"Illegal aliens come from all over the world, not just from the hole in the fence in San Diego." - George Lopez, "Corazon," on BRWN BFLO's self-titled album.
Rocks Off gets lots of thank-you notes from readers showing their appreciation for giving Latino hip-hop a voice, though we find it odd. We work in PR during the day and we don't send heartfelt notes to journalists thanking them for writing on our clients; we don't think our client's customers do so either. It's an even exchange: "You write on news. We give it to you. Everybody wins."
But give it some context and it makes sense. Today, more than ever, we live in a world of lines - political lines, social lines, economic lines, and racial lines, that separate people into liberal and conservative, pros and antis, rich and poor, black and white. But where's the brown? Where is the voice for a Latino community who aside from its outspoken civil rights leaders, past and present, doesn't like to speak up, engage and fight on civil rights?
We don't know if it's an ingrained humility or complacency with what they have, or an assimilation pattern that's distanced themselves from heritage labels (and they have that right) but from Capitol Hill to the grassroots, we've seen our community pussy out more than once by staying quiet and not vocalizing their plight.
So when someone grabs their nuts and decides to do something about it in their own small way, like maybe write about hip-hop, and draw a line in the sand and say, "It's Latino hip-hop and we need to pay attention to it." People get excited ... and thankful. Yes, we're grouping Latino hip-hop into modern day civil rights. Music's that important to us.
More »
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
