COLOMBIA PASSPORT

In the last decade, Colombian hip hop is developing among young people of the poor barrios as a way of expression. I met Mcleoud, a Medellín rapper who talked to me about this music culture in the country. A blond man of 27 years old that looks more like a Dutch with his long hair twisted like a Viking and his blue eyes than the expected Latin prototype.

This Medellín boy comes from the comunas. He grew in El Salvador, in a central hill old barrio where you can see the Coltejer Tower just there down. He says that he lived on the streets two years. He cannot be precise when he started with hip hop music.

‘It was always with me, in the ‘parches’, a Medellín slang to ‘group of friends.’ ‘Once we began to make videos, then I started to go far from my street, to know other type of people, to watch a lot videos and television.’ His first experience was in an eventual group of boys known as ‘Seven Winds’, in English, as it is in the Colombian hip hop tendency. But he was creative and alone and he abandoned that first experience in his own barrio to explore other fields. ‘I became a street boy‘, he says with certain proudness. Street gave him experiences and new people gave him more rap. ‘Hip hop became my life style,’ he said and continues: ‘Everything I do is rap – for example, if they do not accept me for my long hair, they do not accept my being. Once I did not accept a good job, just because they asked me to cut my hair.’

Mcleoud, which real name is James Marín Serna, but he prefers to be called always Mcleoud – a Scotish name that fit with his blond face – began his hip hop career as a B-boy, a term coined by Jamaican DJ Kool Herc for the Break-Boy, the break dance young man as it is popular known. The name Mcleoud reminds Mad Lion, the artistic name of Londinian Oswald Priest and musician of dancehall, one of the most influencial hip hop artists.

B-Boys of the Casta Crew Hip-Hop group of Moravia, Medellín.

He composed his own songs, although some of the themes have come through improvisation. In the beginning of his career he started with songs that many were considering Satanism, because they were an exploration of the dark site, as he said. But then, he developed his own style that he calls Criminal Dancehall. The Dancehall is a Jamaican genre developed at the end of the 1970s for artists like Mad Lion, Yellowman, Super Cat and others by doing Toasting, a music made by a sound system. Dancehall is faster than reggae. Because the song lyrics were too rude to be transmitted by radio stations, they were listened only in DJ Dancehall in Jamaica, thus the name.

Mcleoud says he concentrated in his own Dancehall that he added the world criminal. ‘But it is more social than my previous stage of the dark site,’ he explains.

Why hip hop in a city like Medellín

The hip hop is a urban culture, said Mcleoud. It has its own strength, he told me. But Mcleoud thinks that in Medellín there is not a real organization and a lot involvement in politics. ‘You see always the same groups, the same artists and political godfathers. There are a lot good groups, but there’s only a small groups of prefered ones that receive all the support and are always the invited. For example, one of the best hip hop groups in Medellín is Laberinto LC, but they should give space to others too. Many talented artists remain anonymous.‘ Although you can find many official programs in Colombia supporting hip hop culture, like schools and concerts, Mcleoud thinks that it is not enough. ‘The support is good for those who guarantee the commercial success. Only those who are bestsellers, are supported. But there are also programs like the one of Medellín of ‘participatory budgeting ’ that is made in the comunas with schools of rap.’

In the 4th comuna, for example, there is a good organization in what is known as Hip4, said Mcleoud. The Paisa artist has been in most of the major concerts in the city, but also in Santa Marta, Barranquilla, Bogotá and Pereira. He prefers social theams like ‘The Dance of the Death‘, a song that denounces the landmines and ‘Maniguas and Jaulas‘ about the kidnapping, a song that denounces not only the cruelty against humans, but also the torture of animals. ‘We are against massacres, against kidnapping, but also we should not forget cruelty against animals, like the bullfighting.‘ Another theme is ‘Aborigen origin‘ that speaks about the world in the Americans ‘before the invasion of the Spaniards, because it was an invasion,‘ he remarks. In Bogotá there is more support, points out Mcleoud. ‘There are more events, concerts, here in Medellín, you have to try alone, to do self-management or look for a godfather,’ he concluded. About the transformation of Medellín, Mcleoud says: ‘There’s great arquitectures, but I think that poverty still the same.’