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.”
