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The most exciting thing about Immortal Technique is his growled, gargly delivery of so-far-left-they’re-almost-right rants with a battle-rapper’s bravado and a cyborg’s insistence. You probably don’t always agree, but it’s to his credit that he makes it sound so good. Technique’s third effort (produced by DJ Green Lantern) features some so-so tracks with lackluster beats and unfocused rhymes (lines about racism, terrorism and capitalism assembled randomly), and coherent arguments connecting local problems and global crises over hard beats. So on the brilliant ‘Harlem Renaissance’, he connects his neighborhood’s artistic golden age to its present-day gentrification, and to broader problems in municipal politics and globalization. Later, on the booming ‘Reverse Pimpology’, he dissects music industry branding and pigeonholing: “I’m not a crack rapper/I’m not a backpacker/I’m not a wack rapper moonlighting as a bad actor.” What’s missing here though (what made Revolutionary Vol. 2 amazing) are the few tracks that humanize the outraged and angry cyborg Technique.
