Monday, February 27, 2017

Dancing With The Devil Provides an Immortal Hell


First off, if you know Immortal Technique you know he raps about some serious sh*t. I’ve decided to break down one of his most popular songs: Dance With The Devil. In this hit he explains a man's life named William (usually referred to as Billy) and everything he has experienced due to his inconsiderate actions that lead up to his death. Throughout his life William prized machismo (to project a strong sense of manliness around others). He believes this will prove to his “friends” that he can be as tough as them and can commit the same acts they do. One day, they ask him to take lead in a very brutal act. After he finishes, the outcome changes his life forever. Immortal technique has worked on this song for about 3 years. The record is known to have every listener feeling a certain type of way afterwards. This song WILL provide you the chills, just a fair warning. If it doesn't then damn you're tough as hell!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qggxTtnKTMo
(the music video wasn't available through video inserter)


One of my favorite lines in this song is when Immortal describes Billy as a “ feeble-minded young man with infinite potential, the product of a ghetto breed capitalistic mental”. He’s explaining here that many people who want to become a gangster/felon usually have lots of potential and can really make something out of themselves, but don’t see it/choose the thug life instead.


As you can see, Billy believes in the ideology individualism (belief in independent thought or actions) since he creates his own way in life. I believe the start of his rebellion was due to the absence of his father and his mother being so dependent on drugs. He has only seen chaos throughout his young years, and believes he is living to cause more. For a while he was selling marijuana on the streets until he got caught, and ratted out whoever provided for him. This created a reputation and had others not look at him as a real criminal, which was his aspiration. His goal in life was to prove he can commit real felonies, so he really started destroying his reputation by selling harder drugs, robbing people, starting random fights, etc.


By perpetrating these actions he believed he would gain more respect from the local criminals, “but when he tried to step to 'em, n****s showed him no love, they told him any motherf***ing coward can sell drugs”. This was only motivation to Billy, so he requested what would make him a real thug.


They stated he must murder and rape someone in order to create himself a title.


This refers back to the ideology patriarchy (males are believed to hold power, women are looked at as sexual objects), since these men believe raping and murdering a woman is not horrific in any way whatsoever. So what does Billy do? Well of course he goes through with the plan. Billy is now guaranteed a spot in the crew, and this makes him feel more welcomed than he has ever felt before in his life. As he is about to murder the victim, he takes one last look at them and realizes it is the most important person in his life. In this moment, his life is ruined forever. He feels all the remorse in the world, and feels his only way out of the situation is by committing suicide. Immortal causes tension at the end of the song by stating he was part of this whole situation, and to this day he regrets committing such an act.



Chorus:


Everyone trying to be trife never face the consequences
You probably only did a month for minor offenses
Ask a nigga doing life if he had another chance
But then again there's always the wicked that knew in advance
Dance forever with the devil on a cold cell block
But that's what happens when you rape, murder and sell rock
Devils used to be gods, angels that fell from the top
There's no diversity because we're burning in the melting pot

Priscilla Z

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