Close to the Edge

  “In ninety-seven, when I came back to Venezuela,” Trece continued, “people didn’t even know the word DJ or hip hop. I was the only DJ in this era. So through the radio I decided to make my own network. The movement of hip hop began to grow and evolve and awaken the barrios. I was a catalyst. I acted as a jump-start for the movement to begin. That is, I’m the one responsible for hip hop in Venezuela. Y al mismo tiempo he said, slipping back into Spanglish, “I found in hip hop the right brush for my art. It wasn’t oil painting or sculpture making or photography. It was hip hop.”

  I could now see the reason for Duque’s earlier evasiveness about Trece. It was not just that Trece was egotistical, but his account of hip hop’s development in Venezuela seemed typical of many origin narratives of global hip hop, in that it excluded the people who had been part of the first waves of hip hop culture, who had participated as b-boys and rappers from the very beginning. It was another way of making people like Duque and Budu invisible, and of giving all credit to the people who brokered hip hop’s entrance into the mainstream. But, while hip hop was a personal project for Juan Carlos, or an artistic medium for Trece, for the rappers in the barrios the music was much more than that—it was what they lived.

  “If hip hop started as a black and Latino movement,” continued Trece—at least he acknowledged that much (for all of his professed education, Trece seemed remarkably ignorant of the African American history and culture that gave rise to his “paintbrush”)—”now it’s amazing that there are no limitations, and that is my first line, no limitations. And there are people who can prove that. You see it with Eminem and DJ Shadow, for example, one of the biggest beat-making scientists there is. And he is a white kid from the suburbs. And Elvis Presley, for instance, how he translated black music. Eminem is like an Elvis Presley. No limitations and anything is possible, anything goes. If you want to rap about bling bling, that’s cool. If you want to rap about politics, that’s cool. If you want to rap about sex, that’s cool. It doesn’t bother me.”

  The song Trece was playing was coming to an end, and he reached for another CD—Vagos y Maleantes’ Papidandeando. He positioned the CD to a track he had produced, “Historia nuestra” (Our history), and he hit play. Suddenly, the room vibrated with the brassy tones of a buoyant salsa beat. Then Budu’s voice rapping:

  From a kid, I was raised in the barrio, or in other words, hell

  Where nobody is immortal

  Get comfortable and listen to the biography of these two guys

  …

  My mama works hard without rest

  My father abandoned me when I was a kid

  I don’t care ‘cause I don’t need him

  At seventeen, I got sick for money, and I started to deal drugs

  A different environment, other life

  Now people see me like a real delinquent…

  The problems were abundant in my nuclear family

  They dreamed of me being an engineer, and I dreamed of being a criminal

  There was something jarring about Trece’s upbeat salsa music and Budu’s dark lyrics. They didn’t seem to fit together. I thought back to all the other producers I knew—Pablo, Munkimuk, Khaled, DJ Presyce—all people who came from the same marginal communities as the rappers they produced, and whose beats allowed the lyrics to speak in all their pain and poetry. But in Venezuelan hip hop, where commerce and privilege met the harsh realities of the streets, the dissonance of the music was itself an expression of the unbridgeable divide that existed out there in the city.

  The central district of Caracas was covered in a haze of black smoke. On the Avenida Baralt a vehicle of the Metropolitana was going up in bright orange flames, its molten core giving way to gray and black plumes of smoke that filled the atmosphere and choked our lungs. All the way down the street and in side alleys, people burned motorcycles belonging to the Metropolitana. They set fire to advertisements for Polar beer—a company owned by the billionaire Gustavo Cisneros, who had helped to finance the 2002 coup against Chavez. Bystanders watched, some chanted slogans, and the police looked on from the distant fringes, afraid or unwilling to intervene.

  The palpable anger arose from an announcement that day, June 3, by the National Electoral Council (CNE) that the opposition had gathered the 2.4 million signatures needed to trigger a referendum on whether to recall Chávez from power. The referendum was scheduled for August 15. But just a few months earlier the CNE had ruled that one-third of the signatures presented by the opposition were not valid. The CNE had made the lists public and gave the opposition five days in May to validate the signatures. Barrio folks who supported Chávez were appalled to find that the opposition had fraudulently used their names or had used the names of their long-dead parent or uncle. Yet despite efforts of people to purge these names, the CNE ruled that the opposition had gathered sufficient signatures and the referendum would go ahead. It was a slap in the face for an underclass that had been swindled by powerful groups one time too many. As I stood watching the streets go up in flames, I received a text message from Johnny: “Camarada, nos jodieron” (Comrade, they screwed us).

  During June and July barrio folks accepted the hard reality that the recall referendum would go ahead. They set about organizing a “Vote NO” campaign in the streets and in the barrios that would ensure a massive turnout of Chávez supporters to vote against recall. The shantytowns were the site of fervent preparations as residents set up voter registration centers, organized colorful marches and parades, and went door to door to enlist support. The cultural establishment—now nominally Chavista—also joined in the efforts. On August 6 the cultural establishment organized a rap concert in the Poliedro stadium, billed as the First International Festival of Youth Music. The slogan was “Say NO to Drugs”—a thinly veiled attempt to incorporate the Chavista referendum slogan.

  I arrived at the Poliedro with Duque, Yajaira, and Mike Walsh from Chicago—who was now my husband and was visiting me in Caracas. The three-thousand-capacity stadium was almost filled. The audience was mostly young people from the barrios—brown and black skinned, clad in hip hop gear. Outside there were vendors selling cans of beer. The alcohol fueled a heady mixture of masculine aggression and youthful energy as the young men jostled one another in the vast open floor space in front of the stage that was known as the parte baja. We took our seats in the rear mezzanine, overlooking the scene.

  An hour passed with no signs of any bands coming onto the stage. Young people in the parte baja were starting to get drunk. Periodically, they would propel half-empty beer cans across the room. From the upper levels it was a spectacle to see hundreds of beer cans rocketing around the parte baja, the yeasty odor of spilled beer combining with the sweaty stench of crowded bodies.

  Finally, the first group for the night began setting up. They were a rock group from Colombia. As these white boys with guitars and long hair began a mellow ballad, the audience was restless. The rockeros began a second song, a more upbeat rock song. The young people in the audience started to become agitated. Halfway through the song they shouted at the performers, “Fuera, fuera” (Get off, get off), and threw beer cans and other debris at the musicians. The guitarists stopped playing and castigated the audience: “You are a bunch of uneducated kids. You have no respect.”

  Yajaira, Duque, and I looked incredulously at each other. How could the organizers have enlisted a white rock band to play before this crowd of barrio youth? While rock music was popular among middle-class kids, in the macho culture of barrio youth it was derided as guachu-guachu, rejected as sissy or effeminate. As Duque put it in his liner notes for the Venezuela subterránea disc, “In the ’70s, a malandro who listened to the Bee Gees was like a 45-caliber handgun covered in Hello Kitty stickers.” In the barrios it was the tambores, the infectious rhythms of salsa, and now rap and reggaeton, that were popular.

  Things went from bad to worse. More white rock groups from Colombia and Argentina were booed off the stage. Each group took a long time to
set up. There were sound and technical problems. Tension and frustration mounted in the parte baja, as the youth consumed more beer, and fights began to break out.

  Then one of the organizers—Noel Marquez from the Afro-Venezuelan drumming group Grupo Madera—came onto the stage. Grupo Madera members were strong supporters, even spokespersons, for the Chávez government; their hit song “Uh ah Chávez no se va” (Uh ah Chávez won’t go) was the anthem of the Chavista movement.

  “Who is Chavista here?” shouted Marquez. There was a feeble response. “Who is Bolivariano here?” A scattering of people raised their hands. Marquez left the stage, satisfied that he had placated the crowd while the sound engineers worked to fix some technical problems. But as time went on, the young people grew more impatient. Marquez kept reappearing on the stage, yelling, “Who is Bolivariano?” “Who will vote NO?” People started to get annoyed with Marquez at this point, and they pelted him with beer cans. “OK,” he said, holding his hands in the air in surrender. “We’re going to give you some rap.” The audience paused, its expectations raised momentarily.

  The first rap act was Actitud Maria Marta, a white rapper from Argentina known for her political raps. There was a buzz of amusement in the crowd as she climbed on to the stage. Her translucent white skin was artificially tanned, and her straight brown hair was braided into cornrows. The organizers couldn’t give the crowd any black performers—that was insult enough— but to now give them a white rapper in blackface? Maria Marta began her first song in a shouting rap, revealing her origins in the punk rock of the 1980s. But she paused halfway through, aware that she had lost the audience. Lacking the arrogance of the earlier male groups, she quietly left the stage.

  Next on were DJ Trece and a blond punk rapper named Belica. Belica’s eyes were bloodshot and she had trouble standing up straight. “Anda fuma’o,” Yajaira observed wryly—Belica was high. Trece rapped in Spanglish: “With sabor Latino agre-sivo, you know my estilo Like estilo neoyorquino, baby, baby, listen to this Come on, once again, I do it like this / Move your body, I’m ready for the party.” Belica swayed unsteadily on the stage to the music, unable to coordinate her movements to pick up the microphone. It was a farce—the drugged-out performer, the marijuana being smoked around us, and all this at a “Say NO to Drugs” concert. Trece continued with his lame rap, until finally the audience had enough. “Fuera, fuera” they shouted. Duque and I exchanged smiles. It was somewhat gratifying to see the self-proclaimed founder of Venezuelan hip hop tuck his tail between his legs and walk off the stage in defeat.

  The situation in the parte baja was growing more volatile. The shoving and jostling were getting vicious. Suddenly, a gunshot rang out. There was silence in the auditorium. Then people started running toward the exits and screaming. A space gradually cleared around a fallen body to the left of the stage. People watched in quiet dismay as a stretcher arrived and paramedics removed the lifeless form. Then the audience slowly reassembled on the floor, much more subdued than before.

  “Welcome to the mouth of the wolf / Where in less than a second anything can happen Murders, attacks, that is daily life in my barrio Day and night, night and day,” El Nigga rapped in a low growl as he came up on the stage. The rap was accompanied by a discordant and ominous-sounding riff. The audience immediately became attentive. People clamored around the front of the stage, hanging on to every word. “Calle Carabobo, a labyrinth without exit A subterranean zone where the mafia reigns You can’t avoid the bullets, they rise and fall / That’s what it’s like where I live.”

  After Vagos y Maleantes, the rappers Colombia and Requesón from Guerrilla Seca were up with their song “Black Malandreo.” Colombia sported a green-and-gold Celtics cap and shirt, and Requeson had on a Los Angeles Clippers hat. “I go on desperately, looking for work is a joke,” rapped Requesón. “I make it home, my kids are crying. What’s happening, my situation is getting worse.”

  “Brother, what’s happening?” asked Colombia.

  “The hunger is killing us,” responded Requesón.

  “Well, what are you thinking?

  “I have my house, my kids crying of hunger and the pain that envelops me / What I want is to buy half a kilo of drugs and start a business.”

  “The same thing will happen to you that happened to me.”

  “To me! Don’t you see that I don’t give a shit anymore, and I’m talking to you in confidence / It’s not for me but for my kids who have nothin.’”

  “Guerrilla Seca represents, misery, poverty, shit,” they rapped together on the chorus. “This is the reality that can happen to you / What I live is malandreo, this is the real story.”

  A hush had extended over the audience. I watched the faces of the young people in the crowd, drawn into the story that Guerrilla Seca was telling. It was their story. It struck me that this was one thing that the government didn’t understand. Young people were hungering for representation and recognition, and that didn’t always come with political slogans. Sometimes it just came when someone gave voice to their experiences. And despite Chavez’s tremendous appeal to the masses, the cultural establishment was Eurocentric and out of touch with young people. Like these politicians, I had jumped the proverbial gun in expecting that gangsta rappers in Caracas would naturally be a part of a movement for revolutionary change. But, as Robin Kelley and others have warned in the context of the US, before deciding how gangsta rappers might or might not act politically, we first had to understand where they were at.

  Colombia and Requesón were much more subdued than Budu and Nigga. When we met in the offices of Subterranea Records, they spoke in low and somber tones, just like their hardcore and gritty music. Their influences were the American rappers Tupac, Nas, and Ludacris. Like the rappers from Vagos y Maleantes, they couldn’t understand the English lyrics, but they said that there was a certain flow, a feeling associated with the music, that spoke to them.

  When Requesón was twelve years old, he was part of the rap group Aracnorap, whose members would meet at Parque del Oeste and rhyme in the street. Several members of the group were lost to drug addiction or imprisoned, and Requesón continued on his own. He later formed another duo with a rapper from the group La Realeza, but that rapper was wrongly convicted of murder and imprisoned shortly thereafter. It was then that Requesón met Colombia—the son of Colombian immigrants—at a club in el 23 de Enero, and they began to perform together. After winning a rhyming competition at a club in the middle-class neighborhood of Las Mercedes in 1999, Requesón and Colombia formed the group Guerrilla Seca. They would freestyle together in Los Próceres, where they were eventually introduced to Juan Carlos.

  Colombia and Requesón of Guerrilla Seca. Los Próceres, Caracas, 2003

  I was glad to have the chance to sit down with Colombia and Requesón. There was a question that had been bothering me, and it was something that I wanted to ask them. I had listened to their CD La realidad mas real countless times, and the themes of poverty, oppression, police brutality, and racism seemed to overlap with the concerns of underground rappers I had encountered around the world. It was satirical, caustic social commentary. But one song on the album seemed wildly out of place, “Voy a hacer plata” (I’m going to make money). The lyrics of this song sounded like something on the airwaves of New York’s Hot 97 FM: “I’m going to make money From when you’re born till when you die, that’s what it’s about,” and “If I could make five million dollars a month I’d be a real millionaire …I’d get gold teeth and I’d adorn myself in gold all over. I’d have a ton of Rolex, rings, chains for daily use.” And the last line truly offended my sensibilities as a feminist: “I’m going to make money, whore”

  “I just don’t get it,” I told the rap duo. “The music all made sense till I got to that track. Why the focus on materialism and money as the ultimate goal?”

  “The song talks about what we—today’s generation—what we want and what we crave,” Colombia began. “We’re clear that we live in a very materi
alist world and that the world of money is the focus. If the world was not so upside down, if everything was not about money, if everything was not so materialistic—”

  Requesón chimed in: “We’re clear that we ourselves are not materialists, but we’ve never had anything. We are poor and we believe that we deserve something also for all our work. We are people who live in a barrio. We live in bad conditions and we want to get ahead, take our mothers out of poverty. We talk of money and Rolex watches and gold teeth because we don’t have these things. We know there are things more important to sing about than a watch or a car. There are more important things like war or hunger. But we have to orient ourselves to where the conversation is at, because we want people to listen to us, and we want to bring reality into focus.”

  Gangsta rappers were aware that they were coming of age in an era when personal worth was increasingly measured in terms of consumption and status symbols. If their potent brand of gangsta rap gave voice to experiences of marginality and poverty in an era of aggressive free-market capitalism, they also saw the free market as the only way to rise out of poverty. And the enterprise of making money was bound up with their masculinity and assertion of male dominance, as seen in their troubling references to women as whores. But as they spoke, I noticed the subtext of a more complex story about the degradations of class and race. The market was not just a way out of poverty but a way to prove one’s worth and dignity as a human being in a society in which young black men from the barrio are treated as less than human.

  “Now we are professionals and we can move up in life,” Requesón continued. “We want people to see us and respect us, or at least see that we are trying to move forward. You have something; you have earned something with your work and through your struggle.”