While much of mainstream hip-hop has been corporatized and commercialized by major corporations, strands of independent hip-hop have attempted to remain separated from the major record labels. Using hermeneutic methods, this article examines the lyrics of independent hip-hop artist Immortal Technique. This article identifies three central themes in Immortal Technique’s lyrics that illustrate how he expresses resistance to class domination. First, he argues that class conflict occurs in hip-hop and thus there needs to be a pull away from major corporations. Second, his lyrics point for the need for independent hip-hop to escape from false consciousness and resist hegemony. Finally, his work indicates that the creation of knowledge through independent hip-hop culture and language present a means to resist class domination.
AdornoTHorkheimerM (1944) Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum.
2.
Akir (2006) Treason. In: Legacy. Harlem: Viper Records.
3.
AldridgeD (2005) From civil rights to hip hop: toward a nexus of ideas. Journal of African American History90(3): 226–252.
4.
AndroutsopoulosJScholzA (2003) Spaghetti funk: appropriations of hip-hop culture and rap music in Europe. Popular Music and Society26(4): 463–479.
5.
AsanteMK (2008) It’s Bigger than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
6.
BalajiM (2010) Vixen resistin’: redefining black womanhood in hip-hop music videos. Journal of Black Studies41(1): 5–20.
7.
BallJ (2009) FreeMix Radio: the original mixtape radio show: a case study in mixtape ‘radio’ and emancipatory journalism. Journal of Black Studies39(4):614–634.
8.
BennettA (1999) Hip hop am Main: the localization of rap music and hip hop culture. Media, Culture & Society21(1): 77–91.
9.
BlairE (1993) Commercialization of the rap music youth subculture. In: FormanMNealMA (eds) That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, pp. 493–504.
10.
Breez Evahflowin (2004) Land of the gun. In: Stronghold Mixtape Volume 2. Harlem: Day by Day Entertainment.
11.
ChangJ (2005) Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of Hip-Hop Generation. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
12.
DimitriadisG (2009) Performing Identity/Performing Culture: Hip Hop as Text, Pedagogy, and Lived Practice. New York: Peter Lang.
13.
DysonME (2010) Know What I Mean: Reflections on Hip-Hop. New York: Basic Civitas.
14.
FreireP (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum International.
15.
Gadamer H-G (1960) Truth and Method. New York: Continuum.
16.
GeorgeN (1998) Hip-Hop America. New York: Viking.
17.
GramsciA (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers.
18.
HarknessG (2012) True school: situational authenticity in Chicago’s hip-hop underground. Cultural Sociology6(3): 283–298
19.
HarrisonAK (2006) Cheaper than a CD. Plus we really mean it: Bay Area underground hip hop tapes as subcultural artifacts. Popular Music25(2): 283–301.
20.
HarrisonAK (2009) Hip-Hop Underground: The Integrity and Ethics of Racial Identification. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
21.
HillML (2009) Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity. New York: Teachers College Press.
22.
Immortal Technique (2001a) Caught in a Hustle. In: Revolutionary Volume 1. Harlem: Viper Records.
23.
Immortal Technique (2001b) Poverty of philosophy. In: Revolutionary Volume 1. Harlem: Viper Records.
Immortal Technique (2003b) Poverty of philosophy. In: Revolutionary Volume 2. Harlem: Viper Records.
26.
Immortal Technique (2003c) Point of no return. In: Revolutionary Volume 2. Harlem: Viper Records.
27.
Immortal Technique (2007) Street hustle. Single release. Harlem: Domingo.
28.
Immortal Technique (2008a) 3rd World. In: The 3rd World. Harlem: Viper Records.
29.
Immortal Technique (2008b) Watch out remix. In: The 3rd World. Harlem: Viper Records.
30.
Immortal Technique (2011) The martyr. In: The Martyr. Harlem: Viper Records.
31.
JohnsonC (2008) Danceable capitalism: hip-hop’s link to corporate space. Journal of Pan African Studies2(4): 80–92.
32.
JonesS (2006) Antonio Gramsci. New York: Routledge.
33.
KelleyR (1994) Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class. New York: Free Press.
34.
KitwanaB (2002) The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African American Culture. New York: Basic Civitas Books.
35.
LinA (2006) Independent hip hop artists in Hong Kong: cultural capitalism, youth subcultural resistance, and alternative modes of cultural production. Mobile and Popular Culture1: 1–18.
36.
Lowkey (2008) Hip-hop ain’t dead. In: The Past, the Present, and the Future. London: So Empire Recordings.
37.
Lowkey and Immortal Technique (2009) Voice of the voiceless. Single release. London: So Empire Recordings.
38.
MaherG-C (2005) Brechtian hip-hop: didactics and self-production in post- gangsta political mixtapes. Journal of Black Studies26(1): 129–160.
39.
MaxwellI (1994) True to the music: authenticity, articulation and authorship in Sydney hip hop culture. Social Semiotics4(1–2): 117–137.
40.
Metro-RolandD (2010) Hip-hop hermeneutics and multicultural education: a theory of cross-cultural understanding. Educational Studies46: 560–578.
41.
Miller-YoungM (2008) Hip-hop honeys and da hustlaz: black sexualities in the new hip-hop pornography: feminism, race, transnational feminism, race, transnationalism. Meridians, suppl. Special Issue 8(1): 261–292.
42.
MitchellT (2000) Doin’ damage in my native language: the use of ‘resistance vernaculars’ in hip hop in France, Italy, and Aotearoa/New England. Popular Music and Society24(3): 41–54.
43.
MyerLKleckC (2007) From independent to corporate: a political economic analysis of rap billboard toppers – popular music and society. Popular Music and Society30(2): 137–148.
44.
OgbarJ (2007) Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
45.
PerryI (2004) Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
46.
PotterR (1995) Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism. Albany: State University of New York Press.
47.
Rockin’ Squat (2009) Démocratie fasciste. In: Confessions d’un enfant du siècleVolume 2. France: EMI.
48.
RoseT (1994) Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. New York: Wesleyan University Press
49.
RoseT (2008) The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop – And Why It Matters. New York: BasicCivitas.
50.
ShustermanR (1992) Challenging conventions in the fine art of rap. In: FormanMNealMA (eds) That’s the Joint! The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. New York: Routledge.
51.
SmallsSP (2011) The rain comes down: Jean Grae and hip hop heternonormativity. American Behavioral Scientist55(1): 86–95.
52.
SolomonT (2005) Living in the underground is tough: authenticity and locality in the hip-hop community in Istanbul, Turkey. Popular Music24(1): 1–20.
53.
StapletonKR (1998) From the margins to mainstream: the political power of hip-hop. Media, Culture & Society20: 219–234.
54.
Tanner-SmithEEWilliamsDTNicholsD (2006) Selling sex to radio program directors: a content analysis ofRadio and Records Magazine. Sex Roles54(9/10):675–686.
55.
TerkourafiM (2010) Languages of Global Hip Hop. London: Continuum.
56.
TicknerA (2008) Aqui en el ghetto: hip-hop in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico. Latin American Politics and Society50(3):121–146.
57.
TrappE (2005) The push and pull of hip-hop: a social movement analysis. American Behavioral Scientist48(11): 1482–1495.
58.
TuckerRC (1978) The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd edn.New York: Norton.
59.
WatkinsC (2005) Hip Hop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle for the Soul of a Movement. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
60.
WestC (2004) Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism. New York: Penguin Press.
61.
WilliamsP (2008) Twenty-first-century Jeremiad: contemporary hip-hop and American tradition. European Journal of American Culture27(2): 111–132.
