New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone New Directions in Latino American Cultures
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NEW YORK RICANS FROM THE HIP HOP ZONE NEW DIRECTIONS IN LATINO AMERICAN CULTURES, a series edited by Licia Fiol-Matta & Jose Quiroga New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone by Raquel Z. Rivera The Famous 41: Sexuality and Social Control in Mexico, 1901 edited by Robert McKee Irwin, Edward J. McCaughan, and Michelle Rocío Nasser Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture & Chicana/o Sexualities edited by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and Frausto Ybarra, with a foreword by Tomás Bilingual Games: Some Literary Investigations edited by Doris Sommer NEW YORK RICANS FROM THE HIP HOP ZONE Raquel Z. Rivera NEW YORK RICANS FROM THE HIP HOP ZONE Copyright © Raquel Z. Rivera, 2003. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-4039-6043-6 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-4039-6044-3 ISBN 978-1-4039-8167-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781403981677 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available at the Library of Congress. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First edition: February 2003 10987654321 CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Preface ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Enter the New York Ricans 21 PART I A HISTORICAL NARRATIVE 3. “It’s Just Begun”: The 1970s And Early 1980s 49 4. Whose Hip Hop?: The Late 1980s and Early 1990s 79 5. Ghettocentricity, Blackness and Pan-Latinidad: The Mid- to Late 1990s 97 PART II TOPICS AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY 6. Latin@s Get Hot and Ghetto-Tropical 113 7. Butta Pecan Mamis 127 8. Navigating Blackness and Latinidad through Language 151 9. Remembering Big Pun 165 10. Between Blackness and Latinidad: A Brief Historical Overview 185 Epilogue 189 Notes 197 Appendix: Interviews and Articles 223 Fat Joe, 223 La Bruja, 226 Angie Martínez, 229 Dynasty Rockers’ Diana, 232 Hip Hop Meets Bomba at the Real Wedding of the Millennium, 235 Of Artists and Cuties, 239 El Barrio’s Graffiti Hall of Fame, 243 References 247 Index 271 About the Author 279 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS his book is dedicated to all of those whose stories are woven into Tthese pages. In particular, I am grateful to Jorge “PopMaster Fabel” Pabón, Caridad “La Bruja” de la Luz, Anthony “Q-Unique” Quiles, Ana “Rokafella” García and Edward Sunez Rodríguez, whose vision, love and enthusiasm guided me through this project. I am also immensely thankful for the support and help of Monse Torres, Fernando REALS, Cristina Verán, BOM5, TATS Cru, Edgardo Miranda, G-Bo the Pro, Christie-Z Pabón, W. D. Allah, Kahlil Jacobs-Fantauzzi, Jamel Shabazz, Henry Chalfant, Jerry Ruo- tolo, Erin O’Brien, James de la Vega, Vee Bravo, Clyde Valentín, Kofi Taha, Ray Ramírez of the Welfare Poets, Wanda Ortiz, DJ Charlie Chase, DJ Tony Touch, D-Stroy, Hurricane G, Diana Figueroa, Vico C, Jellybean Benitez, Juan Flores, Bill Kornblum, Philip Kasinitz, Angel Quintero Rivera, Jorge Duany, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Agustín Lao-Montes, Arlene Dávila, Deborah Paccini Hernández, Mayra Santos, Sonia Sánchez, Carmen “Cape” Oquendo, José Raúl “Gallego” González, Gayatri Patnaik, Donna Cherry, Ella Pearce, Licia Fiol-Matta, José Quiroga, Rafael “Papo” Zapata, Bryan Vargas, Jorge “Georgie” Vázquez, Juan “Enemigo” Matos, Coo-kee, DJ K-Kemit, Welmo Romero Joseph, Julio Alvarado Aguilera, Ana Aparicio, Ernie Lee, Leroy Champagne, Joey Kotright-González, Chris Bonastía/DJ Nodd, Sonia González, Alano Báez, Melinda González, Erica González, Mixta Gallery, Tanya Torres, Yarisa Colón, Asiray, Mari- posa, Sandra García Rivera, Iván “Kushka” Ferrer (Freddy Skitz, for- merly of Boricua Bomb Squad), Pablo “Zulu” Ferrer, Frank Rodríguez (B-Girl Style), Alex Vale LaSalle, Manuela Arciniegas, Mercedes Molina, Richie Pérez, Marinieves Alba (Hip Hop LEADS), Martha viii NEW YORK RICANS FROM THE HIP HOP ZONE Díaz (Hip-Hop Odyssey Film Festival), The Point C.D.C., Juan Cartagena, Josiván Padilla and Laura Pérez. Gracias a Rincón Criollo (La Casita de Chema), Carlos “Tato” Torres, and YerbaBuena, Alberto “Tito” Cepeda, the Nonis, Alexandra Vasallo, Tivo, Don Daniel, Micky Sierra, Michael Guarionex Sierra, Camilo Molina-Gaetán, Pa’ lo Monte, Palo Mayor, Nina Paulino and all the other pleneros, bomberos and paleros who opened up my heart to a new meaning for cypher. Special thanks to Anabellie Rivera Santiago and Peter Angel Díaz for hardcore intellectual stimulation and emotional support. And I am especially grateful to my mom, Amalia Domínguez, who is always there. PREFACE hy did New York’s principal Spanish-language newspaper El Diario, W “El Campeón de los Hispanos” (the Champion of Hispanics), wait until platinum-selling Bronx Puerto Rican rap artist Big Pun passed away in February 2000 to celebrate his achievements? Why had the paper, prior to his death, never featured him or other internationally known New York Latino rap artists like Angie Martínez, Fat Joe, Cuban Link, Tony Touch and Hurricane G? For the same reason that Jessie Ramírez, columnist for El Diario, draws a simplistic distinction between “American” and “Trop- ical” rap. He imagines the first category to be populated solely by African Americans and the second to include only Latino artists whose rhymes are mostly in Spanish. Thus, Ramírez completely neglects the existence of Latino rap artists whose lyrics are written mostly in English, like Big Pun as well as the others previously mentioned. These artists don’t fit easily into the currently acceptable mold of la- tinidad (Latinoness). Not only are their lyrics English dominant, but they participate in a musical realm considered to be African American. Unlike Jennifer López, Ricky Martin and Christina Aguilera, Latino rap artists are not on the safer (“white” and class-unidentified) side of pop. There- fore, they have been virtually ignored by most Latino-oriented media. Ironically, mainstream media outlets have in the last few years largely ac- cepted and even capitalized on the notion that “Blacks and Latinos” are at the epicenter of U.S. rap music and the larger hip hop culture of which rap is part. This is not a book about “Tropical” rap, “rap en español” or “Latino hip hop.” These categories draw connections and boundaries that tend to cause confusion regarding the topic I am most interested in: the huge body of hip hop creativity primarily rooted in the joint practices of Puerto x NEW YORK RICANS FROM THE HIP HOP ZONE Ricans, African Americans and West Indians. This book focuses on the experiences of New York Puerto Ricans who create and participate within the musical dimension of hip hop culture, a realm whose ethnic bound- aries are diffuse and in constant flux. Accounts of cultural practices are in- famous for imposing artificial borders, be they ethnic or otherwise, on cultural realities that overflow past the limits assigned to them. And it is precisely that tendency toward reductionism that I have aimed to steer away from. Hip hop has been a central realm of cultural production and identity- building among Puerto Ricans of the second and third—and beyond— generations. It also has been a cultural zone of intense interaction and cooperation between young Puerto Ricans and other New Yorkers, par- ticularly African Americans. Those are the aspects of hip hop musical history that I have chosen to reflect on—precisely because they have been so neglected. To ignore the areas of cultural overlap among African Americans, Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean people in New York City is to dis- tort history, which results in the marginalization of some of the richest forms of contemporary urban creative expression. To overlook that New York Puerto Rican culture and identities have long been intricately con- nected to those of their neighbors not only obscures these groups’ shared history but prevents a sense of connection between past and present. Puerto Rican hip hop enthusiasts are described by some as having turned their back on their “traditions.” Yet by the time hip hop surfaced in the early 1970s, there was already a long-standing tradition of Puerto Rican participation in genres most commonly identified as African American, such as jazz in the early decades of the twentieth century, doo-wop and rhythm-and-blues during the 1950s, and boogaloo and Latin soul dur- ing the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, the Puerto Ricans who have de- veloped hip hop art forms alongside African Americans and West Indians often have been accused of being cultural defectors for allegedly doing a moreno thing—moreno, literally meaning dark-skinned, is used in this case as a synonym for African American. Yet rap music and hip hop- related dance forms bear as much resemblance to African American oral, musical and dance traditions like the dozens, the blues, jazz, the lindy- hop and the cakewalk as to the allegedly bona fide forms of Puerto Rican PREFACE xi musical and dance expression such as salsa, bomba, plena and música jíbara. Incidentally, the commonplace use of “moreno” and “African American” by New York Puerto Ricans as interchangeable terms—within as well as outside the hip hop zone—speaks volumes about the tendency of Caribbean Latino people to deny our own blackness. We describe African Americans as morenos as if to prevent the term from being applied to us; as if we weren’t part of the African diaspora in the Americas; as if plenty of Puerto Ricans weren’t black—oftentimes even darker than African Americans themselves.