas, you owe it to yourself to go back and read through what we were involved with in Latin America during the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Recall what we were involved with in the Middle East ever since World War II. What the Europeans were involved in the Middle East after World War I when they went in there and they shut down all the Islamic schools that debate the theory of Islam which is where the rise of fundamentalism really starts to take place and control government. You owe it to yourself if you're born in this "9/11 Generation" to get it straight because there is gonna be a whole lot of new propaganda out for these kids that are being born, and its well produced propaganda. Songs and background music, talking about this is our nation, we are under attack and justifying racism and it's not even old racism. The white conservatives think that racism can only exist if you wear like a white hood and you are hanging people in front of your door, which is ridiculous. It's a completely different way now.

thaFormula.com - Since you dropped "Revolutionary Vol. 2," how much has your writing changed and improved in your eyes?

Immortal Technique - Well I mean it's been a fucked up time. Recently I had strep throat for the past 6 or 7 months. I got over it a few months ago, but that really tore me up. I had to learn to use 2 sets of my vocal chords to speak. I basically had to learn to breath through my nose while I speak out of my mouth. My flow changed and a lot of things really had to be modified in order for me to evolve. Not just at the level of a rapper but at the level of a human being. It's been a long road man and its not gonna get any easier, its just gonna get harder. It's like school, when you get to out of Junior High and you get to High School then you get to College, the questions don't get simpler, they get harder. Not just the questions in terms of school, but the questions in term of that part of your life. It ain't about who am I gonna take to the prom no more, who cares come on man. It's about what am I gonna do for the rest of my life, who am I gonna marry. It ain't about passing notes like "do you like me?" It's about "will this woman make a good life?" When you're young, you want somebody that is intelligent and beautiful, that sounds like the perfect thing. "Wow she is just gorgeous and she is smart." Alright, but now you are older, you got to find out if she is loyal, honest, is she consistent? What is her goal for the future? All these things is what I've been dealing with since I've been doing all this. I sacrificed a lot of things. When you run an independent label, you are married to your work. I put a lot of things on the back burner for this. I had to give up people I love, I had to give up other ideas I had about what I wanted to do in life and this is what I chose and I don't regret it at all because I feel like it serves someone besides just myself.

thaFormula.com - What's rule number one in your eyes when a person is thinking of coming into this industry as an artist?

Immortal Technique - Learn the business, that's all. If you don't learn the business, there is no point in even being a part of this shit. You are just asking to be a slave.

thaFormula.com - When you are ready to mess with the labels and all that, who should you hire first or who should you have as your right hand man?

Immortal Technique - Someone you trust. Someone who you have known for a while. People can say whatever they want like "ah I want a manager, I want a publicist," this or that. At the end of the day, you need people around you that you can trust. If you don't have that, you don't have anything. They have to be able to the job you are capable of doing for yourself only better, they have to be a lot of things, but above all they have to be loyal.

thaFormula.com - Do you have a manager at the moment Tech?

Immortal Technique - No, I still do things all by myself. But I have like a booking agent and I have a label manager, assistants and you know people that help me with a lot of technical stuff.

thaFormula.com - Why have you made the choice to not have a manager yet?

Immortal Technique - Nowadays I'm realizing that I'm really going to need one, but I'm way to focused right now on finishing this album for me to worry about that. When the time is right I will find someone but I have been very successful on my own and this person would have to be better at managing me than I have been at doing so. They would have to work for me, not have me be THEIR artist, there is only one person in charge over here. And that's me. It's a tall order homie.

thaFormula.com - With the way sales are going downhill, where do you see an artist making his money from in the future?

Immortal Technique - I see a lot of artists who was poppin' in like the 80's or 90's, a lot of these brothers are really working on shows and stuff and they are perfecting their methodology of longevity. Because they say, "alright look at all these other people, look at the Rolling Stones and everybody else. Look at rock acts who haven't put out a record in god knows how many years and they still tour." We in Hip Hop need to show our legends that sort of love and respect. We are learning slowly but surely to say "okay you know what? Let's set up these tours, lets enterprise with other individuals." It's a process but I think muthafuckas are learning. And yet that's just one solution, there is the ringtone shit but if you are serious abut the question asked them it has to be much more than just musical. An artist has to think about his brand and his personal investments he makes with his music money to have any true long lasting success. Making money to many people's astonishment is a small accomplishment in comparison with maintaining wealth and not losing it all.

thaFormula.com - So how is the recording going for the new album "The Middle Passage"?

Immortal Technique - Ah man, it's going man. I'm about halfway done and it's looking real brutal. It's a very, very violent, brutal album, but it's not any less lyrical. It's just a lot more harsh. The conceptual strength is there. I can't really speak on the guests that I have or the producers until I clear everything. But believe me man it's gonna be murder.

thaFormula.com - Are you happy that you have taken your time on this project seeing as how the majors have begun to start crumbling down and the record industry is at a all time low sales wise and creatively?

Immortal Technique - I have been doing this independent shit for a long time. From doing it when I was just selling CD's on the street I have learned from a lot of people and not just from New York. I have learned from people from the West Coast and people from the down South. As much as I pride myself in being a warrior, I'm also a student. I learn from people. People who have more experience then me and I was humble enough to accept that and to know that I don't have all the answers. A lot of people come into this game real arrogant like somebody can't teach them something and those are usually the people that fail or that are owned by somebody else who just feeds them every tiny piece of information that they need to in order to stay alive.

thaFormula.com - So other then your album, do you have any other projects you are working on?

Immortal Technique - I got a project with Green Lantern and then I got the DVD that I'm working on that is like a movie or documentary called "Urban Warfare" where I just go around the world. It's like what I did to come up from rocking the shows back in the day when nobody was there, then you see like 3 to 4 hundred, then we start seeing like "oh damn this brother is in front of 600 or 700 people now." Then it's like "shit we are in front of like 1000 people and then doing like the festivals, going overseas, being at youth detention centers, being at prisons talking to people." It's crazy. It basically details like the past 3 or 4 years of what I have been doing.

thaFormula.com - Have you and Psycho Realm ever talked about doing a album together?

Immortal Technique - We discussed doing lots of songs together, but I don't know about doing a whole project. I got to finish this album and get it out of the way and then I definitely would be open to the idea we recently did a song called "Hollywood Driveby" that is coming soon.

thaFormula.com - It seems like people are starting to talk a lot about this big Latino Hip-Hop scene?

Immortal Technique - Yeah B, but it's more so because it's not really the "Latino Hip-Hop scene". It's just the Hip-Hop scene, but it's just so many of us now that are rolling deep doing it. There is certain areas where the Hip-Hop scene is the Latino Hip-Hop scene. We lived in these areas forever, we're native to the West Coast, we're native to the Southwest, we're native to the South. We are just reclaiming what the fuck is ours. We ain't telling nobody they can't eat, we're telling them "Yo! Acknowledge the fact that we support everything." We supported Hip-Hop all these years, we supported Reggae all these years, god knows that we supported Rock and Roll, Punk Rock, Metal, and all that. We've been the silent partner in music for a long time and now we finally want a chance to speak for ourselves. But not a chance to prostitute our women and believe me I never apologize for being a heterosexual male. I love beautiful women but come on man, we can say something else about them and about ourselves nigga. We have an opportunity now not to just talk about bitches and go over the same repeated topics like "I'm a drug dealer, I'm a killer." Shut up man, so were a lot of people. It's like "alright cool, that's fine, now say something creative about your drug dealing experiences." The crack era is over so unless you are rhyming about methadone or pills or fucking crystal Meth right now, you sound like you're outdated. Like you're listening to your big brother or your uncle talk about how it was back in the day. They shut down the border so I don't know where you are getting your cocaine from because they are not growing it here in America so I really don't understand. It ain't like people don't smoke crack anymore…But you better start talking about designer drugs in your rhymes homie because that's how niggas is really getting paid right now. So that's how it is man. We're coming to reclaim it. We're coming to talk about our hood, our people, our pain and our reality. The people know who is talking about it, who lived it and who is just trying to get paid off of it. They are gonna show their support for each type of person in the way that they do normally. No hatred, it's just the way it is. So just holla at me, Harlem New York, www.viperrecords.com, www.myspace.com/immortaltechnique and viva la revolucion!

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