Aguablanca’s rap community may speak the “language of the world’s ghettos” but they
want no borrowed images
and labels.
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They treat me as a traitor
when I speak of silence’s defeat
Silence is of gold, but I’ve chosen the beat
A wave, a cyclone, where’s the weather gonna blow?
Whoever sows
the wind reaps
the tempo
MC
Solaar,
French rapper
(1969-)
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In Cali, hip-hop represents
a search for identity among those
who have no voice
 No
sooner did I suggest a spot for taking photos of the 15 rappers and breakdancers
we went to meet in Aguablanca (Colombia) than trouble began. In the cab ride to the
interview, I passed a neighbourhood barbershop with a poster of slain U.S. rapper
Tupac Shakur in the window and some funny haircuts painted on the glass—and thought
of suggesting it as a backdrop.
But on broaching the idea, a guy called “Maligno” got in my face and said, “I ain’t
down with [agreeing to] the bit about the barbers. Some people be sayin’ that the
barbers be down with hip-hop ‘cause they be doin’ the razor cuts [popular among male
rappers], but that ain’t necessarily so.” The complaints continued, once we reached
the shop, as four of the rappers pointed to the name, “New American Power”. Lalo,
the photographer, and I quickly suggested looking for another site.
Walking down a side street, I began explaining that readers in other parts of the
world would like to see where they live. “Yeah, you wanna see how poor we are, right?”
announced Puto, a young man with his hair braided in the dreadlocks of a Rastafarian.
“Here you go,” he said pointing to a shack at the end of a dirt road. “I bet you
wanna take a picture of us in front of that shack, right?”
This went on for an hour. At the end, Lalo, a well-traveled Colombian photographer,
was sweating, and not because of the heat. “These kids are tough to work with,” he
said with understatement.
Demanding
precision
And I began
to realise what hip-hop in Colombia is all about—a search for identity among those
who have no other voice. These kids wanted Lalo’s photos to show exactly who they
were, down to the last detail. They speak the “language of the world’s ghettos”,
as 23-year-old rapper and producer Carlos Andrés Pacheco explained later—but
in their own urban, South American, Colombian version. This can mean including Cali’s
particular salsa cadence in a tune or even rapping about the narcotics trade wreaking
havoc in Colombian society.
In what were once wetlands on the southern edge of Cali (the country’s second city),
Aguablanca is one of Latin America’s largest “invasions”—areas on the outskirts of
cities where people seek refuge from rural violence and poverty. About 400,000 people
of colour from the Pacific coast have settled here over the last few decades, often
finding more violence and poverty in an urban form. Since 1994, the Aguablanca Cultural
Network has been trying to help, for example, by supporting about 25 of the area’s
dozens of rap and breakdance groups.
This support includes practical help like giving the groups a gathering place—a big
help in light of the fact that many of these kids live in single-floor houses with
up to eight siblings crammed into a few rooms, while few institutions open their
doors to bands of teenagers with dreadlocks and baggy jeans. One of the networks’
leaders is Robinson Ruiz, who also belongs to BS, a rap trio with a video—a status
symbol of sorts in Colombia’s rap scene, barely a decade old.
“Throwing
consciousness out there”
Ruiz has called
a meeting to discuss upcoming events, including the first anniversary of a weekly
radio show dedicated partially to rap called “The Zone”. Cali, with four radio stations
now programming rap, leads the nation; Bogotá, the capital, has two.
The 15 rappers and breakers dwelled on the same issue raised by the photos: identity.
They talked about whom to thank at the ceremony and why—meaning who is really part
of the scene and who isn’t. They also talked about money, questioning whether some
groups are paying for airplay on the radio.
A few days later, rapper Carlos Andrés Pacheco highlights another aspect of
the local hip-hop culture. Until recently, Carlos Andrés belonged to the Bogotá
group, Gotas de Rap, or Drops of Rap—one of the few to have two produced CDs and
to have performed in Europe on three tours.
Pacheco told the story of the Colombia Rap Cartel, a “trade group” that he founded
with members of five other groups around the country three years ago to help up-and-coming
rappers get instruments, studio time, and so on. He spoke of “problems” with this
effort, including “different ways of thinking” among members. “Many of the groups
think that when they make a demo tape and play a few concerts, they’re going to get
rich quick,” said Pacheco. “They think they’re going to ride in a Cadillac. They
aren’t conscious of what rap is really about.”
For Pacheco, hip-hop is aimed at “throwing consciousness out there” to the public,
including rapping about the complex relations between Washington and Bogotá
as reflected in the war against drugs. “The way I see it,” said the rapper, “we sell
cocaine, just like the United States sells arms— which also kill people. Both are
part of the economy, and it’s pretty hard for people in the countryside here to survive
on anything else.” Through his lyrics, he tries to highlight positive options for
kids in Colombia’s cities who “always have that door open to gangs, drugs, prison…”
Finally, he admitted that it isn’t easy to raise such topics in a violent country
like Colombia. “You have to be careful about how you get the message across and make
it almost subliminal,” he warned.
For most of the rappers and breakers, there are two kinds of messages worth communicating:
protests or proposals. Maria Eugenia Barquero, whose five-girl group, Impacto Latino,
is one of a growing number in Colombia’s hip-hop scene. “We’re telling other kids
to take up culture, instead of violence and drugs. To feel proud to be Colombian.
This is our proposal,” she said before explaining that some groups focus on protesting
against the state, the rich, or the United States. As for the gangsta image put across
by many U.S. rappers, she and most others view it as a commercial development of
little interest.
Curious about her sense of identity as a person of colour and how this might relate
to her “proposals”, I asked which black Colombians she admired. “My father,” she
said, “for all he’s done to raise us.” When pressed for more names, she asked “Do
they have to be black?” As for “people in general,” she mentioned U.S. female rappers
TLC and Salt n’ Peppa.
As for being a young female rapper in a country where most beer ads are adorned by
buxom blondes in bikinis, Barquero said, “you feel that the other groups and the
public are all saying, ‘can she do it?’ And then we show that we can.”
The braided 18-year-old Barquero sees herself as a potential ambassador of sorts.
In about five years, she hopes to take her hip-hop message of non-violence around
this country mired in civil war. But she hasn’t figured out how to overcome a major
barrier—money.
While discussing hip-hop’s meagre financial rewards, Luis Felipe Jaramillo of Discos
Fuentes recounted two experiences he had recording rap groups in 1998. The company
didn’t agree with the groups’ lyrics “attacking the United States and the Spanish
conquistadors.” So, they released the records under another name: Factory Records.
Political
demands vs. commercial dividends
“We did the
project basically to help the groups,” said Jaramillo. Only 1,000 copies were printed,
but “very few of them sold.” So Discos Fuentes is not embarking on any major rap
adventures for now, aside from one group, Latinos en la casa, or Latins in the House—who
rap about subjects like Juan Pablo Montoya, the young Colombian driver who recently
won the U.S. car race, Indianapolis 500. About 1,500 copies of the album will be
produced. Even Gotas de Rap has never pressed more than 5,000 compact discs.
Orlando Cajamarca, a director who brought theatre to 150,000 of Aguablanca’s kids
over the last 14 years, questions rap’s future in Colombia for cultural reasons rather
than money. He sees rap as part of globalisation, tracing it to cable TV’s arrival
in Colombia over the last decade, explaining that “even the poorest slums here have
television.” He wonders if rap isn’t just a passing fad and says leaders are lacking
in the Colombian hip-hop community.
Patricia Ariza, producer of the group Gotas de Rap, disagrees. Hip-hop is a “valuable
cultural alternative for marginal sectors of this society,” said Ariza, before expressing
faith in its financial future. “The business world always takes a long time to recognise
the underground world, but eventually it does.”
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