Tech N9ne, whose real name is Aaron Yates, was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri.
Tech's father wasn't around and his mother and aunt, who brought him up, were both devout Christians (though his stepfather was a Muslim). He grew up singing in the church choir, which he says is a large influence on the "Tech N9ne sound."[1]
Little Tech might as well have been on the path to the preacher's pulpit until he had to live through his mother's struggle with epilepsy and lupus. It was then that he began to question the supremacy of God as he knew it.[2] This began what seems like a frantic search for cosmological answers. Tech plumbed the Christian canon, to the point that he calls himself a "walking Bible."[3] He studied Islam[4] and even traveled to places that were rumored to be haunted in hopes of seeing a ghost as proof of a spiritual world.[5]
It seems the search is ongoing, and Tech keeps the faith–though he's not sure what he's got faith in:
…people call me a devil worshiper and I strongly disagree, I am a true believer in God. I pray every night to man, woman, whoever that are listening…[6]
And he admits that, in terms of Christian morality, he's not the whitest sheep in the flock:
I have a good heart and a lot of soul, but I've adapted to the ways of the world. How can you not pick up some worldly demons?[7]
It all amounts to a sort of an unsatisfied agnosticism.
Tech-y politics
Tech doesn't want to talk politics, and he's happy to tell you that:
I really don't talk about politics. There's three things that I don't talk about [,because ,people] will start fights because of it: politics, whether O.J. did it or not, and is Tupac dead or alive.[8]
But he does care, if it's only enough to want those around him to quit "bickering" about politics. He did a PSA for Rock the Vote, encouraging his fans to get out and vote because people who argue about politics and don't vote just don't have the right.[9]
He could lean toward the Republican ideology because, as a wealthy man, he's complained about how much he has to pay in taxes.[10]
But in his song, "FU Pay Me," the chorus reads:
I'm not doin' it for fun, I'm doin' it for money, honey/That's to get lots of matzah, that's what we after/the presidents to represent me like Obama.[11]
Does that mean Tech thinks Obama satisfactorily represents him? It kind of seems like it to me. What do y'all think?
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