Immortal Technique: South Central, America
Sunday - March 19, 2006
— by Zio
Rallying behind the South Central Farm (SCF), and the 350 families who are fighting to maintain their livelihood, is the game's most revolutionary rapper, Immortal Technique.
Like Tupac's rose that grew from concrete, the 14-acre South Central Farm -- the largest urban farm in the U.S. -- was birthed from the tattered and tagged streets of South Central, Los Angeles.
After the land -- privately owned at the time -- lay dormant and unused, the City seized it by eminent domain with plans to use it for a garbage incinerator. But, after the riots swept through L.A. in '92, the City opted to use the land for community purposes and turned it over to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank. The Foodbank in turn divided the land into approximately 350 plots to be used by low-income, mostly Latino families, as a community garden where they could grow their own means of sustenance.
In 1995, some of the original landowners of the Libaw-Horowitz Investment Company (LHIC) attempted to re-purchase the land from the City in order to build a warehouse. However, their offers were originally rebuked, until 2003, when the LHIC filed a lawsuit and the City's attorney, Rockard Delgadillo, sold the farm in a back-room deal for nearly a third less than its appraised worth. Then, in early 2004, Ralph Horowitz served the SCF with a notice of eviction.
South Central Farm Pics
The eviction notice not only means that this "urban oasis" will be shut down and that the families will lose the land that they have tilled with their hands and hearts for the last thirteen years, but that many of them will lose their only food-source. Not willing to submit, the South Central Farmers have stood their ground with peaceful protests, 24-hour vigils, and have now enlisted the help of Immortal Technique.
In this interview, Immortal Technique takes time out from working on his highly anticipated album, The Middle Passage, to talk bluntly with BallerStatus.net about why the South Central Farm is important, and how you can help.
BallerStatus.net: I live about five miles from the South Central Farm, but had no idea of its existence or political relevance until recently -- and I am politically-minded, my BA is in that subject, I've been involved in many protests -- so, how did you come to know about, or get involved with them?
Immortal Technique: I knew they were there because I keep myself connected to the streets and because they reached out to me and I answered their call. When I receive information, I examine it and determine whether or not I can be of immediate, future or any assistance at all.
Lots of people write me from prison, from other countries and here in America -- not just emails, real letters. It's not fan mail either, because fans like anything that's on the Top 40, they are fair weather; these people are soldiers, supporters. They'll stomp someone that comes too near me trying to front and they don't want any snitches infiltrating this mobilization. They are supporters of the movement that we have been trying to fight against, this cultural genocide our people face here in America. Plus, I have family out in L.A., and I know mad n----s out there who saw this thing developing. And this one lady I know, contacted me asking what I could do to help the situation. So I looked it over, flew out to L.A. on my ticket, went and visited the farm myself and saw it as a green oasis in a fuckin' ghetto. A reminder of the way our people used to live before the new world order that we live in now was created.
BallerStatus.net: What is the sociopolitical relevance of the SCF and the importance to you personally?
Immortal Technique: We don't gotta talk like we're in a college class to describe the situation with the farm and the indigenous people that live there. I'll make it plain and simple for n----s: after the riots out in LA, when the city was shook, there was land given to people that pledged peace. This was land that the city gave to the people to cultivate to turn the hood into something, and now they are going back on their word. They are trying to sell it away to some developer who wants to turn a 13-acre farm that grows fresh produce into a warehouse or a trash-burning factory.
It's the type of sh-- that is going on all over America, in every hood, and in every suburb. We are being gentrified on a national level -- every Black and Latino community. And when we get to the new suburb, we see that most of these communities in Middle America have built prisons that make money for the county and are corporately controlled in anticipation of the new "niggers" and "spics," namely a lot of people that look like me and those who will show up there. This isn't a tangent off into some conspiracy theory about the future of America; it's an example of asking a simple question, "When the government or a private enterprise working with the government gentrifies our land and kicks us off it, where do we all go?" If the families of women and children are kicked off the South Central Farm, they will be homeless, on skid row, living in a tent on the street, or on welfare. I even hear they might wanna try and deport some of them.
BallerStatus.net: Why is it particularly important to Latino and/or low-income families?
Immortal Technique: Before we get to that, I know people will respond to this in their mind with examining the obvious reality of private enterprise and their right to contractual stipulations given to them by the city. I'm sure there are people reading this on some get money sh-- like, "f-- ya'll n----s tryin' to stop my paper," that whole devil, house n---- sh--. After the Civil War, the 14th Amendment gave black people the right to not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
But, corporate lawyers found a way to attach themselves to this, and the Supreme Court of the United States went along. They became able to operate with all the rights of a person/citizen, without any of the legal constraints, responsibility, or liability. Ralph Horowitz and his business partners aren't gonna be living in the street if this doesn't happen, he'll get paid off by the city. Him and his partners that are connected to the city are just greedy and they think that the Latino Community will roll over and just be complacent. The city is counting on people not giving a f--- about anything, including their children's health.
Low-income families and other people in the hood should care because these people, offering healthy food for sale at good prices. They provide the type of diet that we need to not die when we are 40 or 50 years old. I ain't no vegan motherf---er, but the kids need a balance. That little baby you have in your arms is going to die of heart failure before you do, if you keep feeding her/him trash.
BallerStatus.net: What have you done or plan to do to help prevent the people of the SCF from being evicted?
Immortal Technique: I have several contingency plans, but nothing that I'm prepared to discuss openly...safe to say, we are making it known that the farm is New Aztlan and that we will not be evicted from there easily. I will hold a press conference that I invite you, and all other forms of media, to be at the day after my show with Psycho Realm on April 8th in L.A. I will announce the reasons for the Invasion Tour, and for the alignment that I have chosen with the South Central Farmers, and why the editorial in the LA Times was made so unfavorable to the people.
BallerStatus.net: Why should people living outside of the L.A. area care?
Immortal Technique: They should care because the model of colonization is always the same. It is the same division and the same underlying reasons for the action of government. It's never what it claims to be. America doesn't want democracy in the Middle East, how can we honestly say that? Our only allies in the Middle East as America are who? The KING of Jordan, the KING of Saudi Arabia -- notice the trend? The Dictator of Pakistan, he was placed there by a Military Coup and now runs a Military junta to control the nation. By now, you've started lying to yourself about the democratic nature of our allies, but that illusion won't last in your own mind, no matter how hard you try. The only so-called "democracy" that exists in the Middle East is the one whose leaders we have installed to rule.
Similarly, the city doesn't want to "clean up" South Central, they don't give a f--- about the residents. If they did, why are they trying to throw women and children in the street like f---in' dogs and destroy their means of income? They provide a service to the city and in return, we are just supposed to watch them turn their -- and our means of survival -- into a trash burning sh-- hole or a warehouse to keep junk? THIS ISN'T ABOUT JUST L.A., this is happening around America, and around the world.
The word of a government and a corporation are not worth the price of a text message. Of course, there are people with different opinions who see the farm takeover as a case of property rights and that the land must be taken and destroyed and such, but the arm of land developing corporations has reached far enough.
BallerStatus.net: The city originally took the land as eminent domain for its people, but has since turned their backs on them. Also, the mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, promised his support during his campaign, but has not lived up to his word. Do you think the city and the mayor should be held as responsible as a Ralph Horowitz?
Immortal Technique: I am not doing this to slander the mayor or anyone in the city who works hard for the well being of the people they serve. But, there is an obvious mixed agenda on the part of some politicians who know that corporate enterprise run the city and pump the blood into its veins. At the same time, the people are the blood, the organs, and the skeletal structure of the city.
The South Central Farmers have been notified of a written agreement to hold off any eviction on the part of the city, but we are getting reports that Police helicopters have been seen hovering over the farm and dropping ropes, in what is believed to be tests for police to repel down into the farm and remove people by force. How is that encouraging to anyone on either side who is being put into a direct conflict where they are being threatened with brutal physical violence by the people who are claiming to help them and have the best interest of the city in mind? If anyone is killed or injured in any paramilitary action against the South Central Farmers, the blood will be on the hands of the city and on the hands of the developers.
BallerStatus.net: Any closing thoughts?
Immortal Technique: 3500 years ago, people in Egypt worshipped different Gods than we do, although some have similar stories (Osiris and Horus). When we look back upon that time, we see them in a sense as ridiculous and primitive. How could someone pray to the image of a man with a dog's head, or a man with a bird's head, and accept that as God? Or, even think that it would grant his prayers and wishes? But 3,500 years from now, if humanity still exists, then people will look back on this time, they will look at our God, and think how we worshipped a man nailed to a piece of wood. And most pitiful of all, how could we not even listen to the most basic teaching and foundation of all his work: treat others the way you wish to be treated. If we treated America the way it has treated our people, we would be called terrorists, rapists, thieves, murderers. History cannot be wiped away in the sand and forgotten.
The memory of this will live on in the minds of the people that were there and even those that felt like they didn't want to get involved for whatever reason. It will live always, and we will not forget what happens at the farm in South Central.
They call our hoods wastelands, and they call it gangland. They call it everything but what it is, it's OUR LAND. People always complain about the hood and now when people (native and indigenous people), descendants of the people from which the first Latino was created, want to clean it up, they are attacked. If they bulldoze down this farm, then it is safe to say that an act of treason has been committed by the government of the United States of America against the people.
But I'll end with this: people have criticized my words, saying I'm "trying to start a war, why you roll with gang members? This movement is crazy," blah, blah -- F--- you p----. I roll with gang members and I spend time working with the young soldiers because they don't even know who they are and they need help more than some college kid fantasizing about Cuba and Communism. They don't know why they came here from Mexico or El Salvador or Colombia, they don't know about the Death Squads or the US intervention. Why you think they live life like they don't give a f---? I can remember being just like that. Elders schooled me. I am not an elder, I'm 27 years old, but I live this.
F--- rap, n----, we need to involve those people that are out in the streets even more and bring them into this movement that affects them more than anyone. And as for a fuckin' war, I didn't start this war, it was presented to my people in the form of genocide, which began over 500 years ago and dates back even further. It is the oldest war, the true Jihad. A war in which mankind fights for the balance of knowledge and power that can either lead him to grow and achieve, or can create lust and avarice that will only consume him in the end.
I didn't choose to lead an army, and I don't claim to be some Rebel General. I'm the Captain of my own ship and I fight for what I believe in. I'm not trying to do this to be a great man, I'm just being a man. Some of you bitch ass n----s should try that someday.
For more information on how you can help, log onto www.SouthCentralFarmers.com.
For tourdates and info on Immortal Technique, log onto www.ViperRecords.com.
source: ballerstatus.net
Sunday - March 19, 2006
— by Zio
Rallying behind the South Central Farm (SCF), and the 350 families who are fighting to maintain their livelihood, is the game's most revolutionary rapper, Immortal Technique.
Like Tupac's rose that grew from concrete, the 14-acre South Central Farm -- the largest urban farm in the U.S. -- was birthed from the tattered and tagged streets of South Central, Los Angeles.
After the land -- privately owned at the time -- lay dormant and unused, the City seized it by eminent domain with plans to use it for a garbage incinerator. But, after the riots swept through L.A. in '92, the City opted to use the land for community purposes and turned it over to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank. The Foodbank in turn divided the land into approximately 350 plots to be used by low-income, mostly Latino families, as a community garden where they could grow their own means of sustenance.
In 1995, some of the original landowners of the Libaw-Horowitz Investment Company (LHIC) attempted to re-purchase the land from the City in order to build a warehouse. However, their offers were originally rebuked, until 2003, when the LHIC filed a lawsuit and the City's attorney, Rockard Delgadillo, sold the farm in a back-room deal for nearly a third less than its appraised worth. Then, in early 2004, Ralph Horowitz served the SCF with a notice of eviction.
South Central Farm Pics
The eviction notice not only means that this "urban oasis" will be shut down and that the families will lose the land that they have tilled with their hands and hearts for the last thirteen years, but that many of them will lose their only food-source. Not willing to submit, the South Central Farmers have stood their ground with peaceful protests, 24-hour vigils, and have now enlisted the help of Immortal Technique.
In this interview, Immortal Technique takes time out from working on his highly anticipated album, The Middle Passage, to talk bluntly with BallerStatus.net about why the South Central Farm is important, and how you can help.
BallerStatus.net: I live about five miles from the South Central Farm, but had no idea of its existence or political relevance until recently -- and I am politically-minded, my BA is in that subject, I've been involved in many protests -- so, how did you come to know about, or get involved with them?
Immortal Technique: I knew they were there because I keep myself connected to the streets and because they reached out to me and I answered their call. When I receive information, I examine it and determine whether or not I can be of immediate, future or any assistance at all.
Lots of people write me from prison, from other countries and here in America -- not just emails, real letters. It's not fan mail either, because fans like anything that's on the Top 40, they are fair weather; these people are soldiers, supporters. They'll stomp someone that comes too near me trying to front and they don't want any snitches infiltrating this mobilization. They are supporters of the movement that we have been trying to fight against, this cultural genocide our people face here in America. Plus, I have family out in L.A., and I know mad n----s out there who saw this thing developing. And this one lady I know, contacted me asking what I could do to help the situation. So I looked it over, flew out to L.A. on my ticket, went and visited the farm myself and saw it as a green oasis in a fuckin' ghetto. A reminder of the way our people used to live before the new world order that we live in now was created.
BallerStatus.net: What is the sociopolitical relevance of the SCF and the importance to you personally?
Immortal Technique: We don't gotta talk like we're in a college class to describe the situation with the farm and the indigenous people that live there. I'll make it plain and simple for n----s: after the riots out in LA, when the city was shook, there was land given to people that pledged peace. This was land that the city gave to the people to cultivate to turn the hood into something, and now they are going back on their word. They are trying to sell it away to some developer who wants to turn a 13-acre farm that grows fresh produce into a warehouse or a trash-burning factory.
It's the type of sh-- that is going on all over America, in every hood, and in every suburb. We are being gentrified on a national level -- every Black and Latino community. And when we get to the new suburb, we see that most of these communities in Middle America have built prisons that make money for the county and are corporately controlled in anticipation of the new "niggers" and "spics," namely a lot of people that look like me and those who will show up there. This isn't a tangent off into some conspiracy theory about the future of America; it's an example of asking a simple question, "When the government or a private enterprise working with the government gentrifies our land and kicks us off it, where do we all go?" If the families of women and children are kicked off the South Central Farm, they will be homeless, on skid row, living in a tent on the street, or on welfare. I even hear they might wanna try and deport some of them.
BallerStatus.net: Why is it particularly important to Latino and/or low-income families?
Immortal Technique: Before we get to that, I know people will respond to this in their mind with examining the obvious reality of private enterprise and their right to contractual stipulations given to them by the city. I'm sure there are people reading this on some get money sh-- like, "f-- ya'll n----s tryin' to stop my paper," that whole devil, house n---- sh--. After the Civil War, the 14th Amendment gave black people the right to not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
But, corporate lawyers found a way to attach themselves to this, and the Supreme Court of the United States went along. They became able to operate with all the rights of a person/citizen, without any of the legal constraints, responsibility, or liability. Ralph Horowitz and his business partners aren't gonna be living in the street if this doesn't happen, he'll get paid off by the city. Him and his partners that are connected to the city are just greedy and they think that the Latino Community will roll over and just be complacent. The city is counting on people not giving a f--- about anything, including their children's health.
Low-income families and other people in the hood should care because these people, offering healthy food for sale at good prices. They provide the type of diet that we need to not die when we are 40 or 50 years old. I ain't no vegan motherf---er, but the kids need a balance. That little baby you have in your arms is going to die of heart failure before you do, if you keep feeding her/him trash.
BallerStatus.net: What have you done or plan to do to help prevent the people of the SCF from being evicted?
Immortal Technique: I have several contingency plans, but nothing that I'm prepared to discuss openly...safe to say, we are making it known that the farm is New Aztlan and that we will not be evicted from there easily. I will hold a press conference that I invite you, and all other forms of media, to be at the day after my show with Psycho Realm on April 8th in L.A. I will announce the reasons for the Invasion Tour, and for the alignment that I have chosen with the South Central Farmers, and why the editorial in the LA Times was made so unfavorable to the people.
BallerStatus.net: Why should people living outside of the L.A. area care?
Immortal Technique: They should care because the model of colonization is always the same. It is the same division and the same underlying reasons for the action of government. It's never what it claims to be. America doesn't want democracy in the Middle East, how can we honestly say that? Our only allies in the Middle East as America are who? The KING of Jordan, the KING of Saudi Arabia -- notice the trend? The Dictator of Pakistan, he was placed there by a Military Coup and now runs a Military junta to control the nation. By now, you've started lying to yourself about the democratic nature of our allies, but that illusion won't last in your own mind, no matter how hard you try. The only so-called "democracy" that exists in the Middle East is the one whose leaders we have installed to rule.
Similarly, the city doesn't want to "clean up" South Central, they don't give a f--- about the residents. If they did, why are they trying to throw women and children in the street like f---in' dogs and destroy their means of income? They provide a service to the city and in return, we are just supposed to watch them turn their -- and our means of survival -- into a trash burning sh-- hole or a warehouse to keep junk? THIS ISN'T ABOUT JUST L.A., this is happening around America, and around the world.
The word of a government and a corporation are not worth the price of a text message. Of course, there are people with different opinions who see the farm takeover as a case of property rights and that the land must be taken and destroyed and such, but the arm of land developing corporations has reached far enough.
BallerStatus.net: The city originally took the land as eminent domain for its people, but has since turned their backs on them. Also, the mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, promised his support during his campaign, but has not lived up to his word. Do you think the city and the mayor should be held as responsible as a Ralph Horowitz?
Immortal Technique: I am not doing this to slander the mayor or anyone in the city who works hard for the well being of the people they serve. But, there is an obvious mixed agenda on the part of some politicians who know that corporate enterprise run the city and pump the blood into its veins. At the same time, the people are the blood, the organs, and the skeletal structure of the city.
The South Central Farmers have been notified of a written agreement to hold off any eviction on the part of the city, but we are getting reports that Police helicopters have been seen hovering over the farm and dropping ropes, in what is believed to be tests for police to repel down into the farm and remove people by force. How is that encouraging to anyone on either side who is being put into a direct conflict where they are being threatened with brutal physical violence by the people who are claiming to help them and have the best interest of the city in mind? If anyone is killed or injured in any paramilitary action against the South Central Farmers, the blood will be on the hands of the city and on the hands of the developers.
BallerStatus.net: Any closing thoughts?
Immortal Technique: 3500 years ago, people in Egypt worshipped different Gods than we do, although some have similar stories (Osiris and Horus). When we look back upon that time, we see them in a sense as ridiculous and primitive. How could someone pray to the image of a man with a dog's head, or a man with a bird's head, and accept that as God? Or, even think that it would grant his prayers and wishes? But 3,500 years from now, if humanity still exists, then people will look back on this time, they will look at our God, and think how we worshipped a man nailed to a piece of wood. And most pitiful of all, how could we not even listen to the most basic teaching and foundation of all his work: treat others the way you wish to be treated. If we treated America the way it has treated our people, we would be called terrorists, rapists, thieves, murderers. History cannot be wiped away in the sand and forgotten.
The memory of this will live on in the minds of the people that were there and even those that felt like they didn't want to get involved for whatever reason. It will live always, and we will not forget what happens at the farm in South Central.
They call our hoods wastelands, and they call it gangland. They call it everything but what it is, it's OUR LAND. People always complain about the hood and now when people (native and indigenous people), descendants of the people from which the first Latino was created, want to clean it up, they are attacked. If they bulldoze down this farm, then it is safe to say that an act of treason has been committed by the government of the United States of America against the people.
But I'll end with this: people have criticized my words, saying I'm "trying to start a war, why you roll with gang members? This movement is crazy," blah, blah -- F--- you p----. I roll with gang members and I spend time working with the young soldiers because they don't even know who they are and they need help more than some college kid fantasizing about Cuba and Communism. They don't know why they came here from Mexico or El Salvador or Colombia, they don't know about the Death Squads or the US intervention. Why you think they live life like they don't give a f---? I can remember being just like that. Elders schooled me. I am not an elder, I'm 27 years old, but I live this.
F--- rap, n----, we need to involve those people that are out in the streets even more and bring them into this movement that affects them more than anyone. And as for a fuckin' war, I didn't start this war, it was presented to my people in the form of genocide, which began over 500 years ago and dates back even further. It is the oldest war, the true Jihad. A war in which mankind fights for the balance of knowledge and power that can either lead him to grow and achieve, or can create lust and avarice that will only consume him in the end.
I didn't choose to lead an army, and I don't claim to be some Rebel General. I'm the Captain of my own ship and I fight for what I believe in. I'm not trying to do this to be a great man, I'm just being a man. Some of you bitch ass n----s should try that someday.
For more information on how you can help, log onto www.SouthCentralFarmers.com.
For tourdates and info on Immortal Technique, log onto www.ViperRecords.com.
source: ballerstatus.net
If you are interested you can check South Central Farm pics @ http://www.ballerstatus.net/gallery/index.php?gal=3
