a flower that bloomed in a dark room [where it all started]
My older brother was the first person who put me on to hip hop. This is a person who is cultured on his music, who listens from the Bay to L.A., Midwest to the South, and NorthEast. My earliest memories was when my brother and his friends, a.k.a “The Crew”, put their money together to buy Kanye West’s Graduation and would take turns to listen to it and burn it on to blank discs. Limewire was the thing, so I would be up listening to the virus-filled playlist my brother curated for the hangouts. A little bit on Kanye West , throw in Mac Dre, some Lupe Fiasco, a hint of Eazy-E, a sliver of Mr. Capon-E, add a sprinkle of Lil Rob, you know, the list goes on and on. Basically, I was being put on to the slappers whether music was being played in the morning on MTV or a burnt disc with sharpie handwriting sold outside of a Stockton swap meet.
One of the artists I admired was Lupe Fiasco. Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor was a soulful experience on the first listen. With features like Jill Scott, Pharrell+ Jay Z, it was destined to have the most revolutionary flows. After digging deeper to his music, I recognized how much social critique he brings up on living under the complexities of the U.S. government. When Lasers released, I had my dad and brother drive to Best Buy to purchase the physical copy and I would listen track to track after school. I gained a political conciousness from Words I Never Said as it critiqued the mainstream media glamorizing personas and hiding the outside scope of the world as war was tearing countries apart. Around the same time, gang violence became prominent in my surrounding to the extent, my family gave me a talk how socio-economic sacrifices were done out of survival and how it (gang intervention)is an glamorized life because of the immediate sacrifices people must make within it. At first I did not understand the idolization until I realized media plays a role within the spread of it. Around that time, artists like Ms. Krazie, Mr. Capon-E, Brownside, and more, was popular for their connections to particular hoods are providing a realistic context being involved in their respective hoods. Sugarcoating and “claiming what’s not yours” in this music environment, is a dangerous move that could result in someone “getting put in their place” from communities. This lived experience of survival hood within gangs, is not one someone can step in or out because it comes with a life or death commitment and being respected by members from the hood. I give my flowers to those who share this commitment of artistry as this form of storytelling has been monitored by the feds and used against them in terms of sentencing.
Fast forward to 2012, Food & Liquor II: The Great American Rap Album, Pt. 1, I was able to understand the complexities of language tied to social constructs. Bitch Bad, one of the most profound songs on the tracklist, discussed the problematic connotation with the term “bitch” with its ties to misogony and the psychological impacts it has on womxn and youth. As a young and naive girl, it made me realize that how much power language carries and the ways women are conditioned through hyper-sexuality and respectability politics. It influenced me for write about any feeling I had towards a social issue. I’ll front and say that I thought I was “deeper” than my peers since I found an accessible way to contextualize the social constructs. However, Lupe Fiasco was not popularized as he was going against the commercialized sound of hip hop and put his values first. I was not expected to hear this music out of Lupe Fiasco’s valid choice of distribution, but I am glad it sparked my interest of critical music analysis.
Hip hop became the soundtrack during my time at Rosa Parks Middle School. good kid, m.A.A.d city was the newest K.Dot album and you were put on by the class arguments of deciphering the best track off the album. You had to be caught up or you were caught slacking. It was a vibe to walk to school while listening to Poetic Justice. My family just moved to South Sacramento after being displaced from the bank foreclosing our home. In a sense, moving to South Sac saved my life because it showcased a new wave of life. Coming from a rural town called Thornton, it was a different beat because I grew up with the same people for years and was not aware of the diverse world outside. Music was a middle ground for the intersectionalities the people carried with them. We used music to create the soundtrack of our lives, whether it was to breakdancing at the corner of the quad, to distinguishing rhymes by the lunch tables, or gossiping around the basketball court. We were samples of a simply complex remix.
The first time hip hop was implemented in my class curriculum, was in Ms. Harding’s 8th grade English class.[2013–2014] She had us watch and analyze Bone Thugs-N-Harmony’s Tha Crossroads and Tupac’s Dear Mama. Our class had to breakdown the figurative and literal themes of the music video and how we connected to the music. Being in South Sac, the songs hits home as my classmates and myself experienced loss in our surroundings and the urgency of surviving youth was the common aspiration. I credit Ms. Donja Harding as she affirmed us to connect with our culture to the institutions we step in. Our biggest lessons was not going to come from Hunger Games, because we already settled our disagreements at Mark Hopkins Park. She chose music that gave us a visceral feeling, because the artists looked like our surrounding community and vocalized the hardships we faced. We can atleast unpack to Tupac’s flows because he looks like our neighbors and rapped in an eloquent manner. It was a revolutionary point in my education as it validated that literature did not have to follow to eurocentric standards. I could only imagine being in her shoes, seeing youth from a variety of socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, singing along to the same song. I honor her for seeing the light in us no matter the attitudes we displayed and the environment we were placed.
At Sacramento City College, I took a sociology course titled “Race, Ethnicity and Inequality in the United States”, lectured by Professor Charles Whipple. It instantly became my favorite class because the teaching style was simplistic, but fruitful of discourse. Charles (who preferred to be referred by his first name), would occasionally tie his courses to rap songs, like Kendrick Lamar’s DNA and Humble, and Ice Cube’s Arrest The President, to contextualize the themes of the course. He would play the song of the day during the lecture and replay it at the end of the lecture while students walked out of the classroom. I would occasionally send him songs, like Joey Bada$$’s Temptation, as it spoke on the lived experiences of the Black American and the concept of liberation. To unpack aspects of socio-economic hierarchy to discrimination through lyrics, went against institutional expectations of relying on academic journals and critically appraised work. I honor academics who devoted years to learn and create a product of new knowledge but in diverse spaces like the community college, discourse and material is tweaked to best fit the needs of the students. With popular rap music like Kendrick Lamar, the music was accessible from its commercialization and the message was up to interpretation for any listener. I implement this particular style of teaching within my workshops surrounding identity and culturally center education. For this, thank you Charles for shifting a white dominated field to a restorative space for community.
Accessibility in literature looks different in the lens of urban youth of color. Our community live a reality of being historically excluded from various institution, which included the access to literature and education. We did not have the physical capital of materials such as writing materials, books, and time. Through cultural practices, storytelling through oral hxstory, was our method of teaching. Passing our ancestors’ realities and our current thoughts through word of mouth, exposed us to cultural and community wealth. When I took “Chicanx, Mexican-American, Latinx, Carribean Literature” with Jesus Limon Guzman, he taught us of the 500 plus years of resistance our communities face under imperialism and colonialism. I only knew three previous generations of my families based on the stories my abuelo and my tia Concha shared. There was not photos or written evidence that my ancestors existed, only recollection of spoken word memory. It was a constant reminder that we adapted to our wants and used our ancestoral practices to guide our to our paths. My parents only had an ninth grade education due to becoming caregivers and having to economically sustain their families since their mothers passed during their early teens. However, the access to television and radios exposed them to music, which allowed them to gain an imagination from storytelling and distinguish different emotions evoked from the songs they would listen to. My father is a life long fan of Rock En Español (Spanish Rock), as it uses magical realism and storytelling to express themes od romance, anguish, pain, and joy. I ode to this music because it influenced my father to be emotionally available to understanding how feelings can be expressed. I have explained my father how music can shape our emotional ans artistic knowledge, he does not understand the power behind it. As much as they downplay their intelligence and work ethic, I praise my family for carrying this inter-generational humbleness from survival within corrupt, imperialist systems, and willingness to unlearn societal demands of hiding emotions and fitting the status quo.
The reason why I study education, ethnic studies, and sociology, is to decipher why marginalized groups are excluded in success and ways I can implement street knowledge into the academia setting. Being policed in the American complusory education system was a shared reality across the family. From backpack searches, in-school suspensions and expulsions, policing is centered in the spaces of “hope”, where our family desired the best education through Westernized schooling so that we would not have to live a life of survival. Our hxstories consisted of forced immigration, assimilation to the American culture while holding on to our roots in Hidalgo, and recognizing how we have to blossom with our struggles because the unsustainable institutions that fight like hell to taint our soil/soul. As I enter these spaces of “exclusivity” withthin academia, I amplify the importance to a culturally responsibe and accessible curriculum because many of my peers and I were forced assimilate through code switching our languages and be expansive with our materials due to white convinience as the institutional priority. As of now, I hope to be professor of Sociology and/or Cultural Studies and use the praxis of radical joy, radical love, transformative and healing justice through culturally relevant materials like music, visual art, and storytelling. Although it’s a journey long ahead, I have hope for the people and their future of liberation. These particular spaces allow me to shape my passions and implement the lessons from my lived experiences as a first generation, system-impacted Latina.
In my series of writings, I will discuss about the following topics and more: Cross-racial solidarity and tensions between the Black Hip Hop community and the rise of Chicano/Latino** Hip Hop community, state sanctioned violence through the hyper surveillance of rap lyrics and its ties to the Prison Industrial Complex, the trans-national wave of Rock En Español, the rise of Sierreño Music and its role on Latinx Youth’s emotional vulnerability, Navigating the Divine Feminine within Hyper Sexuality in the Hip Hop Industry, Epik High and their influence on modern Korea’s Hip Hop Industry, and the Shift of the 2000’s R&B sound.
I hope you can learn and join this wave of “music literature” and sharing my little dissertation of cultural wealth.
Con cariño,
Ashley Perez Ceron
** I particularly state Chicano and Latino as the rap movement has been exclusively dominated by cis-gender Chicano/Latino males within its popularity.
