Close to the Edge (4 page)

Rap has provided a means for young people from immigrant communities to break the silence and network with others locally and globally. And these youth have become the latest hip hop ambassadors to emerge. The Liberian American Blade Brown raps about building a Pan-African consciousness, and in his rhymes he connects racism and slavery to the poverty of many African nations. Although based in the Twin Cities, Blade's producer is from Tanzania, and Blade has collaborated with other diasporic artists in the Twin Cities such as the Kenyan American MC Baraka.
⁴⁵
African emigration to places like the Twin Cities, Toronto, and New York is creating alternative spaces that break down national boundaries.

Four generations of hip hop ambassadors have traversed the globe with the desire to transcend their immediate realities and link up with others through a universal politics of justice. This communitarian strand of hip hop culture now exists as a counterpoint to the grossly materialistic, individualist nature of corporate rap. But it has sat uneasily alongside the storytellers of the genre, who have been concerned not so much with grand gestures as with rap as a chronicle of everyday life.

In its most contemporary manifestation, hip hop again faced the incongruity of the desire for unity and fellowship across borders and the need to be grounded in a specific place and experience. Diasporic rappers didn't draw the same charges of cultural imperialism that earlier rappers did; first-generation immigrants in particular were deeply rooted in the cultures and histories that had produced local scenes. But, as their years in the diaspora went by, it became harder for these artists to maintain a bridge with their past. Their concerns were now different from those issues they had left behind. Unmoored from place, they were in danger of losing touch with the specificity at the heart of their music. The Cuban DJ Ariel Fernández, who emigrated to New York City in 2005, posed this question: “Cuban rap doesn't have the same value outside of its context. It was made in Cuba and for Cubans. How will the movement continue with the same importance outside of Cuba? We cannot pursue it with the same time and energy. And there is not a big public for Cuban immigrant rap.”
⁴⁶
It has been difficult for rappers as new immigrants to pursue their art, given the demands of everyday survival. They don't have the same sense of being part of a movement, now that they are scattered in different cities and often separated from their group members. Without the realities of place to anchor it, a politics of global solidarity might start to sound hollow. And at its core hip hop has always been about bearing witness.

I
n the pages that follow I trace some of the paths that have been carved out by hip hop culture across the globe. I do not intend to provide an exhaustive history of global hip hop or even a summary of national/regional hip hop scenes. Rather, I take readers on my own kind of global tour, through the cities where I have lived, the artists I have met, and the insights I have gleaned. This book is not a who's who of global hip hop's celebrities and icons. It brings the narratives of well-known artists together with those of lesser-known artists—what they have in common is my great respect for their work and my belief that their stories deserve to be told.

What drives my travels is the same question that has motivated the hip hop ambassadors of each generation: What is it about hip hop that connects young and marginalized people around the globe? In addition to my physical trip from Sydney to Havana, Chicago, and Caracas, the book documents my personal journey as I struggle with my own commitment to hip hop as an activist and as an artist. In the mid-1990s I formed a rap group with an Aboriginal woman and a Pacific Islander man in Sydney. But, as I compared their lives and my own, I often wondered how I could justify my participation in a genre dominated by narratives of deprivation. Rap was more than a vehicle for political messages—it was a way of giving voice to the shared experiences of a community. But
which
community did I belong to, and
whose
voice was I trying to represent? I encountered these questions again and again during my travels as I sought affinities with revolutionary rappers in Havana, Asian Americans in Chicago, and blackfullas (Aboriginal people) in Sydney.

Close to the Edge
betrays my fleeting hope that there is something that connects a global generation of young people, born in an era when corporate-led globalization undermined their basic standard of living yet deprived them of the tools to protest. Whereas their parents' generation took to the streets, they took up a microphone. The rapid-fire spread of the culture was more than media hype. The appeal was more than a fad. Something in the drums spoke to barrio youth in Medellin, French teenagers in the cites, blackfullas in Sydney's Inner West, and young people in the townships outside Cape Town. And something spoke to me.

CHAPTER ONE

Made in Havana City

A
re you Latina?” Clad in a khaki green safari suit, the immigration official at José Marti International Airport in Havana peered at me over the top of thick rimmed glasses as he examined my passport.

“No.” It seemed best to keep things brief.

“So why does it say here that your name is Fernandes?”

I trotted out the usual response. “Because my parents are from the part of India in the South that was colonized by the Portuguese.” So much for brevity.

His brow wrinkled. “But this is an Australian passport.”

“Yes, my parents migrated from India to Australia thirty years ago, and I was born there. I'm an Australian citizen.”

“So why are you coming to Cuba?”

Why was an Australian-born, Indian-descended, Portuguese-surnamed gringa like me coming to Cuba? Would you believe, to deliver pickles? On my mother's orders I was bringing home-made dried shrimp pickle for my sister Deepa. Deepa, who had lived in the Ecuadorian forests with shamans and hitch-hiked down the Amazon with another adventurous soul, was now a features producer at Radio Habana, and our mother's main concern was, “Is she eating properly?” I had successfully smuggled the jar of pickle through Tokyo and Montreal in my circuitous route to Havana, and it was only in Mexico City that a scrutinizing customs official asked me to open it. The thought of disrobing the bulky jar—swaddled by my mum in layers of plastic and tape—was so ludicrous that I burst into hysterical laughter. The Mexican official, taken aback at first, joined me in laughing and sent me on my way with the jar untouched.

This official before me now wasn't laughing. It seemed best to keep things brief. “I'm visiting my sister.”

My covert mission as a pickle courier aside, I figured that this was my opportunity to see revolution in action. It was January 1998, and I had finally graduated from college after years of part-time study. I had spent my undergraduate years as a student activist trying to convince other students that capitalism was unjust, and, if we wanted to know what a true socialist society might be like, we should look to Cuba. My bible was a booklet called
The Cuban Revolution and Its Extension
, which lauded the bold and radical revolution carried out on this small Caribbean island. I argued passionately with the student conservatives and anarchists who said that Cuba's was an authoritarian society where citizen rights were restricted and homosexuals were locked up. Of course, I was aware that Cuba had its problems. But I also felt that the Western media painted a distorted picture of what was really happening on the island. I had read the autobiography of the former Black Panther Angela Davis, and, like her, I imagined myself joining the masses to cut sugarcane in the fields.

As an aspiring emcee, I had heard that Cuban hip hop was the site of a rebirth of revolutionary rap music. All kinds of American rappers, from the indie star Common to the rapper-turned-actor Mos Def, had come down here to perform at the annual hip hop festival. In her emails from Havana, Deepa described in detail all the rappers and producers she was meeting and told me she could introduce me to them. I was intrigued. What did hip hop look like in this place where revolution had such a potent meaning and history? Hip hop was known as a revolutionary music, as a culture of protest, but what would hip hop be in a country like Cuba, where the state itself was said to be revolutionary? Could it be a
counter
revolutionary force here?

Cuba seemed the ideal place to continue my journey in search of a global hip hop generation. My exploration had begun in Sydney, where I joined in workshops for a hip hop the-atrical production on Sydney's West Side. But as I watched hip hop in Sydney being taken over by mainstream record labels, I wondered if I might find a purer, more authentic, form of the culture in Cuba. What would it be like in a place that had not been infiltrated by Americanization? I was curious about how a digital age music like hip hop had developed such deep roots in a metropolitan city that had only two Internet cafes. What could it tell us about the power of hip hop as a truly global form?

T
here's no time to sleep,” said Deepa, as she climbed into the back of the powder blue 1952 Chevrolet. “We've only got an hour to drop off your bags and make it to the rumba.”

Our driver sped along Boyeros, the long road from the airport to the city, and headed for the tree-lined suburb of El Vedado. Deepa helped me lug my bags up the flight of stairs to the
casa particular
, a private home where she was renting a room from a Cuban couple with a teenage daughter. My sleep-deprived body longed for the bed with its fresh sheets. Outside the driver beeped his horn impatiently.

“C'mon,” prodded Deepa, sensing I was weakening. “There'll be plenty of time for sleep later.”

The National Writers and Artists Union, known locally by its acronym, UNEAC, was at the corner of Calle 17 and H in El Vedado. There was a rumba on its lawns every Wednesday after-noon. At the gates of the mansion that housed UNEAC, a young man sat collecting money.

“Don't say anything, just follow me,” Deepa instructed, as we approached the front of the line. She handed him a ten-peso note and he let us in.

“What was that about?” I asked her, once we were inside the gates.

“Cubans pay in pesos, foreigners pay in dollars.” She indicated a blond woman at the gate, who was fishing out a five-dollar bill.

Cuba faced a severe crisis after the collapse of its main bene-factor, the Soviet Union, in 1991. Anticipating internal unrest in Cuba, the US had tightened the screws of its three-decade economic embargo, making life even more difficult on the island. The Cuban government christened these years the “Special Period.” The dual peso-dollar economy had developed in the early nineties as a strategy to help the economy recover. After years of being seen as contraband, the dollar was now recognized as legal tender. Dollars entered through remittances from Florida, tourists on vacation, and money earned abroad. But Cubans still earned in pesos. With an exchange rate of twenty-one pesos to the dollar, we had paid just twenty-five cents each to get in. That was the same as Cubans would pay. Deepa was being paid in pesos by Radio Habana, so she was entitled to the peso rate. But she didn't even need to produce ID. No one here suspected we were foreigners. This was one of the perks of looking Cuban.

There were a hundred or so people gathered on the lawns of UNEAC. Foreigners and Cubans, kids and their parents, and older people resting in the shade all waited for the show to begin. Salsa came from speakers on the stage. A few well-dressed young Cuban men mingled with the French and Scandinavian tourists. The Cubans swiveled their hips effortlessly. Their fluid steps and graceful turns contrasted with the jerky and self-conscious movements of their partners.

“Jineteros”
Deepa nodded her head toward the young men. “It literally means ‘jockey,' but here in Cuba they use it to refer to street hustlers and sex workers.”

“But I thought that prostitution was illegal here.” I recalled reading that the revolutionary government had outlawed prostitution in 1961. Thousands of women who had been involved in the sex trade during the prerevolutionary era were introduced to other occupations through work-study programs and vocational schools.

“Well, nowadays most Cubans find it hard to make ends meet,” replied Deepa. “Prostitution is just another way to survive.” Next to me, a young white man in a Che t-shirt snuggled with a pretty Cubana with light brown skin and curly hair. Were they girlfriend and boyfriend? Was she a
jinetera?
How could you tell?

A half hour or so later, just as my lids were beginning to droop again, an announcement was made. The rap act Primera Base would be making an appearance. Sometimes rappers opened for the main acts at the rumba.

“Primera Base. Cool!” Deepa said in anticipation. “They're one of Cuba's most well-known rap groups, and they even have a disc out with EGREM.” EGREM was the state agency responsible for producing and marketing Cuban music. With scarce resources and a small local market for CD sales, EGREM had produced only a few rap CDs. They received little or no airplay on Cuban radio.

I strained my neck to get a good view of the stage. Three young men stood before the microphones. The one in the middle, Rubén Maning, had several thick gold chains around his neck. His shirt was open to reveal a bare torso. He wore plastic sunglasses studded with fake diamonds. Low-slung pants revealed a pair of white boxers with the letter X written in bold at the top. The other two also wore heavy gold chains and black sunglasses.

“It was like this,” opened Ruben, in a grave voice. He bowed his head dramatically. “The 21 of February 1965, he was shot up in the Audubon Ballroom / About to give his last speech, before an auditorium of 400 blacks and half a dozen whites / Yes! That gentleman you know as Malcolm X / WAS DEAD.” From the recorded background beat came the piercing tones of a siren, then people screaming and crying. The beat kicked in, and Rubén performed an homage to Malcolm X. “I want to be a black just like you, with your great virtue,” rapped Rubén, in an old-school flow. “I want to be a black just like you, a great leader, to be great.” The symbol of Malcolm was so powerful, I thought.

“Just like you, just like you, nigger,” Primera Base went on to rap in the chorus. “We wanna be a nigger like you / Just like you, just like you, nigger. A nigger like you.”

I sighed. Also powerful was the circulation of the N-word in a global marketplace. It made me wonder whether Cuban rappers were just a tropical version of white American kids in the suburbs, using black slang and getting their bling on. Were we just looking at the mirror image of a clichéd American commercial culture? And all this in a country that was supposed to be the last holdout against American global influence? Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places.

E
arly hip hop culture in Cuba was generally produced and consumed in the local neighborhood. During this period of the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, people would play music from CDs brought from the United States. Rappers would rhyme in their houses, on street corners, and in local parks. When I arrived in Cuba in 1998, this local culture was still strong, even as hip hop was gaining ground in the clubs and venues like UNEAC. Randy Acosta was a rapper who began his career on the streets of his barrio, Almendares, a few miles from the center of the city. I went with Deepa to visit him and his mother, Lily. I thought that Randy might give me a sense of how Cuban hip hop looked from the streets. I figured we would take a taxi or a bus to get there. Deepa had other ideas.

“We're hitchhiking,” she informed me once we were out on the street.

After the cult thriller
The Hitcher
, I thought no one hitch-hiked anymore. In Havana not only did people hitchhike, but hitchhiking was enforced by the baton-wielding police. Few Cubans were privileged to own cars. Those who did were mostly people with a dollar income from tourism or those who worked for a joint venture. Even then there was the gas shortage. The Soviet Union used to be Cuba's main oil supplier, but in 1990 the Soviets just stopped delivering oil. Cuba's transportation system was paralyzed. As the economy picked up slowly again, those with advantages were forced to share. Making sure that every car was full of passengers was one way of keeping things moving.

Deepa and I walked over to the intersection of Linea and Paseo to
coger botella
, as hitchhiking was known locally. Cubans refer to a ride as a
botella
, or bottle. So to
coger botella
was to get a ride. Deepa stuck out her thumb, true hitchhiker style. But when a red Volkswagen spluttered to a halt before us, the police officer directing traffic came over and bent down to speak to the driver. “Are you going to Playa?” he asked the driver, a thin older man in a pink shirt. “Yes,” was the response. “Then you can take them.” He motioned us toward the car. Legally enforced carpooling. Only in Cuba, I thought as we drove toward the tunnel to Miramar. In a revolutionary society solutions were collective and relied on people's sense of obligation to others. And maybe some fear of the baton-wielding cops as well.

When we arrived at her house, Lily was watching her TV—a Russian model with a greenish hue to the screen. In the 1980s Lily had gone to Czechoslovakia to work with Cuban delegations. She spoke fluent Czech, another of those skills of little use in an era of Canadian and French joint ventures. She was a single mother who supported her son, Randy, on her peso salary from her job at an advertising agency.

As we chatted over thick Cuban coffee and
mani
, a popular sweet made from palm sugar and peanuts, Randy walked in. He pulled off his bicycle helmet and shot us a broad smile just like his mother's. He tentatively pulled back a chair to sit down with us. As Randy talked about his passion for rap, he became more animated. He told us that he had always identified with rap, with its cadence and the drums. It was hard to find American music in Cuba. So he mostly watched bootleg recordings of video clips on friends' VCRs.

His shyness dissipated, Randy performed his rap song “La Bicicleta” (The Bicycle). The song was about the scarcity of transportation and his journeys around the city on his Chinese-made Flying Pigeon bicycle. Randy's five-year-old cousin Cesarito—who had memorized the words—repeated the lyrics and chimed in with a childlike attempted beatbox. As I looked on, it all seemed so familiar: the rhythms, the hand gestures, the flow. But what he was rapping about was entirely unfamiliar, a scene taken from the tableau of his own life and told in the vernacular of his peers.

T
he early gender politics of Cuban hip hop—like the race politics that I had witnessed with Primera Base—were still underdeveloped. As in most places around the world, the culture of machismo in Cuba was strong. As an ardent feminist, I was taken aback by the whistles and propositions that I, like most women, attracted from street-corner types. After years of organizing protest marches to mark International Women's Day in Sydney, I was surprised to hear that on this day in Cuba women were handed roses and congratulated for being women. So would Cuban hip hop be any different? Deepa's friend Pablo Herrera, Cuba's most prominent hip hop producer, took us to a
peña
, a small afternoon rap show at the local Café Cantante. He said that we would see and meet some of the prominent women artists in Cuban hip hop.