This past weekend i had the honor of rocking
Mexico City in celebration of the release of
Bocafloja's new album
Existo, Preludio Al Piensa. Boca invited me, alongside Toronto / New York-based super-emcee
Eternia, Bay Area crew
Para La Gente, and from Mexico:
Rasheed Allah, Manik B, Soulman and
Charlotte Darat. It was an experience i will never forget... an incredible journey with some amazing artists i feel
so blessed to call family now. These are just a
few of the things i learned while sharing experiences with Bocafloja on how we grew up in the '80s and '90s in different countries: While the symptoms of the diseases that afflict our communities are
very different, the root causes are the same. We also grew up with Hip Hop the same way, remembering breakdancing as some of our first memories, and trying every element of Hip Hop before just sticking to emceeing. (We were never really good at the other elements...
ha!) But some of the differences are that in Mexico, minimum wage is less than 10 dollars
a day. And Bocafloja represents the first generation of Hip Hop in his country. If your not hip... do yourself a favor and check the
Autonomo video... the brand new
Las Estaciones video... and check the music on
his myspace. In addition to just being an incredible emcee, Bocafloja goes above and beyond when it comes to reaching out and building with artists from around the world, in a real way... in promoting other artists who are of like mind... and the hospitality and kindness he showed us when we were in Mexico was just so much! I couldn't believe how many people were so familiar with my music, aaand with
Abyssinian Creole when we were out there. The first night we did a radio show called
Represent on
Radio Alterno. In the interview, the host
Daniel Soto, said something along the lines of "whenever i have a hard day, i pop in your music and start to feel better... please do another Abyssinian Creole record!" I said for him, it might just happen.
On Saturday when we got to the venue (2pm) there was already a line forming around the block. From what i was told before i even got to Mexico,
Foro Alicia is a unique venue in DF, the shows are All Ages and start at 5pm (because everyone rides the Metro, the show needs to end by 10 so people can catch the train home), and if this venue were here, you would say maximum capacity of the club is around 250... but they PACK it, to where there's over 500-600 people in that one room... sweaty, hot, and a walk from the stage to the restroom is gonna be a constant push, shove, and you literally have to swim through people.
This
Quilombo show at Foro Alicia is one i don't think anyone involved will ever forget... because one song into my set, the lights went out on the whole block. I ended up doing the rest of my set either acapella or with
Omar from Para La Gente on the drums, no microphone... rocking it harder then i probably would of with electricity. Even if no one understood my lyrics, it seemed like everyone got my spirit that night. The room was dimly lit by 3 battery operated emergency lights... and after i rocked it, so did the rest of the crew... Until the crowd was chanting "...Boca! ...Boca!" So Boca goes on... and what starts as a little hum underneath his lyrics grows into the entire crowd yelling every lyric of every song he did... it was beautiful. We managed to keep everybody there and entertained for over 2 hours until the lights came back on... Eternia rocked as much of her set as she could before the lights went out again... And the crowd was giving her so much love! Eternia's one of those emcees that make you want to better your performance game, no matter where your at... she just goes
so hard! (If your not hip, you should do yourself another favor and check the
Struggle video featuring
Wordsworth &
Kenn Starr... plus all the music on
her myspace). When the lights came back on Bocafloja rocked what was one of the hypest shows i think i've ever seen... People we're rapping every lyric along with him... crowd-surfing... it was madness. You can catch a glimpse of it in the
video blog Eternia put together... also posted below.
The next day we rocked another show in
Cuarnavaca, about an hour outside of DF. On the way down, we spent the morning in
Tepoztlan, checking out the illest open air market i've ever seen. When we got to the venue in Cuarnavaca for soundcheck... we were informed that there was no electricity on the block, and that a generator was coming in 2 hours.
"Welcome to Mexico!" Still had a lovely day sharing experiences with new found family... The show was great... and freestyling outside with babies, graffiti writers, and having the thunder clap for you? Another one of my favorite memories ever... thank you Hip Hop, for touching every part of the globe. If all that wasn't enough... On the way home i bumped into
Minister Server while i was changing planes at the Atlanta airport. I met Minister Server when he used to travel everywhere with
KRS-One, but the first time i really got to know him was at the
Trinity International Hip Hop Festival in 2007... which was the also the first time Bocafloja, Eternia and myself all shared one stage... he co-hosted that event along with
La Bruja. No coincidences. 2 things Minister Server said to me back then that i still always quote: "You are a perfect, unrepeatable, expression of the Most High" and "H.I.P. H.O.P... it's a Higher Infinite Power Healing Our People." Life has a crazy way of letting you know when your on the right path.
There were so many adventures, memories, gifts exchanged, lessons learned, good food eaten... i can't even begin to write about all of it here. I just want to thank
Bocafloja so much for the experience, the hospitality, and the love... and to every single person i got to build with the last week in Mexico...
Para La Gente,
Solymar,
Leon, Tania & family, every single person that came to the show and showed love...you all helped my spirit more than you could possibly know. And to
Auntie Eternia... Thank you. I call her Auntie Eternia cause she gave me some good advice, treated me like family, and did an amazing job of documenting the whole trip... check out
her blog and
her photo album for more goodness! (Including our visit to
Frida Kahlo's house...
gyeah!) God-willing we'll be back soon... Thank you Mexico.
"Quilombo’s roots are based in political principles and conceptions that direct our actions. It is thus how we position ourselves as persons of the Left committed to social change, who work in an autogenic fashion and believe in the ability of individuals to change the course of history; especially their own history. We work autonomously, with our own resources and abilities within the Mexican hip hop community. We are linked to existing progressive and revolutionary conceptions worldwide concerning hip hop that believe and work with the transformational force of the culture applied to education and social development. We are the heirs and the continuation of the many efforts of the people and movements that have preceded us, but we work in our own manner as not to limit ourselves to legacies. We took the name ‘Quilombo’, which was originally used by communities in resistance during the colonial period on the American continent by fugitive black slaves, indigenous peoples and others who rejected colonialism’s domination, who preferred to live as free people in communal form. Colonization also left us with dilemmas, one of which was the question of hierarchical divisions between people defined by race. For this reason being conscious of this issue, we consider important to affirm and honor our own indigenous and African roots, fighting as proud people of color conscious of our ancestry, educating ourselves to demystify the racist global vision that was taught to us in school, at home and by mass media, which caused us to unequally value human being always in favor of White people. Our form of political participation and intervention is through education and political foundation, expressing ourselves under diverse artistic methods, like workshops, panels, concerts, and academic meetings. We consider ourselves as part of a global resistance formed under the initiatives of many people and organizations with which we form alliances in different places of the world, and under different premises. Our efforts are focused on promoting debate, the formation and proliferation of progressive and revolutionary ideas. We understand ourselves to be just one part of the efforts in search of the peoples’ progress, and that we are not the only ones in the fight, but at the same time we consider fundamental that the people who take part in political change through hip hop have the ideological understanding in the why, and the how, by any other form their argument would not transcend the cliché. Clarity in convictions will strengthen our QUILOMBO." - from myspace.com/quilomboarte
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