- Fat
Festival 2013 on 3 August 2013 at 18.30 PM at La Térmica (Avenida de
Los Guindos 48, Málaga). Tickets available online
www.ticketmaster.es (12€) or on the site (16€).
I
just happened to see a
YouTube videoclip I want to share with you
produced by AV Films in 2013 on
street art by Andalucía Vandals, a hip hop crew from Jerez de la
Frontera (Cádiz) known
for graffiti (since 1996)
and rap music (since 2003),
and very likely for
turntablism and breaking too, although I can't
tell. At street art every single one of them -
take Caos, Sel or
Cosa.V - is
very good, a real master (una
verdadera máquina).
Their
Sister Mary (Sor María),
Mariano
Rajoy and
Iñaki
Undargarin are
exquisite. I'm deeply impressed!
The Spanish Dead, a socio-critical documentary on the making-off graffity:
Regardless,
I can't say I'm exactly an admirer of their music. For me, it's
so-so. They absolutely have some striking lines and their latest work is visually attractive, but their musical
expression is no great shakes (like in case of Seguimos dándole and What you say, for example).
Joint projects between Andalucía Vandals and Eterno:
Now, Eterno with Roe Delgado, isn't that something? I simply love the unofficial studio version!
Then, there is LCMB (Los Cabrones Más Buscados, The Most Wanted Bastards). These guys rap just fine in live performances (see this), but I don't really get quite the same feeling listening to their recordings. It may be because of preferring motion pictures to the plain audio files any time.
This is how LCMB sounds like:
There are, of course, many more groups, but not much to talk about. No offence, though. I have listened to the music of many raperos jerezanos, but I must admit, I'm more into flamenco, wine and its distillates from Jerez de la Frontera, one of the pearls of the Southern Andalusia. In spite of this, I give you, with the following, an example of the work of one newer doer.
The so far best try by Yandrak:
But, you know, there's an artist I sort of like, Big Pancho, who already appeared in one of the previous videos. His Veremos and La misa as well as a couple of live performances (e.g. with Andalucía Vandals and a female vocal) sound somewhat interesting.
By the time I posted about Málaga's rap, I hadn't heard of one of the prime raperos in there, Elphomega. But certainly, he merits the attention both for the verbal and visual language in his work. Check it out below! He has been active since 1990 in hip-hop and rap and is getting more and more interesting for not wanting to repeat himself. “Yo! Mtv Raps” aired an interview with Elphomega
just before his 2011 LP came out. And
there's a documental on
YouTube about Elphomega, Capaz
(Hablando en Plata Squad) and Little Pepe on their ways of thinking and
their lifestyles (in Spanish only). As typical to Málaga, he has been involved in many collaboration projects with other artists, such as Picos Pardos and Doc Diamond, for example.
There
is an interesting rap group called Punto Final (End Point)
still active in Huelva that started in 1988, quite a time before the
first rap demo was recorded in Spain by El Club de los Poetas Violentos (Violent Poets Society) in 1993.
Antonio
Machado y Ruiz was a Spanish poet, a late member of the literary
movement Generation of '98. He was born on 26 July 1875 in Seville, in a liberal family,
very interested in culture, and especially in folklore. His
grandfather
was a rector of the University of Seville and one of the explainers
and introducers of Darwinism in Spain. His father
was a lawyer and a distinguished folklorist. He had a borther,
Manuel,
who was, like him, a noted poet and a member of the Generation of '98.
The
two brothers, Los Machado
He
spent his childhood in Seville and in 1883 moved with his family to
Madrid, which is why he has said (please, see the references) that
his teens and youth were madrileños (Madrilenian). He was
very religious, much of his works look at the essence of human nature
and tackle the First Book of Moses, called Genesis.
A
sample of Antonio Machado's handwriting
He
got married at the age of 34, with his wife, Leonor, being only 16
years old. Sadly, she passed away young, already two years later.
Having found the love of his life in her, Antonio Machado wound up
the best poet of his kind, writing the most beautiful love poetry for
25 more years after his beloved wife died. I have hardly ever heard
of anything more romantic in my life.
Antonio
and Leonor on their wedding day
One
more curiosity about him: he himself died in 1939 at the age of 63,
three days before his old and sickly mother. For the list of his
works see here.
Here's
a short documentary subtitled in English that features his poetical
writings and shows his life and the women behind him, directed,
photographed and produced by Cisco
Bermejoin
2003.
Here
you have a Machado's video poem “Cantares” (with English
subtitles), presented in a typical style - sung by Joan
Manuel Serrat.
And
a video poem recited in English. This is a lovely piece, written 110
years ago, very well translated and nicely read by an American poet
Robert Bly.
I
also want to highlight some amazing school projects the young
learners from Spain have produced that relate to the life and works
of Antonio Machado, reciting his poetry and calling it “machadian”
rap (rap machadiano), and this not only presenting their
rapping skills, but showing off their video clip directing, shooting
and editing skills as well. I'm simply overwhelmed by the awesomeness
of it all.
Mala
Rodríguez (also La
Mala, La Mala María) is probably the most exciting of the rap artists (raperos)
from Cádiz to present. She started rapping in 1996 and has been very
productive, cooperative and successful ever since. This post is
dedicated both to her solo projects and collabos with other people. I
begin with the rottenest of her songs, kindly greeting all the
possible punk readers. Hope you enjoy the selection of videos.
First, she in her full glory and finery:
La
Mala working together with other Andalusian raperos
from Cádiz (All Day Green), Seville (Tote King and SFDK) and Málaga
(Capaz), as well as with a flamenco guitarrist (tocaor) from
Sevilla (Raimundo Amador) and a flamenco singer (cantaor) from
Granada (Antonio Carmona):
Sevillian
rap artists (raperos)
are the true
spokespeople of the pueblo
(people, society in general) speaking
out about
everything from
politics to religion and from
economy to morality. Out of all of them I suggest you to study closer
the following performers:
DEKOH, SFDK, Zatu, ToteKing, Shotta, Zeropositivo, Juaninacka,
Xinkoa, DJ Makei, Puto Largo, Acción Sánchez, La Alta Escuela, and
El Tralla. You can find information about them all on the Internet,
but mostly in Spanish. Therefore there
is no point in adding
all
the
links here
for your consideration. Though, I have the whole thing stored.
I
have tried to cover the entire metropolitan area (area metropolitana) - including the localities up to 10-15 km from the
city, which is everything there is between Rinconada and Dos
Hermanas, Sanlúcar la Mayor and Alcala de Guadaira - for not leaving
the rap artists from smaller towns out, like Dogma Crew from Mairena
del Aljarafe for example.
I'm
not a rap addict myself, but I can't deny the poetry of the lyrics
sung by the Spanish-speaking raperos, especially by those from Spain. They are the best lyricists in the Spanish music industry (no ofense). The
examples I give you are a good way to listen to the sound of
Castilian spoken in Andalusia as well as to see what are the streets
of Seville and homes of Sevillians like. You should watch the videos
for that reason alone. It would be, of course, better if you
understood Spanish to appreciate these guys and to enter into
their mentality. But maybe you do.
Anyway, what they all have in common is that they are committed to their city and their neighbourhoods. Here you have just a piece to prove my point. Then, they often show themselves in their videos with
a local graffiti artists (grafiteros) and tattooists (tatuadores), and they use from time to time the English words you can only understand knowing their dialect (e.g. harcor for "hard core").
Sevillian rap, here it comes:
There is also a documentary made about the rap and graffiti artists from Seville called Sevilla
City! Día a Día de los Mejores Raperos Sevillanos! that was awarded in 2006. It's available on YouTube in Spanish in about 10 minute parts: 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5 and 5/5.
I
guess everybody already knows that rap is a type of music that is
spoken, not sung, in rhyme to the rhythm of a music beat. The word
rap comes from a 1960s slang word for conversation. Often, rap music
uses bits of other songs to provide a beat (in the case of Andalusia, it's often flamenco and reggae).
As most rap songs center around daily life, often focusing on the
hardships and violence that are often a big part of life in big
cities, we could consider rap “street poetry” (poesía
callejera).
Rap had never attracted my attention before settling
myself in
Andalusia, but
here it's appealing.For
this reason, I'm ready to claim that rap
andaluz (or rap
español, looking at it in the bigger picture, though) may be the best there
is. Without mentioning the thrilling presentation, it's noteworthy only because of the dialect. At that, my
today's post is dedicated to raperos
malagueños
for the creation of the rap artists from Seville and Málaga being
the core of Andalusian rap, at least that is what my understanding is
so far. There
are a lot of outstanding pieces available on YouTube, both individual
projects and collaborations, as it's a common practice among local
rap artists to collaborate with other doers; perhaps the best known
of them being Gordo
Master, Jefe de la M, Little
Pepe,
Ijah, El Niño
Snake, Triple XXX, Keyo, Rook Jack and
Juho.
Without
further ado here's a selection of their work for your inspiration.
Enjoy!
It's
raining. Cats and dogs. Oh, I just met an extraordinary cat today
before it started to pour. Find it in the picture! And, just for the
record, the photo was only taken to register the graffiti on the wall
(la furia - rage, anger, fury).
Anyway,
to come back to the rain, it's a special thing down here. It's a
special treat for the people who have hard time with summer heat. It's an
event for the weather-beaten countrymen to have the thirsty soil watered.
And it's definitely a very special delivery for the seed. All in all,
a blessing. Sevillians don't ever try to shelter themselves from it,
but rather accept the rain as they accept life. Some are
well-prepared, sure. They have their 80 euro rubber boots and an umbrella and
everything. Others just run in the rain. Neither get wet. Although
all prefer not to go out (which is really something, I'm telling
you) on these rainy days. They stay at home instead. They keep themselves
nice and warm and listen to the rain. Loving the sound of it. They find it comforting.
Having
lived here for a while now, I have learned not to whine about the
wet. I'm just feeling the craziest relief if I have happened to
choose to put random boots on rather than favourite leopard print
stilettos before going out on the days that turn rainy. And later on, hanging my
knee-deep wet jeans to dry, I have no hard
feelings. All let to grow.
To
sum up with, here's a song that makes the point more strongly. ToteKing, a 34-year-old Sevillian rap artist (rapero), nails it, plain and clear, saying: “Nothing
grows without food”.
