On the aesthetic level, decolonized music presents itself as a direct antagonist to the traditional values promoted by the culture industry.
BOCAFLOJAEvery day of my life I have been in situations, not just in Mexico, in the US too, in which I identified the form of operation as racism.
More Bocafloja Quotes
-
-
The racial question, and thus class struggle, of course, I think they are processes which necessarily are intersecting all the time.
BOCAFLOJA -
They have to add up all those processes and articulate those privileges to try to equalize the historical process.
BOCAFLOJA -
I believe a lot in gangsta rap, I see in it a lot of positive things as it is. I believe it is only about doing politicization work. Revolutionary change will come from there, it won’t come from conscious rap.
BOCAFLOJA -
I believe that we have to play the game of strategy, and understand how to move the pieces because this is how the political spectrum functions.
BOCAFLOJA -
I believe that music offers us possibilities for analysis, at least in my case, more profound in many ways, but at the same time that profundity is an accessible profundity that has atemporal repercussions.
BOCAFLOJA -
And those families for generations have maintained themselves in positions of power. Latin America founded itself on everyone being equal, but in reality we aren’t.
BOCAFLOJA -
A lot of the exercise of embracing identity as a political affirmation is not just simply parked in the question of skin color or culture, but more it is a political affirmation with all these implications and more.
BOCAFLOJA -
I think in terms of the themes that I have worked on most is establishing questions of race in the context of Latin America.
BOCAFLOJA -
The countries made themselves independent from Spain, but only changed owners, who stayed in positions of power were the criollos, the Spanish descendants who were the new administrators of power and wealth in the country.
BOCAFLOJA -
European militants recognize Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the Mexican militants followed their example and legitimated his work because the Europeans said, “Hey, Mumia Abu-Jamal is relevant in the US.
BOCAFLOJA -
The Latin American Left, the criollos, direct descendents of Spaniards, they don’t want to accept that they are the whites of Latin America.
BOCAFLOJA -
I believe gangsta rap, as such, in its foundation is simply anti-systemic and transgressive.
BOCAFLOJA -
I believe the example of the Zapatistas is a very relevant historical example.
BOCAFLOJA -
A white leftist Mexican activist isn’t the same in the media as the son of a farmer in Guerrero, they aren’t worth the same.
BOCAFLOJA -
Every day of my life I have been in situations, not just in Mexico, in the US too, in which I identified the form of operation as racism.
BOCAFLOJA -
We should remember what a rapper like Tupac Shakur was doing, to a certain degree, who came from an experience of politicization very close to being a “Panther Baby”.
BOCAFLOJA -
I can’t marry myself to one idea or one form of doing politics or one form of understanding politics.
BOCAFLOJA -
I believe that also it should be stressed and made clear that our antagonistic position is not to say “I don’t like whites” for the simple fact of not liking white people.
BOCAFLOJA -
Power, as it is, has a whole apparatus operating that goes about cutting down, closing doors, so that protests, exercises, platforms, and organizations, such as the Zapatistas, can’t grow further in the barrio.
BOCAFLOJA -
What is MTV doing and what is the hegemonic culture industry promoting in gangsta rap? It is the glorification of violence for the sake of violence.
BOCAFLOJA -
It’s like, our fight is not against the white person per se, but against the exercises of white supremacy and the form in which whiteness and the politics of whiteness operates.
BOCAFLOJA -
I think that in the colonial imaginary of the average Mexican, in how it drives us, the economic dependence on the US, and in some cases cultural dependence, is quite palpable, very strong.
BOCAFLOJA -
So, we know who are the people that have the majority of power, access and privileges in Mexico, and they are white Mexicans.
BOCAFLOJA -
In the same imaginary of the Latin American Left exists a racism, a racism that corresponds to processes of colonialism internal to almost all countries in Latin America.
BOCAFLOJA -
I understand that there are moments they disassociate, but in the end they are things that go walking together practically all the time.
BOCAFLOJA -
They don’t want to talk about race. The discussion for them is based on class struggle, rich against poor, but doesn’t offer the possibility of a dialogue about racial questions.
BOCAFLOJA