The music changes however when the story takes either an ominous and sinister turn, or when it changes from omniscient narration to an inner monologue of Billy’s thoughts. The story begins with a relaxing, repetitive piano calmly playing as Immortal Technique narrates a dark and terrible life. The largest rhetorical difference between the two stories is the ability of the background music in “Dance with the Devil” to more powerfully emphasize the actions of the main character.
Oedipus stabs his eyes out and eventually dies a slow, lonely death, whereas Billy Jacobs immediately leaps from the building. Upon learning the truth of their actions, both characters die from a self-inflicted act. The end result of “Dance with the Devil” also parallels the story of Oedipus, and is made blatantly so as it is essentially the end of the narration and therefore the story. Both characters achieve their fate by violent means, the only difference in the stories is that Oedipus kills his father, and Billy Jacobs violently rapes and kills his mother. Billy Jacobs’ obsession with the “Scarface Fantasy” (1) and the gangster life-style is the drive that leads to his ultimate destruction. Oedipus’ incessant search to rid the city of Thebes of the plague that he created stems from his belief that his overall superiority can solve any problem he is faced with. Whereas in “Dance with the Devil,” the distance is a gradual slope due to the lack of a father and a drug addicted mother. In the story of Oedipus, this distance is one of complete ignorance. In both stories, the character is estranged with his parents, and seeks means to escape any ties with them. These personality traits dominate the actions of Billy Jacobs in much of the same manner. ” In the story of Oedipus, it is foretold that he will grow up to kill his father and marry his mother and by the end of the myth, it is Oedipus’ stubbornness, violent nature, and over-inflated sense of self-worth that dooms him to his horrible fate. Dance with the Devil” could easily be considered as the 20th Century, Hip-hop version of “Oedipus Rex. Immortal Technique is able to narrate a horrific timeline all the while filling every single verse with injections of commentary ranging from mythological and religious ethics, such as The Seven Deadly Sins and Oedipus, to American cultural values and racial identities. The listener follows “Billy Jacobs” along his gradual descent into corruption from small time drug deals to rape and murder. ” The story is riddled with causality, biblical and spiritual references, and overtones of socio-ethnic observations. Immortal Technique tells the semi-fictional tale of a young man and his self-destructive path in “Dance with the Devil.
0 kommentar(er)
