Dancing With the Devil by Immortal Technique
The song “Dancing with the Devil” by Immortal Technique shows the outlook people in the ghetto have on life. It shows how people think that selling drugs or killing and raping people will make them have power and it will improve their ego. Felipe Coronel, a.k.a, Immortal Technique grew up on the rough streets of Harlem, NY. He went from being arrested multiple times to doing underground rapping. Most of his songs were about political issues, poverty, religion, & racism. The song “Dancing with the Devil” exemplifies the theme of poverty and violence in hip hop because Immortal Technique talks about the difficult life of the main subject, Billy Jacobs, and how he grew up to be in gangs and hurt people just to make his life seem better to him.In the song, Immortal technique tells the life story of a kid named Billy Jacobs who lives in the ghetto. Growing up his mother was a crack addict and he became a drug dealer at the young age of 13. As his mom became sober he became a cold person he acted as if he had no soul. He stayed in the drug business because he thought it would lead him down the road of fortune and fame. His only goal in life was to move up to selling cocaine and fulfilling the “Scarface fantasy”. He has been arrested many times and he thinks for him that it makes him look hard and that you shouldn’t mess with him but in reality it just makes him look like a coward because he ratted out other people to get out of jail faster. He really wants to join this gang but they refuse to let him because they feel he isn’t real and he has too much of a heart to kill someone. The people in the gang said that in order for Billy to join their gang he had to rape a girl and kill her. One day Billy and two members of the gang he wishes to join were sitting out on the block and an old woman walks by them. They tell him that if he raped the woman he would be guaranteed a spot in their “crew”. They all followed the woman until their was no one around, they began to attack her and they took her up to a roof of an abandoned building. They proceeded to rape her and break her ribs and jaw until she stopped moving after they were finished one of the guys handed Billy a gun and told him that she was a witness and they would get in trouble if he didn’t kill her. So thinking that she was practically dead anyways Billy took the shirt from over the woman’s face and he was looking into the eyes of his mother. He began too cry out to god but only the devil responded, he was sick of his life after what he has done so he jumped off the building and the gang members killed his mother after he jumped.
The most used poetic device in “Dancing with the Devil” is imagery. Immortal Technique states in stanza 3, he talks about the things Billy Jacobs thought he had to do to earn respect from the gang he wanted to join. For example on lines 1 and 2 it says “so Billy started robbing ******, anything he could do to get the respect back, in the eyes of his crew”. This is also an example of rhyme. The last stanza is an example of satire. Immortal Technique say
“they say death take you to a better place but I doubt it after that they killed his mother, and never spoke about it and listen cause the story that I'm telling is true cuz I was there with Billy Jacobs and I raped his mom too and now the devil follows me everywhere that I go in fact I'm sure he's standing among one of you at my shows and every street cipher listening to little thugs flow he could be standing right next to you, and you wouldn't know the devil grows inside the hearts of the selfish and wicked white, brown, yellow and black colored is not restricted you have a self destructive destiny when your inflicted and you'll be one of gods children and fell from the top there's no diversity because we're burning in the melting pot so when the devil wants to dance with you, you better say never because the dance with the devil might last you forever”
This teaches young listeners not to do bad things like get involved with gangs and sell drugs. This also gives listeners a sense of imagery. In this song there are uses of figurative language also. In the last stanza, line 25 it says “There’s no diversity because we’re burning in the melting pot” he doesn’t literally mean we are burning he uses that line to say that with the ways society is going all of us are considered to be evil in some way. On line 22 the artist says “the devil grows inside the hearts of the selfish and wicked” he doesn’t mean that the devil is growing inside them he means that evil is taking over many people today. Another use of figurative language is in stanza 1, line 7 it says “she put the pipe down and for every year she was sober her sons heart simultaneously grew colder” his heart doesn’t really get colder, this means that he loses respect for his own mother and acts like he has no soul. There is use of repetition in the song also, Immortal technique repeats the lines “dancing with the devil” and “There’s no diversity because we’re burning in the melting pot.”
The song “Dancing with the Devil” by Immortal Technique shows the outlook people in the ghetto have on life. It shows how people think that selling drugs or killing and raping people will make them have power and it will improve their ego. Felipe Coronel, a.k.a, Immortal Technique grew up on the rough streets of Harlem, NY. He went from being arrested multiple times to doing underground rapping. Most of his songs were about political issues, poverty, religion, & racism. The song “Dancing with the Devil” exemplifies the theme of poverty and violence in hip hop because Immortal Technique talks about the difficult life of the main subject, Billy Jacobs, and how he grew up to be in gangs and hurt people just to make his life seem better to him.In the song, Immortal technique tells the life story of a kid named Billy Jacobs who lives in the ghetto. Growing up his mother was a crack addict and he became a drug dealer at the young age of 13. As his mom became sober he became a cold person he acted as if he had no soul. He stayed in the drug business because he thought it would lead him down the road of fortune and fame. His only goal in life was to move up to selling cocaine and fulfilling the “Scarface fantasy”. He has been arrested many times and he thinks for him that it makes him look hard and that you shouldn’t mess with him but in reality it just makes him look like a coward because he ratted out other people to get out of jail faster. He really wants to join this gang but they refuse to let him because they feel he isn’t real and he has too much of a heart to kill someone. The people in the gang said that in order for Billy to join their gang he had to rape a girl and kill her. One day Billy and two members of the gang he wishes to join were sitting out on the block and an old woman walks by them. They tell him that if he raped the woman he would be guaranteed a spot in their “crew”. They all followed the woman until their was no one around, they began to attack her and they took her up to a roof of an abandoned building. They proceeded to rape her and break her ribs and jaw until she stopped moving after they were finished one of the guys handed Billy a gun and told him that she was a witness and they would get in trouble if he didn’t kill her. So thinking that she was practically dead anyways Billy took the shirt from over the woman’s face and he was looking into the eyes of his mother. He began too cry out to god but only the devil responded, he was sick of his life after what he has done so he jumped off the building and the gang members killed his mother after he jumped.
The most used poetic device in “Dancing with the Devil” is imagery. Immortal Technique states in stanza 3, he talks about the things Billy Jacobs thought he had to do to earn respect from the gang he wanted to join. For example on lines 1 and 2 it says “so Billy started robbing ******, anything he could do to get the respect back, in the eyes of his crew”. This is also an example of rhyme. The last stanza is an example of satire. Immortal Technique say
“they say death take you to a better place but I doubt it after that they killed his mother, and never spoke about it and listen cause the story that I'm telling is true cuz I was there with Billy Jacobs and I raped his mom too and now the devil follows me everywhere that I go in fact I'm sure he's standing among one of you at my shows and every street cipher listening to little thugs flow he could be standing right next to you, and you wouldn't know the devil grows inside the hearts of the selfish and wicked white, brown, yellow and black colored is not restricted you have a self destructive destiny when your inflicted and you'll be one of gods children and fell from the top there's no diversity because we're burning in the melting pot so when the devil wants to dance with you, you better say never because the dance with the devil might last you forever”
This teaches young listeners not to do bad things like get involved with gangs and sell drugs. This also gives listeners a sense of imagery. In this song there are uses of figurative language also. In the last stanza, line 25 it says “There’s no diversity because we’re burning in the melting pot” he doesn’t literally mean we are burning he uses that line to say that with the ways society is going all of us are considered to be evil in some way. On line 22 the artist says “the devil grows inside the hearts of the selfish and wicked” he doesn’t mean that the devil is growing inside them he means that evil is taking over many people today. Another use of figurative language is in stanza 1, line 7 it says “she put the pipe down and for every year she was sober her sons heart simultaneously grew colder” his heart doesn’t really get colder, this means that he loses respect for his own mother and acts like he has no soul. There is use of repetition in the song also, Immortal technique repeats the lines “dancing with the devil” and “There’s no diversity because we’re burning in the melting pot.”
In conclusion, the song “Dancing with the Devil” by Immortal Technique fits the theme of poverty and violence in hip hop. It fits this theme because of the subjects the artist talks about like gang violence, drug dealing, and violence in the ghetto. The song also talks a lot about religion and evil in the world.
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