My Writer’s Notebook is covered with pictures that either mean something to me or they’re just things that interest me or describe me. The picture on my notebook that means the most to me is a quote by Immortal Technique. The quote is, “The purpose of life is a life with a purpose; so I’d rather die for a cause than live a life that is worthless.” Immortal Technique is a Peruvian rapper that was born in the third world and moved to New York when he was young. He grew up in gangs and stuff and he now uses the money he makes, from rapping about real world issues ranging from the government to drugs, to give back to the world by doing things like building an orphanage in Afghanistan. I think it’s a very admirable thing to do. It’s like how Dr. Phil gets people and families help and the audience applaudes him and the family for the progress they’ve made. They both do great things to help people and it’s very inspirational to me that a guy like Immortal Technique can change his life and make such a huge positive impact.

When I first heard Immortal Technique, my brother showed me a song by him called “Cause of Death” which is a song mainly about the corruption of the government. I was only about 12 and I didn’t like rap at the time so I didn’t like it. But a few months ago, my friend Matt showed me a song by Immortal Technique that actually had a bigger impact on me than I would’ve expected.

It was just a normal cold winter night. My friends Matt, Alex, Ian, Jake, and I were on Xbox Live all playing different games. Matt had been trying to get me to listen to this one song for a while now, I just hated rap so I didn’t want to. “Dude, you seriously have to listen to this song now, it’s so good.” I was already listening to Expect Us by Gramatik so I told him I would after. I was playing Forza Motorsport 4, a racing game. Zipping past my opponents in a Nissan GTR R34 with an R35 engine-swap, I went from 13th place in the beginning, to 1st in under 16 seconds, leaving them in the dust for the rest of the race. I crossed the finish line just after the song ended. I set my controller down on my bed to my right side and picked up my phone from my left. The cord, covered in a red, green, and yellow carpet-like material rather than the rubber, came out of the top of my phone and connected to my little Bob Marley portable speaker, also sitting on my bed to my left. I clicked the button to unlock my phone’s screen, and clicked on the SoundCloud app which is right on my homescreen. I clicked on the search button at the bottom of the screen. “What’s the song called again?” I asked Matt. “Dance with the Devil, by Immortal Technique”. I began typing. I was thinking to myself, “What is this going to be about? Some type of devil-worshipping music? What could his name mean?” I clicked on the first song that popped up. It opened with a piano playing. Confused about whether or not it was the right one, I asked Matt, “Is this the right song?” He could probably hear it a little through my mic. “Yeah that’s it.” Then a beat came in the background and the rapping began.

Immortal Technique began by telling the story of a young man named William who dreamt of making a living off of drugs. “He never had a father and his mom was a fiend. She put the pipe down, but for every year she was sober her son’s heart simultaneously grew colder.” I was thinking “This wasn’t what I was thinking at all.” I was beginning to feel almost guilty. That I had thought so low of a genre of music I didn’t even understand. All William wanted was respect, so he began selling drugs. “He built a reputation cause he could hustle and steal but got locked once and didn’t hesitate to squeal.” Immortal Technique was telling this story with such great detail and such talent. The way I see rap as a genre in general was beginning to change. How well Immortal Technique was able to tell this story. The hook began and a line that came about halfway through was “Dance forever with the devil on a cold cell block, but that’s what happens when you rape, murder, and sell rock.” I was confused because William hadn’t been doing anything like that. But I wasn’t aware of what was coming in the next verse.
“So Billy started robbing people, anything he could do, to get his respect back in the eyes of his crew.” Billy, or William, was desperate to get back and uphold his reputation. Immortal Technique then used an analogy, “Hit the jackpot and wanted to move up to cocaine. Fulfilling the Scarface fantasy stuck in his brain.” Billy has a dream of having no limits and wants to be respected by everybody, like Scarface. It reminded me of a time when I was little. My brother and his friends and I were ... But, his crew still didn’t respect him like he wanted them to. So, to prove he was truly cold-hearted, his crew suggested raping a girl. “Now he had a choice between going back to his life, or making money with made men, up in the cife. His dreams of cars and ice made him agree.” The hook came back. The line I heard after the first verse now had new meaning. I thought, “It relates to William more now that he’s choosing to commit such a horrific crime. This is really screwed up.”

    I was so intrigued in this song that I had completely blocked out my friends who were on Xbox with me. This long personal silence was broken when Matt asked me, “How you likin’ it?” “Is this a true story? This is messed up. But it’s really good so far.” I replied. He said, “Yeah man I told you. Just keep listening, it get’s crazier” The third verse had been playing for a few seconds. It goes on to tell the story of Billy and his crew driving around on a dark, rainy night at three a.m. when they found a girl walking alone. “And so they quietly got out the car and followed her. Walking through the projects, the darkness swallowed her. They wrapped her shirt around her head and knocked her onto the floor.” Immortal Technique continues the story, describing in detail how they beat and raped this poor woman and Billy’s given another choice. “They told him that she was a witness, for what she’d gone through. And if he killed her, he was guaranteed a spot in the crew.” The verse ends with Billy holding the gun to her. I thought to myself, “Well this just got a lot more serious. And much more captivating. If this is a true story, why would he even be rapping about it? What’s in it for him to tell this story?” It intrigued me so much because of my misconceptions of the genre in general prior to hearing this song. It possessed such an eerie feeling.

    The hook didn’t come again this time. Instead, a small sample from another song was played twice which said “I’m falling and I can’t turn back.” This transition between verses was different and stuck out to me a lot. I asked myself, “Why couldn’t he turn back? What was keeping him from ending her life?” The fourth, and final, verse began. As Billy held the gun, he removed the shirt from her head. “But what he saw made him start to cringe and stutter, cause he was staring into the eyes of his own mother.” This was a big turning point. It was just like a huge plot twist at the end of a movie. “Whaaat?” I said on the mic and then Matt said “I know right?” I was thinking “The title and the hook are a lot more understandable now.” Billy’s bad choices created worse circumstances for him in the future and he did not get what he wanted in the end. The verse continued, “Crying out to the sky cause he was lonely and scared, but only the devil responded cause God wasn’t there. And right then he knew what it was to be empty and cold and so he jumped off the roof and died with no soul.” I took off my chat headset and put it on my bed next to my controller because I was too focused on paying attention to the song to talk to anyone. Immortal Technique then explains how this story is true because he was one of the guys in the crew. Its another huge plot twist. Another one in the same verse. This whole time I had been wondering, “Is this a true story?” Well now that question had been answered. I wasn’t sure whether or not he was telling the truth. But, I thought, “What’s in it for him to lie about it?” He closed the song with a very powerful line that really sums up the song, “So when the devil wants to dance with you, you better say never, because a dance with the devil might last you forever.” I interpreted this as saying that there are consequences for your actions. If you make bad decisions then they will come back to haunt you. The line from the hook, “Dance forever with the devil on a cold cell block. But that’s what happens when you rape murder and sell rock.”, now had an entirely new meaning. Billy, Immortal Technique, and the rest of the guys that were there that night now have to live with the consequences of their actions. But Immortal Technique now sees that he made the wrong choices and now he has made the right choice to make a difference in the world through his music.
I think a lot differently about rap and how big of a difference one person can make. It’s possible to come back from a rough life of bad decision making. I view the world a little differently now as a result of hearing his music in the sense that everyone makes bad choices at some point and you can overcome them. Although Immortal Technique did terrible things in his past, I still admire the change he’s made. I used to hate rap because I thought it was all about bull crap like rapping about getting money, girls, and drugs. But, I love rap now that my friend Matt has showed me that it isn’t all bad, that there are people that rap for good, positive reasons and they’re actually good at it. They have both opened my eyes to a genre of music that I was never able to appreciate and now I can.