Chicano Rap: Gender and Violence in the Postindustrial Barrio

6 THE CHICANO RAP ON GLOBALIZATION

THE CHICANO RAP ON GLOBALIZATION The Chicano rap and hip-hop explosion has taken place during a time of crisis in our barrios and throughout our world. Capitalist globalization has devastated developing countries,1 while economic restructuring has led to increased poverty, epidemic incarceration rates, repressive criminal and immigration legislation, and disenfranchisement of youth and people of color in the United States.2 In order to understand the types of stories told and analyses developed by Chicano rappers we must be aware of the impact that economic restructuring has had on Chicana/o barrios. This chapter uses the stories told by political Chicano rappers to develop a political economic history of U.S. criminal justice, the “War on Drugs,” race, and imprisonment from the mid-1980s through the 1990s. Chicano rappers articulate a criticism of capitalist globalization in their lyrics. Through their words we can see a different picture of the current economic and political situation in the United States. Their analyses of economics, the prison system, policing, and the media should be seen as a part of a larger set of critiques developed by academics and activists who argue that the politics and economics of the “New World Order” have had positive impacts only for the rich, while the rest of us have seen our quality of life diminished. Rappers such as Psycho Realm, Krazy Race, Cypress Hill, and the Funky Aztecs put faces on the statistics that many have used to condemn globalization and demonstrate how many in our communities are dissatisfied (to say the least) with economic and political decisions made by elites over the past three decades. Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Prakash in their path-breaking work, Grassroots Postmodernism (1998), focus our attention on evidence that while “the social majorities” or “two-thirds majority” of the world toil under the yoke of globalization, they have not given up hope.3 They are resisting the dehumanizing effects of capitalist globalization and 116 CHICANO RAP are struggling to advance alternatives to it. Stories from numerous places throughout the world suggest an emergent “grassroots postmodernism” through which the world’s marginalized resist the logic, structures, and behaviors associated with globalization and the New World Order and construct alternative institutions based on the cultural logic of their local traditions and customs. An examination of grassroots struggles from environmental justice movements to indigenous and land struggles indicates that many of the seemingly most destitute among us are theorizing and practicing new ways of living while critiquing and resisting the intrusion of the global market into their homes and communities.4 Esteva and Prakash contend that we must listen to these voices and engage in dialogue with them if we hope to stem the tidal wave of globalization and survive the coming globalization decades. In agreeing with them, I assert that the voices of Chicana/o youth present a particular, localized critique of globalization through the narration of their experiences in urban America. Chicano rappers have taken the lead in presenting this critique to the rest of us through recorded stories of inner-city life that if read carefully can contribute to our understanding of the effects of globalization, especially as concerns questions of violence, xenophobia, and economic powerlessness. I will focus here on a small sample of Chicano rappers from California. CHICANO RAP NARRATIVES ON THE CONSEQUENCES OF GLOBALIZATION Chicano rappers serve as an organic intellectual class for the young, Brown, urban disenfranchised.5 They theorize, represent, and give voice to the cares, concerns, desires, hopes, dreams, and problems of young inner-city Chicanas/os through their poetics rapped over the aggressive, transgressive rhythms conceived in the smoke-filled rooms of recording studios and private dwellings of the musicians.6 In this chapter I discuss a sample of this Chicana/o poetics read against the backdrop of capitalist globalization and economic restructuring that has wreaked havoc on Mexican immigrant and Chicana/o communities. Since Kid Frost released his CD Hispanic Causing Panic in 1990, Chicano rap has chronicled the effects of globalization and Chicano youths’ resistance to it. By the late 1990s, Chicano rap critiques had matured, and many have developed poignant, poetic, and precise critiques of the consequences of globalization in their communities. THE CHICANO RAP ON GLOBALIZATION 117 MEDIA AS PROPAGANDA IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER Ever since you seen American Me / you scared of me. —Funky Aztecs, “Nation of Funk” Northern California’s Funky Aztecs ingeniously...