Hip Hop and Latin America
Hip Hop resonates in Latin America and the Caribbean because of its legacy of colonialism and slavery. There is a rich oral tradition in the region connected to the stories of Afro-descendants.
Latin America and the Caribbean have the largest concentration of people with African ancestry outside Africa — up to 70 percent of the population in some countries.
The region imported over ten times as many slaves as the United States, keeping them in bondage far longer. Hip Hop in Latin America reminds us how the African cultural contribution is often forgotten or ignored.
Contextualizing Hip Hop
The lyrical content of rap, primarily, provides words, resources, and knowledge for articulating similar but not identical lived problems encountered in different places and times.
The basic common denominator is the shared experience of marginality, understood as racial and ethnic discrimination, poverty, violence, and hardship.
Hip-hop also generates strong variations in local narratives, depending on the specific cultural contexts in which it is inscribed. (Arlene Tickner, “Aquí en el Ghetto,” 130)
The song narrates a story of sadness and despair that characterizes everyday life in Bogota’s poor and violent neighborhood. The characters include a homeless man; a prostitute arrested for drug possession; her small children, who are forced to earn a living cleaning car windshields at stoplights; and an innocent youth unfairly accused of trying to steal an expensive car and then shot down and killed by the corrupt police. (Tickner, 134)
How this song by La Etnia compares to what the film La Playa D.C. depicts?
Civil War and Displacement
.Within the context of the Cold War Latin American left-wing armed struggles a number of insurgent groups emerged in Colombia.
.The Colombian army, unable to stamp out the guerrillas launched a dirty war against their supporters. Thousands were abducted, killed, or jailed by both soldiers and right-wing paramilitary groups on the slightest suspicion that they were sympathetic to the guerrilla.
.In late 1975, drug lords from Cali and Medellín coalesced into competing cartels that battled each other for control of the world’s cocaine market.
.Shooting wars between the drug cartels between the cartels and the government, and between the guerrillas and the cartels. and between the guerrillas and the government led to constant outbreaks of bombings, kidnappings, hijacking, and assassinations, as well as complex and labyrinthine alliances between those responsible. (160)
-Juan González, Harvest of Empire
Peace Agreement
In 2016, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement after three years of negotiations and at least four failed peace talks since 1982.
Central Agreements:
.Land reform and restitution
.Political participation
.Reincorporation of ex-combatants and security guarantees
.Substitutions of illicit crops
. Victims’ reparations and the protections of the civilians
Overall, only 6 % of the goals and objectives set out in the peace accord were accomplished between 2018 and 2019.
How do the macro and micro-histories of violence intersect in La Playa DC?