Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
piece entitled “Hip Hopistas: Keep it Real” which had been published online
for an E-magazine that I was a Contributing Writer for at the time. In the
article, I had expressed the involvement of Latinos in the culture of Hip Hop,
and those that were newly arrived to the country who had somewhat
Hip Hop perspective. I ended up writing my two other article series, pretty
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much leaving this one to remain as a solitary entry. Because of certain texts
that I have had the pleasure to read, I felt it to be timely and necessary to
Over the past six months I recently had the pleasure to purchase and
read several nonfiction texts about Hip Hop culture, and the state of the Hip
books that I had long wanted to purchase at the time that they were initially
published, but didn’t have the funds to go out and support the authors. Some
of these texts are considered seminal works about Hip Hop culture, with a
number of them (in my personal opinion) being very deserving of that title.
One of the first books on Hip Hop Literature that I had received (as a gift)
was Dr. Michael Eric Dyson’s, “Between God and Gangsta Rap”. That was
the beginning of my ‘Hip Hop Library’. Since then, and more recently
speaking, I have been able to get my hands on “Black Noise” by Tricia Rose,
“It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop” by M.K. Asante, Jr., “Hip Hop Decoded” by
Black Dot, and “Stand and Deliver” by Yvonne Bynoe. I was also able to
purchase and read “Hip Hop America” by Nelson George, but wasn’t as
impressed with his work as I was with the other aforementioned texts. Each
work spoke about the origins of Hip Hop, the ‘culture/community’ versus
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the ‘industry’ of Hip Hop, and also the possibility, or impossibility, of Hip
Hop being able to transform itself into a viable political vehicle for social
change. As impressed as I was with these works, among others that I have
Where do Latinos, specifically Afro Latinos, fit into all of this? How does
series about the Afro Latino artists/lyricists that spoke to our issues, and put
them on wax; artists like Immortal Technique, Willie Villainova, Viva Fidel,
Rebel Diaz, The Arsonists, and the Orishas out of Cuba. You also have the
Bomba y Plena from Puerto Rico, Punta from Honduras, Son from Cuba,
and many other music styles that have their roots in our African heritage.
Many of the great Salseros and Merengueros of the past spoke about our
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In my own youth, as I had mentioned briefly in the article subtitled
member of a defunct music group that I had (briefly) formed with some
former friends from my high school years. (We were called ‘New Latin
Swing’; a hybrid group doing a mix of Hip Hop and Latin Freestyle music,
with Latin rhythms mixed in. In my opinion, we should have been the Latin
“Latin Persuasion”. Though neither song made it to wax, the power of what
Control (S.P.I.C.)” one time for one of my boys during my time in the
military, a Boricua brother (my best friend in the service actually), and he
loved it. I had written other material for the group, but unfortunately, none
music artists as I thought they should be, especially not musical trendsetters.
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specifically among Afro Latinos. They weren’t focused on the materialism
that they faced in their home country, the dire poverty that affects their
Apparently, this was also happening around the time of the so-called ‘Latin
Explosion’ here in the United States. As I had stated in the article subtitled
“Reflections of Me”:
You never saw us during the whole explosion, not unless you dug around
Our voices went unheard, and our opinions were left unexpressed. So in that
sense, we had to create our own voices, and find alternate ways for us to be
heard. Inspired by the conscious artists here in the States, our brethren
throughout Latin America decided to lift their voices, and put their thoughts
to wax (or tapes, or CDs, or any other means that were available to them).
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As stated in the texts listed above, Hip Hop can be used as a tool to
considered as the end all and be all. It can be used as a way to help
politicize the youth of our communities, but cannot be seen as the only
answer or the ultimate solution. Our Latino ‘raptivists’ are doing their part
to enlighten our youth to certain issues affecting our communities, much like
radio, we might be able to turn them away from the negativity that they are
must come up with plans and initiatives to combat these issues that are
are doing what they can, but they cannot succeed without the proper support
that’s needed from the community. With our activists, raptivists, and
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acknowledge any parts of their roots, or where they come from. Nor should
they accept the treatment of the system of the status quo, and not stand up