JAYFORCE

Shout out to HardKnock TV and especially to Immortal Technique for speaking realness! This is just part one, and it was chock full of dopeness! During the talk, Immortal Technique declared that Hip-Hop is like no other art. We demand realness…perhaps a bit too much. Case in point: An actor’s swag is given to him by someone else. A director directs Denzel Washington in delivering lines he did not even write. Yet no one says Denzel is not real. No one asks Al Pacino if he is “holding keys” after seeing him portray a drug dealer in a movie. Folks understand he is playing a role. Unfortunately Hip-Hop culture, being the ‘realest’ art, is less thoughtful. Good or bad, we believe rappers pen every verse they spit and live every word of ‘that life’ they rhyme about. What’s worse: We don’t even want that dirty-grind-drug-selling life described in those kinds of rhymes. We want the plush life that is supposed to come after that…and *news flash* no one gets that life!

Immortal Technique also acknowledged that some things in Hip-Hop are improving. He wants those trends to continue and get even better. Lyricism is on the way back; but Immortal Technique offered that artists need to keep telling different and more compelling stories. Some artists are going the Indie route; freeing themselves economically. He praised that, but admonished that those artists should push themselves and the culture for the better – being more vocal and insistent about being independent, owning their masters, owning their publishing, giving back to their communities, and more carefully picking their sponsors (read: refusing to promote harmful products like energy drinks). What an interview! And this is just part one!