Prototype Issue
Delivering Messages Through Hip-Hop
By Kamren Curiel
(page 1 of 1)A new generation of Latinos in LA are picking up mics faster than they would arms, in an effort to express their lives more effectively through hip-hop.
What do an Italian woman and Latino hip-hop have in common? A lot, according to filmmaker Cleo Valente, who’s documentary La Revolucion Es La Musica, exposes LA-bred hip-hop artists Psycho Realm, DJ Mugs, La Verdad, Kiki Smooth, 2Mex, and many others in an attempt to squash stereotypes and reinvent Latino music.
“Latinos are not associated with hip-hop yet and I hope this [film] will make that bridge between the two,” Valente says. “People always associate Latinos with salsa, cumbia, and reggaeton, but this is about the hip-hop movement in LA. These kids are the voice and it’s time for them to be heard.”
Valente, who was born in Naples and has been living in LA for 25 years, became integrated in Latino culture while working at MTV Tr3s (MTV’s Latin and American fusion channel). She hooked up with Producer Juan Rodriguez at an LA Ink casting call held at Rodriguez’s KGB Studio & Gallery located in industrial Downtown LA. “He wanted a tattoo and I was the casting producer. The rest is history,” she says. Valente is naturally drawn to Latino culture. The way she explains it, she is Latino.
“Come over to my house and the first thing I’m going to ask you is, ‘Did you eat? Oh, you don’t like what I’m cooking? What do you want me to make?’ My life was pretty much spent in the kitchen and it’s always been about providing for the family and giving back to the community,” she says.
It was at MTV Tr3s that Valente started to familiarize herself with Latino artists who were just beginning to cross over to the mainstream scene; artists like Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderón, and Don Omar. It wasn’t until she started her own company—Avanti Productions—that she started making distinctions between these artists and the less exposed MCs she chose to highlight in her film.
Valente got her first dose of straight up, un-sugar-coated Latino hip-hop in Watts, when KPFK’s Divine Forces Radio host, Fidel Rodriguez, invited her to the We the People hip-hop festival he organized back in April.
“Fidel said, ‘It’s going to be black and brown. Bring your camera,” she remembers. “I couldn’t believe what I found. I was blown away. There were like 3,000 kids there all mesmerized by Psycho Realm.”
It was after this festival, which brought together Latino and African American youth almost entirely peacefully, that Valente began soaking up the lyrics by artists like Sick Jacken of Psycho Realm, Lil G, and 2Mex. Theses verses educated her on a younger generation’s struggle to be brown and raised in LA and inspired her to make a film about them.
Artists like La Verdad and Kiki Smooth, who wouldn’t entirely be labeled positive or political, voice the struggle of acculturating in the U.S. as first-, second-, and third-generation Americans. Getting jumped into gangs, addicted to drugs, and put behind bars if oftentimes a reality when your socio-economic status is poverty-stricken. Growing up in ‘hoods like Inglewood, Compton, and Pico-Union is what many of these artists speak about on their tracks.
Valente is careful not to confuse these raw and gritty beats with the more redundant sounds of an almost entirely dead Reggaetón craze. She’s sincere in picking artists who are humble, wise beyond their years, and actually have something interesting to say about their own unique experiences.
The missing eyebrows, shaven head, and gas mask-sportin’ look Psycho Realm front man Jacken—who along with brother Gustavo Gonzalez, hooked up with B-Real of Cypress Hill back in 1993—is infamous for doesn’t intimidate Valente. “He’s such a nice guy; so spiritual and humble,” she says.
Through interviews with young MCs that evolve into serious discussions about their upbringing, cultural inheritance, and the struggle to adjust to American culture, La Revolucion reveals what mainstream media overlooks—the experience that inspires many Latinos to pick up a mic and rap.
What she really wants is for people of all cultures to see the film and become more aware of this LA subculture. Not a stranger to the underrepresented, her first feature film Transformed, which will be released in November as wlel, tells the story of four transgender women of different ethnicities and their struggle for acceptance.
Her advice for those who want to make a film is easy: pick up a camera and start shooting. That’s exactly what she did.
“Latinos are not associated with hip-hop yet and I hope this [film] will make that bridge between the two.” —Cleo Valente
Cleo Valente has a PhD in Computer Science and has produced radio and TV for ABC, CBS, NBC, A&E, and MTV Tr3s. La Revolucion Es La Musica is scheduled to premiere in major cities in November. For more on the film, check out www.myspace.com/larevolucioneslamusica .
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