Gabriela Brito, AKA Lela MC, performed her first rap song six months after her family fled Venezuela amid violence and a severe lack of necessities

It’s rush hour in Bogotá, and the city’s rapid-transport system is tightly packed with commuters when, on one bus, the thump of a hip-hop beat reverberates from a boombox, and a young girl starts rapping into a microphone.

Passengers crane to watch the performance, and – above the groaning of brakes and tattoo of car horns – she spits out an intricately rhyming piece about exile and hope.

Gabriela Brito was just seven when she performed her first rap song, six months after she and her family had fled the economic and political crisis in their native Venezuela and settled in the Colombian capital.

Her father, Jesús Alberto Sanz, would spend the days performing on the city’s buses in exchange for tips. Gabriela would join him from time to time, but on that day – tired of her role as a spectator – she insisted on joining in.

Taking the microphone from her father, she recited one of his pieces, which she already knew by heart. It was called Calendar.

“This morning I looked at the calendar / And I realized that a year had passed / Since I left my home for a dream / And a better future / Leaving behind my life and my friends / And knowing that they will not be with in my adventures.”

“Rolo” is local slang and refers to those native to Bogotá. “Rap Rolo” is the raw sound currently resonating across the capital, from its most diverse corners, created by all sorts of inhabitants: petite girls who daylight as graphic designers; tough shaven-headed skateboarders who spray the walls with foul-mouthed graffiti; gang members who’ve survived a few too many shootings, and environmental activists who campaign for climate justice. 

The rolo rap scene holds up a mirror to the social inequality of Bogotá. Its raw anger reflects how many lack access to political change in this highly segregated metropolis. 

Bogotá’s hip-hop is full of both the fire of the street and its eclectic, unruly cultural life. Unlike the Colombian version of reggaetón, which has been flooding out of Medellín to dominate the commercial charts for over a decade, rolo rap is urgent, expressive and dense with imagery. It’s not in the playbook of rolo rap to endlessly repeat a single refrain; songs are too precious a commodity to be squandered on repetition. 

The sound quality of many of the recordings is astonishing, as is the skill and ingenuity with which rolo rappers use multiple distribution channels. Often released on small labels via independent networks, they reach global platforms without losing touch with their barrios, often continuing to perform at the local festivals from which they draw their energy.

“What all these Rolo rappers hold in common is their urgency. By airing the rage of the marginalised, they revive hopes of a better life”

 Lucía Vargas and Karen Tovar, two MCs from Ciudad Bolívar, one of Colombia’s poorest and toughest neighbourhoods, joined forces in 2015 on foot of a European tour and founded “Naturaleza Suprema”, now one of Bogotá’s most relevant feminist, politically engaged hip hop projects. 

They sing about the oppression and murder of indigenous people in the Amazon region and about the valuable knowledge in danger of being lost as a result. The pair have campaigned for political prisoners and, in 2021, participated in the national strikes and protests against corruption and antisocial government policies. 

Their performance at the Hip Hop al Parque festival in 2023 is legendary. Their song “Tiempo de emancipación” speaks out against state-sponsored violence: “We are the strength of these people / that will not be silenced / And we are the tears of mothers / fighting for justice for their children.“

The Puente Aranda MCs who form Underclass U.C. also rail against police violence. The sound on their album “El Rap Conmigo” (2019) is less explosive than that of Naturaleza Suprema and more like the soundtrack to a nighttime stroll through the city streets, past walls covered in graffiti (also, incidentally, an important, oft-criminalised form of expression in the rap rolo environment). “Lo ideal” (2024), their latest single, is a metaphysical chant, which could just as easily have been written by hundred-year-old monks. 

In contrast, Suppra, who is probably the best-known female lyricist in Colombian rap, impresses with her fresh, youthful, sparkling voice and sophisticated arrangements. From Kennedy, one of Bogotá’s poorer neighbourhoods, she now livies in Chile. Suppra’s lyrics aspire to a political as well as spiritual emancipation, her rap sowing seeds for the future in a kind of activism of consciousness that simultaneously unleashes the “power of an anaconda” according to her current album “Epifanía“. 

Realidad Mental, alias Óscar Alejandro Corredor Zabala, an icon and veteran of the scene who, like Suppra, comes from Kennedy, also raps about alternate states of consciousness. He’s been on the brink of death, thanks to a hellish addiction to basuco, a grim low-grade form of cocaine, and frequently makes prison visits to rap with inmates in his rough, lived-in voice. 

It’s hard to think of another rolo rapper whose freestyle alchemy (which also takes inspiration from his love of literature) could compare with Realidad Mental. His album “Volviendo a lo básico” (2014) features dark, underworldly sound fragments, jazzy saxophone and scratchy, plaintive violins. 

What all these Rolo rappers hold in common is their urgency. By airing the rage of the marginalised, they revive hopes of a better life. 

It’s hard to believe that Nelson Martinez, better known by his artistic moniker N. Hardem, has been on the Bogotá underground scene for almost 10 years now.

The Bogotá MC, beat maker and producer has five EPs under the belt, dating back as far as 2014, each release seemingly perpetual in its freshness. From debut Cine Negro (2014) through Tambor (2015), Lo Que Me Eleva (2017), Tambor II and Rhodesia (both 2019) there are no questions regarding his prolificacy. Yet despite such abundance and a host of other collaborations throughout his career, it isn’t until today that he is releasing his first full length LP, Verdor.

We catch up with one of Colombia’s finest modern day wordsmiths in the Colombian capital’s Mambo Negro studio, a hub for emergent and established talent alike, and where N. Hardem has been making himself at home of late. Taking a break from tireless creativity, we talk music, inspiration, latest album Verdor and life in the context of pandemic. A cigarette poking out from the black beanie perched upon his head, N. Hardem cuts a laid-back figure, speaking with clear vision and a striking groundedness throughout.

Who and what is N Hardem?

My name is Nelson, but in this project as N. Hardem I am MC, beat-maker, producer, and so I try more and more to give a voice to rap and music through the project that I want to do, from Bogotá. I want to make Bogotá rap.

And what about your influences, where have these come from?

The aesthetic influences that feed into much of the music that I have listened to in recent years surround jazz and also rap, especially from the ’90s and early 2000s. I think that at one point I had it more clear although now I feel that I cannot tell you specifically what my influences are due to, or where they come from. It is a very big thing because there is also the voice from the street, the things that are there all the time surrounding you.\

Soul AM & N. Hardem “Perro de Ataque”, taken from 2014’s debut EP, Black Cine

You use a lot of samples in your music; spoken word and film-like scripts, to a lot of jazz. Do you have any process for deciding on those?

I don’t know how much jazz I have listened to, but I have related by listening to it and also interacting with musicians from here and from other places. Although, I think that I have listened to more jazz and more world music through rap and beats than anything else. [I’m] looking to make rap with the sound that at one point a younger version of myself wanted to: asking the question ‘why does this sound like this to these people? Ah! Because they sample jazz, they take such things from here and then it’s more on that side.’

How does that selection process take place, is it something driven by influence, theme or just based on gut-feeling?

It’s an affinity with something to do with life. When I was younger it was the search to emulate the sounds or things that one felt were cool and that were cool to imitate. But right now, I feel like I’m finally getting closer to making the music I want, genuinely and sincerely. It is more when the spirit connects with sounds, with an idea, with a context or with a movie or a time in the world, a historical event, a character, whatever it may be.

Tell us a bit more about hip-hop in Colombia, where is that scene right now? 

It’s growing and it’s solidifying; let’s just say that at least within the indie scene which is what I know of there have been a few indications that a solid industry and scene is taking shape. Each artist is in the search for themselves, but also when we connect, we know that we can support each other and that we can reach something cool by working together. It’s nice, a deeply-rooted collective conscience, because you know that hip-hop is very individual and original and stand-out.

Totally, and in addition to solo releases (Tambor and Tambor II) you’ve worked a lot in partnership in the past. On Rhodesia with Las Hermanas, Lo Que Me Eleva with Arkeólogo and even Black Cine with Soul AM. Tell us some more then about how Verdor has been pulled together given that it features a number of collaborations. 

This album, in my discography, has as its main characteristic the fact that there is no longer a single producer making the music, nor myself, as was the case with Tambor, nor one as it had been with, Cine Negro, Lo Que Me Eleva or Rhodesia. Here there are already a lot of people featuring and collaborating but my fear, because the experience of only having been with one person up until then, produced fear. It was like ‘how the hell is this going to happen without it becoming a compilation?’. I think that that was the longest job to do, giving it a consistency. Maybe it doesn’t have it at first sight, but I do feel that although everything is quite different in some way, there is a film that narrates the whole thing. Well, for me it is a garden, a patch, where there are many crops or little things that are slightly different but all contribute to the space.

Where have you drawn your inspiration specifically for Verdor? 

[With] this work there was no search for aesthetics or a struggle, as had happened on other occasions. Rather, this was an impulse towards my own voice to accept myself. A more mature moment of life and to do something with it. It came out of a free spirit and the desire to heal as well. I gave myself a lot of freedom on the album in the way of writing, recording, producing but I was also looking for that, to heal a little and grow positively and deliver that.

The artwork is clearly well thought out on this release, what kind of process went into this? 

It is like the need to express thought in graphics because that is what I studied, from the beginning I have done the art direction and visuals for all my projects. In this one, it was something like my graduation work, because I have been doing this for about 10 years and it is my first full-length album. I wanted the visual work to be broader and perhaps a little less abstract, a little more ambitious and complex, although I don’t know how complex and ambitious for me it was; it is more extensive. [It was made] with the help of Juan José (Órtiz Arenas), the photographer with whom I designed the booklet, and who has also accompanied me in the visual search.

Tell us a little more about where you are in the here and now. How has the pandemic affected your creative process? 

Well at first I felt terror, like everyone. [It was] like a war, in the city no one went out on the street because it was like a bomb could explode, for me that was the first sensation. Then, I just started to adapt, but also fear and containment and loneliness were playing tricks on me. For me creating was positive, because I had time. There were many months without rushing, maybe with the need to look for things a little more immediately, even elementary things for survival, but there was never a lack of music, there was never a lack of inspiration, the album always accompanied me because we gave each other a lot of love in the most difficult moments. There were also other very beautiful moments and from that concentration for which there was space last year, two more songs came out, the space came out to be able to mix it, find the right person to do the art. I had time for everything and that was great. I didn’t do it in a rush, there was no reason to run.

Bogota, Colombia – Under the sweltering Andean sun, Walter Queragama walked several kilometres late last month from Ciudad Bolivar, a poor neighbourhood in the south of the Colombian capital, to Bogota’s National Park.

There, he and hundreds of Indigenous Embera people, displaced from their homes amid a coronavirus-related economic crisis and forced from their traditional lands by continuing violence, planned to camp out to demand housing and jobs.

As government subsidies offered as part of a COVID-19 relief package run out, the families – many of whom held infants in their arms – said they have nowhere to go.

“Today, we’re going to rest,” Queragama, a 21-year-old rapper from Alto Andagueda in northwest Colombia, sang in his native Ebera Bedea language, as the crowd walked to the downtown park on September 29, drops of perspiration forming on his face. “Today, we aren’t going to dialogue [with the government] because we’re too tired.”

Queragama and his 23-year-old brother Gonzalo, co-creators of the rap group Embera Warra, or “Sons of the People”, said the displacement and resistance of the Embera people serve as inspiration for their art – and rap is the way they have chosen to tell their community’s stories.

“We have many stories – of history, of culture, of displacement,” Walter recently told Al Jazeera at the makeshift campsite where hundreds have set up tents and cooked outdoors over campfires. “We have to tell all these stories and send a message.”

The Embera people, divided between Colombia and Panama, live in remote riverside and mountain communities across the Pacific coast and the jungles of northwestern Colombia. About 50,000 people belonging to the Embera tribe, which consists of Chami, Katio, Dobida and Eperara Siapidara people, are at risk of extinction, according to a high court decision in 2009.

Thousands have been uprooted by continuing violence between the state and paramilitary groups and rebel fighters and forced to live in cities where food, housing, and employment are hard to find. The government has said more than 2,500 have resettled in Bogota since 2012.

But as the conflict lingers, and as Colombia experienced one of its most violent years in recent memory in 2020, hundreds more are expected to arrive.

“Displacement has wreaked havoc for the spiritual and cultural lives of our youth,” said Higinio Obispo, a leader of the Eperara Siapidara people, part of the Embera tribe. “These youth want to manifest what publicly goes unsaid. They’ve found they can do this through music.”

One of the first to use rap was Linaje Originarios, a duo of brothers Brayan and Dairon Tascon from an Indigenous community in Valparaiso. They released their first single in 2016. Condor Pasa became a surprise hit, receiving tens of thousands of views on YouTube and launching them to stardom.

It also set a precedent in the country, demonstrating that music based on Embera teachings and performed in the community’s native dialect could also be commercially popular.

Bogotá, November 20, 2020—ICTJ and the Movement of Latin American Hip Hop Expressions (MELAH) have joined forces to cohost the third International Hip Hop Encounter, which will take place virtually this week from November 25 to November 28. The four-day online event will bring together artists and musicians from across Latin America and Africa along with activists, social leaders, and civil society representatives. The festival’s theme is the role of hip hop music and culture in uncovering truth, preserving memory, and resisting violence and oppression and will include a live concert streamed online, prerecorded music recordings and videos, a virtual art exhibition, and themed panel discussions and working sessions.

Across Latin America and around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions implemented to curb its spread have not only exposed but exacerbated economic and social inequalities deeply rooted in historical injustices and exclusion. Meanwhile, the cultural sector including the live music industry have been all but brought to a standstill since March. In these challenging times, it is more important than ever to support and to strengthen cultural groups such as MELAH.

Created by Revista Cartel Urbano in 2017, MELAH offers Latin American hip hop artists a platform to exchange experiences as well as opportunities to share their music and other expressions of hip hop culture. The network also reaches out to marginalized neighborhoods to engage young people and inspire them to focus on their education and future, get involved civically, and actively improve their lives and communities. Today, more than 100 artists, social leaders, and entrepreneurs from all over the world belong to the network. MELAH has organized music and cultural festivals in Mexico City, Havana, Bogotá, and Medellín, convening artists, activists, changemakers, and members of the public for a celebration of music and culture and an exchange of ideas on the challenges and issues relevant to the hip hop movement and society in general.

ICTJ advances justice in societies emerging from conflict or repression and grappling with massive human rights abuses, helping them to break the cycles of violence and abuse and lay the foundations for peace, justice, and inclusion. As part of its mission, ICTJ frequently collaborates with youth activists and artists to help amplify their voices, increase their civic engagement and participation in transitional justice processes, and ensure they know the truth about their country’s past and actively shape the national narrative.

Artists at the festival will perform music and discuss the role hip hop culture can play in building peace, strengthening democracy, and uncovering the truth about past violations and ensuring victims are never forgotten. Guests include Colombian musicians La Etnnia, Jhonpri MC Systema Solar, Ruzto, and Specktra de la Rima; artists from across Latin America, such as Apolonia (Venezuela), Malena D’ Lesio (Argentina), Rafuagi (Brazil), and Nakury (Costa Rica); and musicians Mj Martialo of Impact Positif from Côte d’Ivoire and Awa Bling from the Gambia, both countries where ICTJ works. They will join other artists, activists, and civil society representatives in online panel discussions, which will be simultaneously translated to English, French, and Spanish. MELAH will also launch the #ArteEnResistencia virtual art gallery, featuring street protest art from all over Latin America.

Bogotá — the capital and largest city of Colombia — was founded 486 years ago today (Aug. 6), and Billboard is celebrating by spotlighting some of its musical gems.

Our list (in alphabetical order below) includes a mix of renowned and emerging artists from the likes of Latin rock giants Aterciopelados to up-and-coming pop star Ela Taubert. The former is a three-time Latin Grammy-winning band and five-time Grammy nominee. The latter, who’s gained traction on social media with her suave, melancholy vocals, recently nabbed the new generation – female award at the 2024 Premios Juventud.

Colombia, overall, is known for its rich musical culture — represented across genres by top-tier artists such as Cali’s Grupo Niche (salsa), Medellín’s Karol G (reggaetón), Montería’s Aniceto Molina (cumbia), and La Guajira’s Diomedes Díaz (vallenato).

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In Bogotá — which was founded on Aug. 6, 1538 by Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and became Colombia’s capital on August 7, 1819 — the music scene is varied, but far more edgy, indie, alternative and pop-centric. Its music and live scene is so powerful and vibrant that in 2012 it was named a UNESCO City of Music.

“What is happening currently with Colombian music is, first, the reflection of a country that has many geographies and therefore also a lot of sound richness,” Aterciopelados’ singer, Andrea Echeverri, previously said to Billboard Español. “There are not only Caribbean sounds but there are Pacific sounds, sounds from the coasts but also from the inland. All this richness is now being shown to the world with a very powerful infrastructure.”

Below, check out a list of Bogotan artists to have on your playlist.

1

Andrés Cepeda

Andrés Cepeda

Photo : Ricardo Pinzon

Cepeda’s career began in the early ’90s, but it wasn’t until 2009 that he got on the international radar with “Día Tras Día.” With its poetic and metaphor lyrics backed by romantic rock melodies, Cepeda chants about falling in love every day with that special someone. For the most part, that’s who Cepeda is: a modern-day trovador and bolerista, and a romantic soul with a rockstar aura. In 2013, he won the Latin Grammy for best traditional pop album with Lo Mejor Que Hay En Mi Vida, and has collaborated with many artists, including Sebastian Yatra, Greeicy, Morat and Jesse & Joy.

2

Aterciopelados

Aterciopelados

Photo : Daniela Castañeda

WIth Andrea Echeverri on vocals and guitar, and Héctor Buitrago on bass, Aterciopelados has appeared on the Billboard charts with its album Gozo Poderoso (2001), which reached No. 11 on Top Latin Albums and No. 7 on Latin Pop Albums, while the song “El Álbum” (from that same set) entered the Latin Pop Airplay ranking. The Colombian band is known for timeless Latin rock anthems including “Florecita Rockera,” “Baracunátana” and “Bolero Falaz.”

3

Bomba Estéreo

Fusing Caribbean rhythms with electronic beats, Bomba Estéreo — led by Samaria singer, artist and composer Li Saumet and musician Simón Mejía — is an alternative band with roots in the colors, fruits and sounds across Latin America. Amongst Bomba’s most notable tracks are 2015’s “Fiesta (Remix)” with Will Smith, “Soy Yo” (2016), and the 2022 “Ojitos Lindos” with Bad Bunny — all of which entered Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart, with the latter of the three also making the all-genre Hot 100 chart.

4

Diamante Eléctrico

Composed by Juan Galeano (vocals and bass), Daniel Álvarez (guitar), and Andrés Kenguan (guitar and synths), Diamante Eléctrico is known for its garage rock, blues-infused rock tunes such as “Roto,” “Las Horas,” and “Oro.” The Colombian trio is a four-time Latin Grammy winner including best rock album in 2015 for B and 2017 for La Gran Oscilación. In 2023, the band won best rock song for “Leche de Tigre.”

5

Don Tetto — formed by Diego Pulecio (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Carlos Leongomez (lead guitar), James Valderrama (bass, vocals) and Jaime Medina (drums) — has been an established rock band since 2003. Known for its alternative rock vibe, the Colombian group has been nominated twice for best rock album at the Latin Grammys: with Mienteme-Prometeme (2011) and Don Tetto (2014).

6

Ela Taubert

Ela Taubert accepts the The New Generation Award onstage during the 2024 Premios Juventud Awards at Coliseo Jose Miguel Agrelot on July 25, 2024 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Photo : Jaydee Lee/Getty Images

Forming part of the inaugural generation of Universal Music Latin’s Abbey Road Institute & Art House Academy, Ela Taubert is a well-rounded pop artist taken under the wings of Latin Grammy-winning producer Julio Reyes Copello. Her sweet, potent vocal range — which is both melancholy and mesmerizing — can be heard in her own original music, such as her 2019 debut single “Salto de Fe,” as well as “¿Cómo es que tú?,” and “Crecer.” Taubert has already shared the stage with Diego Torres and Alejandro Sanz, and this year won her first Premios Juventud award.

7

Esteman

Known for his signature electro-pop sound, Esteman is one of the most eclectic artists today, and he also doesn’t shy away from the vulnerability that comes with his piercing and emotional lyrics. After a breakthrough in the early 2010s, the singer-songwriter scored collaborations with artists like Natalia Lafourcade, Andrea Echeverri (from Aterciopelados) and Carla Morrison. In May, Esteman released his latest album, Secretos.

8

Fonseca

Fonseca photographed on October 4, 2023 at the Faena Forum in Miami.

Photo : Mary Beth Koeth

Latin Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Fonseca has a vocal quality that can really stand out — one that’s been compared by Juan Luis Guerra to that of a “nightingale.” Throughout his 20-year career, Fonseca, known for his tropipop anthems, has blessed fans with songs like “Te Mando Flores,” “Entre Mi Vida y la Tuya” and “Eres Mi Sueño.”

9

Monsieur Periné

In 2015, Colombian group Monsieur Periné won best new artist at the Latin Grammys. Blending swing, alt, pop and Colombian rhythms, the ensemble released their debut set, Hecho a Mano, in 2012. Since then, not only Monsieur Periné has become not only a local favorite, but also abroad, with a significant fanbase in Europe and the U.S. Comprised of Catalina García and Santiago Prieto, Monsieur’s latest release is Bolero Apocalíptico.

10

Morat

Getting its start hand-delivering CDs in its native Bogotá, the Colombian pop-rock band released its first album, Solo El Amor Y Sus Efectos Secundarios, in 2016. That same year, it received a Latin Grammy best new artist nomination. Morat’s Si Ayer Fuera Ho, scored the band its first entry on Billboard‘s Latin Pop Albums chart, where it peaked at No. 18 on the tally dated Nov. 19, 2022. Composed of childhood friends Juan Pablo Isaza, Juan Pablo Villamil and brothers Simón Vargas and Martín Vargas, Morat most recently wrapped the South American leg of its first stadium tour.

11

Paula Arenas

This year, Colombian singer-songwriter Paula Arenas scored her second Grammy nomination, thanks to her gorgeous set A Ciegas. The 2023 release was also up for album of the year at the Latin Grammys. Throughout her illustrious career, the pop star — who made her debut with the 2017 EP Matices (produced by Julio Reyes Copello) — has received 15 Latin Grammy noms.

12

Honorary Bogotano: Carlos Vives

Carlos Vives

Photo : Natalia Gw

Born in Santa Marta, Colombia, Carlos Vives moved to Bogotá at the age of 12. There, he got involved in the local music scene and ultimately created a name for himself with his distinct tropipop style, which fuses vallenato, cumbia, champeta with Latin pop, reggaeton, and dance music. Vives has earned 30 songs in the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart, including five No. 1 hits — such as his 1999 smash “Fruta Fresca,” which reigned for six weeks. Vives is a 17-time Latin Grammy winner, and two-time Grammy winner, and has been named the 2024 Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year. An honorary Bogotano, Vives owns a live music bar and restaurant in Bogotá called Gaira Café Cumbia House.

La Perla know that serious fun and serious conversations don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Based in Bogotá, Colombia, the trio of Karen Forero, Giovanna Mogollón, and Diana Sanmiguel make effervescent songs that combine folk music from Colombia’s northern coast with other South American and Caribbean styles (including cumbia and rumba) and elements of hip-hop, punk, and pop. La Perla do all this with just percussion, Indigenous flutes called gaitas, and their voices, in harmony and solo (and occasionally beatboxing). Their music is rooted in male-dominated cultural traditions, but they use it to tell women’s stories and fight for social justice; even when they sing about intractable crises such as the deforestation of the Amazon (as they do on “El Sol,” off their 2022 debut, Callejera), they take strength from confronting them together. Over the years, La Perla have toured the U.S., Mexico, Europe, and beyond, and they recently joined forces with a quirky jazz-funk combo from Toulouse, France, called Pulcinella. As PulciPerla, in January the combined ensemble released the album Tatekieto, which plays like a surrealist round-the-world adventure with unusual characters, secret passages, and exciting surprises at every stop. With any luck, La Perla will adapt tunes from Tatekieto for this show, but whatever they play will inspire and energize you.

We catch up with New York hip-hop artist Yeshua DapoED, who was recently here connecting with his Colombian roots.

You’d be forgiven for not associating Colombia with Old School hip-hop and its New York-based explosion in the 90s. However, our salsa-loving country can claim one of the scene’s acclaimed underground voices: Yeshua DapoED (or Edwin Yeshua Avellaneda as he’s known to his Colombian parents), who was recently in Bogotá catching up with the country’s very own fledgling hip-hop movement.

Yeshua – or Yesh as he prefers to be called – grew up speaking Spanish in Brighton Beach (the Brooklyn one, not the England or Melbourne one) but had little contact with his parents’ homeland, only visiting Bogotá, Barranquilla and Cali a handful of times over his 40 years. While New York in the 90s was synonymous with hip-hop, he found little trace of it in the salsa-dominated Cali barrios of his uncles and aunts, leading him to forego any plans for a music career here.

Twenty years later, however, a new generation of Colombian, 90s-obsessed hip-hop aficionados discovered that one half of the duo Siah & Yeshua DapoED – whose critically acclaimed 1996 EP The Visualz is now considered a collectors item – was ‘one of them’. They tried to lure Yesh back home to put on some gigs. The New York artist was initially sceptical of audience demand in Colombia, so it wasn’t until last year that he finally made it out here. Taking advantage of an invitation to a stag do in Cartagena, he made a one-off, intimate performance in front of roughly 150 hip-hop fanatics at The Chronic in La Soledad, organised by Viniloyalty, whom he credits as the main instigators of the hip-hop collectors movement in the city. Yesh put on an hour-long solo set, with material spanning from crowd favourites from his Siah and Yeshua days, to some later solo works, to his current group Wee Bee Foolish, as well as some music off his projects currently in the works, before signing records his fans had brought to the show. 

Yesh originally met Siah (real name Nadav Samin) through childhood friend and future collaborator Ken Boogaloo (Kenneth Vialva) and started performing with him at an open mic night for aspiring MCs and poets run by influential hip-hop mogul Bobbito Garcia, who in the 1990s hosted the genre’s most influential radio show with DJ Stretch Armstrong (Adrian Bartos). 

The pair decided they had a better shot at performing as a duo, combining Yesh’s technical abilities with Samin’s lyrical prowess. They were noticed by Garcia, who signed them to his cult label Fondle ‘Em Records, along with KMD, The Juggaknots and later MF Doom (once KMD disbanded). Siah & Yeshua DapoED released The Visualz without any demos, before parting company on amicable terms, the former pursuing a career in academia.

Relic

While neither Colombians, nor Latin Americans in general, were particularly prominent in the 90s New York hip-hop scene, Yesh says some were involved from the get-go. Though many failed to get mainstream recognition, there were many Colombian DJs and MCs that he knew and worked with while making his name in the industry. Yesh also used samples off an old Colombian jazz fusion record that he found during a trip to his parents’ native country in the 90s, a relic from when records were still pressed here.

Yesh has since collaborated with Siah on numerous occasions, as well as with Boogaloo, with whom he fronts the group Wee Bee Foolish, alongside Boogaloo’s younger brother, Robert, a talented producer in his own right, using the pseudonym XO. Yesh is currently involved in a series of four projects with the latter (now known as Xtro718), all standalone productions that fit together into a bigger picture, based heavily around experimentation with unconventional time signatures. He’s also at work with Jazz Spastiks, an underground hip-hop duo from Scotland.

Related: Hip-hop al Parque celebrates

Yesh described his first experience with the Colombian scene last year as like, “Walking through a door into an era 20 years in my past.” His first thought was: “Man, these people are really living the 90s.”

“They’re just studying, but they’re listening to this music, feeling the vibe, into the beat and that sort of stuff,” he told The Bogotá Post on his recent visit. “They might not understand every single word, or every metaphor or concept or whatever, but they’re getting the vibe from it and I felt like there was something there.” 

The emulation of the original scene was so true to the genre, said Yesh, that musicians and producers are even using the same antiquated machinery as their New York predecessors. The same style of jazz samples that helped make a name for such iconic artists as A Tribe Called Quest and Pete Rock & CL Smooth can be heard permeating much of the new music coming out of Bogotá and Medellín now, albeit with an added Latin flavour of cumbia and Afro-Caribbean beats.

Collaboration

Originally planning to reconnect with his roots by setting up a record label in Colombia and signing young artists, Yesh realised last year that the best way to influence the burgeoning scene and help upcoming musicians was to actually collaborate on productions with them. 

He is now working with some of Colombia’s most exciting names in hip-hop, such as N. Hardem, Ecks from Viniloyalty (better known as Francisco Antonio Cano, one of Bogotá’s most renowned graffiti artists), Muffwax (his DJ at the Bogotá show), Diggin’ Flava, and ‘El Arkeólogo’ from AlcolirykoZ, among others. 

Yesh is putting the finishing touches on some videos shot here during the trip, featuring many of the above artists, as well as cameo appearances from some of Colombia’s most iconic urban scenery, such as Monserrate, Medellín and Bogotá’s famed graffiti murals.

Yesh could even see himself moving to Colombia in the distant future, although the health-food and cooking enthusiast, who spent a whole day in Medellín trying to track down some borojó in its elusive fresh, non-processed form, has set one condition – he would have to live near the fresh veg market of Paloquemao.

Nelson Enrique Martinez is a shy, quiet man, over six-feet in stature, rugged up with a scarf draped around his wolfish beard that flows into a bun at the back. Anyone passing him in Teusaquillo, his local barrio, could be forgiven for assuming he were just another university student, as opposed to arguably Colombia’s most exciting and compelling hip-hop artist: N. Hardem. Nelson Martinez is, in fact, the latter: an artist already widely respected in the industry with five records to his name at the young age of 26. Judging by the quality of his work so far, it’s little wonder he’s been referred to in the press as ‘your favourite rapper’s favourite rapper.’

Hardem performed his latest album, Rhodesia which was released last year, on August 15 at the brand-new Ghetto Music Tank. The gig was as unconventional as the album – with little to do upstairs near the stage, the audience were mostly congregated downstairs in the venue’s trademark games bar, an area designed in homage to the 80s arcade at the beginning of the Black Mirror episode, ‘San Junipero’. 

This led to fans having to float between the two floors, no indication being given as to when the show would actually start. Despite this, and technically being the opening act for Ha$lo Pablito, a young, bratty and aloof Trap act seemingly intended to be a YouTube sensation, the room was packed out by the time producer Las Hermanas (confusingly neither a woman, nor plural) made it onto the stage

Judging from the immediate and rapturous recognition of the siren-like opening strains of ‘Harare’, it was abundantly clear who the punters had come out to see. While humble and softly-spoken in person, N. Hardem the performer cuts an imposing figure on stage, his tall and gangly frame lording over fans, eyes hidden behind large aviators, adding to his imperiousness, apt considering the overarching imperial theme of the album – colonial extractivism, inspired by Garcia Marquez’s butchered ‘bananeras’ in 100 Years of Solitude and countless other Colombian narrators all mythologising a history of foreign powers exploiting Colombian land and people. 

Anecdotally, Hardem claims the conceptual attachment to colonial Southern Africa that defines the album and gave it its name came simply “from getting into the mood of making a record.” Seamlessly switching between the album and his other well-known tracks (Rhodesia’s runtime of 20 minutes makes this a necessity, as he pointed out before the show), Hardem had the audience enthralled, dispersing to about half their number as he made way for the headliner after around an hour.

Embracing the unorthodox

Rhodesia is a unique album in the Colombian hip-hop canon. Equal parts atmospheric and confrontational, Las Hermana’s production combines heavy-hitting boom bap beats with wailing, space-age synthesizer and futuristic, yet tribal ambience. Hardem rates the producer as “one of, if not the most original beatmakers in the whole country.” The vocals come across as far more aggressive and urgent than any of Hardem’s previous work. “Rhodesia is violence – sonic violence, lyrical violence, poetic violence. That’s the concept.” he says. He describes the departure from more conventional hip-hop as something that he “needed”, and attributes a lot of the new style to his new infatuation with avant-garde and freeform jazz.

Related: From Brooklyn to Bogotá, hip-hop artist Yeshua DapoED about Colombia.

This embrace of the unconventional typifies what differentiates N. Hardem in the genre. While many of his Colombian peers grew up listening to 90s East-coast rappers, Hardem started writing reggae songs as a 12-year-old and only found his way to 90s New York hip-hop via Spanish acts from Zaragoza. 

Like his flatmate Ecks (who released Hardem’s first album, Cine Negro), Hardem was attracted to hip-hop through a love of painting and graffiti first. He warmly recalls his childhood in Ciudad Kennedy, growing up in a close-knit, “beautiful” community, across the road from Mundo Aventura. His family moved to the industrial neighbourhood of Puente Aranda when he was 12, which is where he started graffitiing as a teenager in the small hours of the night. The inherent connection between ‘rapear y pintar’ is most deeply delved into in Cine Negro (2014).

Originally released as a tape cassette with only 140 copies made, Cine Negro is a smooth, jazz-infused debut that sounds as if it could have been made in New York during the early 90s. Producer Soul A.M., a beatmaker from Medellín, intersperses slick record scratches with mellow, often mournful jazz samples, giving the record a timeless sound the likes of which Ali Shaheed Muhammad or J Dilla might have been happy to put their names to. 

Cheekily doubling down on the 90s feel, whilst adding a distinctly Colombian twist, Hardem even sneaks in the greatest 90s football reference this writer’s ever heard in a hip-hop song, referencing Tino Asprilla’s time at possibly the most quintessentially 90s club there ever was – the ill-fated and dodgily-run Parma FC – in the second track, ‘Director y Protagonista’. One of Hardem’s most distinctive trademarks is also his ability to glide seamlessly in and out of English and Spanish as he raps, using each language according to the cultural needs of the phrase. The album is arguably Hardem’s most cogent and tightly-produced work to date and is set for re-release on vinyl later this year through Viniloyalty, the same label that originally released the cassette.

Hardem has also dabbled in some hip-hop production himself. He produced all the beats and instrumentals on his 2015 release Tambor – a deeply personal labour of love that Ecks from Viniloyalty describes as the ‘marrow’ of the Hardem anthology – a 12-minute slice of the eclecticism, experimentalism and soulful beats that are essential elements of his entire body of work. He released Tambor Dos late last month, a continuation of the original project – a ‘diary’ dedicated to his friends, family, and daughter. 

In his own words, “Aesthetically, what it communicates is simplicity – breakbeats, atmospheres, some melodies and rapping.” The two Tambor releases fit neatly with his others – less commercially-geared than 2017’s critically acclaimed Lo Que Me Eleva (produced by El Arkeologo from Medellín-based Alkolyrikoz), not quite as raw as Rhodesia.

Hardem has huge hopes and aspirations for this current generation of hip-hop artists, and believes Colombia is entering a defining moment in the grand scheme of the country’s history. He sees his generation as breaking away from the conservatism that dominated those before them, living in fear of bombs and violence that plagued the country during the decade he grew up in, as well as those that preceded it. 

“We’re screaming as loudly as we can,” he proclaims. If this 26-year-old’s accomplishments to date are anything to go on, Colombia has a very bright future ahead of it indeed

Bogotá’s national museum offers the chance to clue up on all things hip-hop colombiano or simply indulge in some 90s nostalgia ahead of this year’s 25^th anniversary of Hip-Hop al Parque.

The compelling rhythms and slang-ladden lyrics of paisas Alcolirykoz aren’t the traditional welcome visitors might expect on entrance into the Museo Nacional. Nor is it exactly the norm to stumble upon a fellow visitor tagging a wall in fluorescent pink marker without so much as a cursory glance from the attendant security guard. 

But then Nación Hip-Hop: Colombia al Ritmo de una Cultura is far from the stuffy conservative fare one might expect from any other national history museum. Professional curators have teamed up with some of Colombian hip-hop’s biggest stars such as N.Hardem and La Etnnia, both of whom lit up Festival Cordillera last year, to transform the temporary exhibition hall into an energetic celebration of urban culture in Colombia.

Aiming to set the tone for its bicentennial year, the museum has pulled out all the stops, adopting a holistic approach that encompasses art, music, dance and fashion in order to plot the rise of hip-hop from a genre banished from commercial airwaves to an artform so respected that it has been the subject of three major exhibitions in Colombia in recent decades. Organisers have even gone so far as to arrange a host of free dance and music performances and workshops open to fans of all ages.

Whilst a commemoration of a culture that is less than a quarter of the museum’s age might seem an odd way to mark this major anniversary, the crowds of young exhibition-goers it attracts and the up-to-date curation both pay testament to the institution’s enduring relevance as an educational space and its desire to chronicle the popular history and culture of the nation as it unfurls.

2023 also marks a big year for hip-hop. Although things only really got going in Colombia in the mid-1980s, the genre first appeared on the world stage fifty years ago. This is also the 25^th year of music-making for Bogotá’s Hip-Hop al Parque. By framing the Colombian hip-hop scene as a social movement as well as a cultural phenomenon, the exhibition loudly affirms its continuing purpose as a “voice for the voiceless” in the words of Zkirla, one of the artists to contribute to the curation. 

The inclusion of protest placards and police riot shields from the 2021 protests, during which graffiti artists and rappers used their mediums to contribute to the mass demands for change, serve as a potent symbol that hip-hop is still as relevant as ever.

The exhibition offers novices a crash-course in hip-hop culture told through cassettes, denim jackets, spray-paint cans, and a carefully selected soundtrack, guiding visitors from the movement’s heavily US-influenced roots to the development of its uniquely Colombian sound, aesthetics and political undercurrent today. 

The display opens with a dummy’s guide to the four central elements of hip-hop culture: breakdancing, djing, graffiti, and rapping, introducing key terminology like konke (dance floor) and b-girl/boy (breakdancer).

The exhibition then wends its way chronologically from the breakdance craze of the 1980s and initial debuts of Colombian rap, through to the troubled 1990s when rap artists were forced off the airwaves and lyrics became dominated by the big issues facing the country, such as conflict and drug-trafficking. 

Despite the difficulties of the decade, this era is presented as the golden age of hip-hop colombiano; the years that gave birth to the Hip-Hop al Parque festival and saw the release of some of the scene’s most acclaimed work including La Etnnia’s debut full album ‘El ataque del Metano’ and Gotas de Rap’s seminal ‘Rap Opera’. 

After revelling in the glory of the mid-90s, the exhibition once again moves on to highlight the transition out of estudios caseros into high-tech studios and the emergence of the producer as a key figure of influence in the current music scene.   

Whilst the exhibition offers a perfect entry point for the hip-hop illiterate, those more familiar with the specifics of the genre needn’t fear. Alongside a heavy dose of nostalgia, it also includes several thoughtful details sure to elevate the experience for even the most knowledgeable hip-hop connoisseurs. 

One such notable detail is the attention given throughout the exhibition to female contributions to the movement. These are marked out by a small purple symbol, allowing greater appreciation of the role played by women in a scene that is often seen as male-dominated, integrating them subtly throughout, without making them a sideshow.  

There are also effective efforts to capture the spirit of the movement within the management of the space – a huge dancefloor acts as the exhibition’s centre piece, inviting visitors to break out into spontaneous performance and curators have aimed to democratise the space. Recently the future of the exhibition’s graffiti wall, an increasingly common attraction in Colombian galleries, was placed in the hands of social media users who were asked whether it should be painted over to make way for fresh tags.