Review Summary: You are now in a state of Guerrilla warfare.
Immortal Technique has two major problems. One of them is his endless beef with the 'white man he can't see' running and ruining nations his people occupy for the benefit of big business, which are ideas impossible to say are surely backed by factual knowledge. I wouldn't call this a musical or personality flaw, rather a heated disposition fueled by hate and revolutionary goals which can easily divert much unwanted attention/criticism to you. Nah, Tech's actual
flaw in his music is the repetition. The man's first two albums had the same title, very similar topics were covered in all the lyrics, and his DJ couldn't keep up with the amount of songs Tech wanted and wound up laying down a lot of filler.
Where does
The 3rd World mixtape fall into all of this? Well, despite the fact that Revolutionary Volume 3 sounds like it's going to be another huge dose of gats, dirty Nazis and verses weighing in high on the shock value scale, I think it's going to be different. Sure Immortal Technique will keep up his thuggish lyrical style, but that's just his thing.
The 3rd World introduced me to a second side of Tech. DJ Green Lantern's work puts Tech and company on a whole new level of underground rap. The beats are more than bass and maybe a guitar - Green Lantern does good work by, say, sampling the Star Wars theme and letting Tech flow like a beast over it, or producing throwbacks to softer Immortal Technique tracks on Reverse Pimpology, Mistakes, and the Harlem Renaissance, and even putting Tech on a beat with Diabolic and Ras Kass that sounds southern enough to be an Outkast song. I hear a lot of reckless hate on DJ Green Lantern for his past work and even this, but take it from an IT fan, Lantern deserves nothing but props for his 3rd World efforts. I could picture greats like KRS-One, Nas, and GZA digging these beats.
The 3rd World is longer than your average undergound hip-hop mixtape but that's not to say its not fun to replay. Songs like Reverse Pimpology, Payback, Death March, Mistakes and more are the type of song that just doesn't get old. The lyrics Tech spits are quality verses that cover so many subjects just reading them without even listening to their respective songs inspires thought. He has an intense delivery as usual on this one, but what he's really improved on is his flow. In the past Tech knew his *** and had no problem delivering his ideas, but his flow was tired and outdone by rappers who aren't even in the same ballpark. He is now pushing emotion through his voice, and is classier about his songs - less obnoxious. Now everything isn't about the ideal, it's about the music as a whole. Style is oozing from
The 3rd World. It's refreshing to learn Tech is so exulted about his new music, while talking about everything he still feels strongly about. And this is only a mixtape, so while he's getting excited about what he's doing it does the same for his hardcore fans. That's all he needed to do with this one, the hype for Revolutionary Volume 3 is officially high and isn't coming down anytime soon.
