Immortal Technique
I'm a business man and I'm a grown man. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to restructure my life, support my family with this music... I don't have time to deal with the repercussions of breaking somebody's jaw or breaking their nose.Collection: Men
People always have these debates about who their favourite rapper is. And I think it's based upon what mood that particular person is in. If someone's favourite rapper is a lyricist then they're focused on rhymes or substance. If someone's favourite rapper is a party rapper, you know, someone who makes music about the clubs... "Oh, he's my favourite rapper". No, his subject matter is your favourite.Collection: Party
This is the ultimate war of ideas. You're trying to get somebody to change their mind about conservatism, because that's exactly what we're fighting out there. We're fighting an insanely fundamentalist mentality that relies on taking certain things absolutely literally, and they're people on both sides of the conflict doing that. Even now, some people still take the Bible literally, and those are the ones wanting to fight a war against Islam.Collection: War
It isn't me making money as much as it is me spending my money in a way that I feel is effective. My methodology is to say I'm not just going to throw money at a problem but rather personally invest myself in it.Collection: Way
We still haven't gotten the message; we still don't see that it's bad. And then we copy everything about their [Roman Empire] structure. I mean Paul Bremer was the proconsul of Iraq. We're still using ancient terminology, we still have Senators and we have an Emperor, almost.Collection: Mean
I think that learning to read between the lines of traditional media is one way to stay informed, and also realizing that eventually you're going to have to cross-reference all sorts of different information coming from different sources.Collection: Thinking
I hope one of my fans has one of your kids shot: and blames it on acid, prozac, and slipknot.Collection: Kids
That as much as we're afraid of New World Order coming and of Canada and America joining together, that if we don't learn the lessons from the past then it doesn't matter what you want to call it: the North American Union or the South American Union, or the European Union, or the African Union... it doesn't matter what you call it as long as the arrangement remains the same.Collection: Past
They [people of Afghanistan] didn't want Al-Qaeda in their country. They didn't appreciate the Taliban taking control. But they really have an incredible amount of dignity. And by that, they are grateful for America's help in ridding them of the Taliban. The average, ordinary person is glad that their daughter can go to school now. There's no public executions, no banning of soccer games. The difference is, they're appreciative, but they don't want any prolonged military presence of the United States there.Collection: Soccer
You can not change the past but you can change the future.Collection: Past
The way music reflects real life, the way that painstakingly, over the years, what I have said is really a metaphor for what's happening to America. It used to be about, or tried to be at the very beginning, about what was right. It has stopped being what was right for America; it started being about what was right for companies that are in control.Collection: Real
We're more Christian than the Pope. And, I mean, that's not our religion. We pray to the Gods of our conquerors... all black and brown people.Collection: Christian
I'll throw ya gang-sign up, and then I'll spit on my hand.Collection: Hands
Changing the course of destiny, so I'm strapped with weaponry cause the government don't give a f-k about protecting me.Collection: Destiny
I spend a lot of time out there. I've got a lot of family that lives in Inglewood and surrounding areas. So I'm right in the hood, every time I go there I go see my peoples. I rep real hard for the people that I see that are the counterparts of what I'm trying to do out here, out there.Collection: Real
If I lend my support to a specific cause, it has to be something that I look over and that I have a complete understanding of and it's not just some extracurricular bullshit.Collection: Bullshit
I try to take people at face value and then beyond, taking them out of face value and out of the category of being Black, Latino, Asian, White, Jewish, Muslim or Christian or Atheist, none of that matters to me.Collection: Christian
I have favourite songs for different things. The diversity of it is the strength.Collection: Song
Doubt that there could ever be...a more wicked MC. 'Cuz AIDS infested child molesters aren't sicker than me.Collection: Children
King Abdullah has died. A divisive figure in the Middle East. The sad irony is that the USA preached democracy in the face of absolute rule.Collection: Kings
I'm baptized by America and covered in leeches.Collection: America
Some artists think every woman is a groupie, and that every dude is a sucker, and I never looked at people like that.Collection: Artist
Pharoahe Monch is a long time supporter of my music and I'm a long time supporter of his music so when we met each other it was almost like a natural occurrence.I met him before a few years earlier and we were just politicking with each other and we had a conversation about possibly doing something but our schedules have always been in conflict.Collection: Years
I put the truth out there, I put the historical facts into Hip Hop to show us how much history repeats itself and that if we truly want to evolve as a human race, we need to stop sticking each other in ridiculous categories.Collection: Race
The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it's not you who changes the system; it's the system that will eventually change you.Collection: Trying
Universal truth is not measured in mass appeal.Collection: Technique
Attempts to extinguish me don't even bother me none. Like retarded kids throwing ice cubes at the sun, a victory against Immortal Technique will never be done.Collection: Kids
Pessimism is an emotion not a philosophy.Collection: Philosophy
I'm not trying to sell pipe dreams to people. I'm not giving them some fake utopia. I'm not telling them it's easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. But you don't fight the fights you can win, you fight the fights that need fighting. That's the most important part.Collection: Dream
Working your whole life wondering where the day went, the subway stays packed like a multicultural slaveship.Collection: Technique
You will learn a lesson repeated through history, that no matter what you think, occupation is not victory!Collection: Thinking
When we look at these types of things it echoes to lessons we haven't learned from the past. We still don't see Rome as a negative thing; we glorify the Roman Empire. It was a fascist state under the control of an incredibly authoritarian militant pre-emptive striking genocidal regime.Collection: Past
I've had lots of discussions with my Muslim brothers and sisters who have said to me, "Christianity is a white man's religion" But I'm like, "how is that possible when Christianity went into Africa before it ever went into central Europe?" Even the first people to become a Christian nation were not Romans, they weren't the Byzantines either, they weren't the Greeks... the first people to claim a Christian empire were the Armenians.Collection: Christian
I just want to be remembered as someone who wanted people to think free and wanted people to be free, whether it's at the end of the day, or at the end of the mortal coil.Collection: Thinking
I see the world for what it is, beyond the white and the black.Collection: White
Traditionally people are on the side of the government all the time.Collection: Government
There was a lot of rebelliousness, without focus, in my younger years. And even when people ask me, "Oh you went to prison and you went to college for a couple years?" I'm like "Yeah, I learned more in prison than I think I ever learned in college." That's the sad truth.Collection: Couple
I think that as much as any leader is marketed we have to learn that unless we inject ourselves specifically and link our revolution to the economic struggle of our people and address those specific issues then we're never really going to have control of what happens.Collection: Struggle
I wasn't always a revolutionary, I used to live life like a criminal even though I was going through high school or college, or the fact that I was smart, had no bearing on that. People can have intelligence all the way but have no direction. Not all criminals are idiots.Collection: Smart
Hip-hop is about the human condition; it's about people's lives.Collection: People
You don't have to either choose to save the world or become a sellout. I say to people, "Listen dude, how can you save the world if you can't even save yourself? Why don't you try to affect one person's life who's in your life, and that would be historic."Collection: People
I'll leave you fulla clips like the moon blockin' the sun.Collection: Moon
Scary rock n' roll bands had all the devilish imagery. But at the same time, it's not because they were devil worshippers, they were saying that society is run by devils. It was human society that created these things, they become the devils. This is what you worship. This money is what you worship. This idea is what you worship.Collection: Running
I think that when you look at history and when you look at these facts that shape nations and shape countries and give us present examples of how we're supposed to live, we find more and more often that we're not paying attention to what's actually happening.Collection: Country
It doesn't matter what race you are. It doesn't matter what religion you are. I always tell people: If you want to be a part of hip-hop, you just need to have a heart. You need to have the courage to tell the truth.Collection: Heart
I would love for [Jesus] to come back because I would love for him to face what is happening and to really have some sort of perspective. In that same respect, I'm sure that Prophet Muhammad would be disgusted by what some people use his name to justify.Collection: Jesus
Unfortunately, as inspiring as people find Barack Obama, change can be interpreted in so many different ways. I think he might do a great deal of good things for social programs here in America and as well, as much as people want to characterize anybody who's a leader and try and sell that, and market it and characterize them in a good way or a bad way, I think it's very telling about the system that we have when we come to the realization that the war is not going to end.Collection: War