Colombian rapper Jota speaks to Poetcurious about his life in exile and the power of hip-hop to bring about global social change.

 It is only a week prior to meeting Colombian rapper, activist and educator Jota that I am first made aware of him. He has been in Newcastle for a few days and is soon heading to London. My homeboy Ken Masters hits me up to say there is a rapper from Colombia looking to make links with the hip-hop community here, and especially those working in education of activism. Ken introduces me to the crew that have been looking after Jota and they fill me in on his story. 

 Jota is in exile after an attempt on his life and the murders of 3 of his close friends. Immediately the words ‘murder’ and ‘Colombia’ evoke images of drug trafficking and cartels, but the orders for Jota’s failed assassination did not come from any drug lord, instead, they came from within the Colombian military; a military who view Jota and his peers as targets because of their political activism, educational workshops and community outreach projects in the countryside towns and villages of his country.

 From the little information I am sent about Jota and what I can glean from the internet, I quickly realise this is not going to be your average rap interview. As somebody who became inextricably linked to hip-hop culture through discovering The Message in my uncle’s record collection at aged 9, before being weened on Public Enemy et al, the prospect of meeting a true hip-hop revolutionary is exciting. I make arrangements through a small network of hosts, supporters and comrades and manage to negotiate a couple of hours within his very heavy schedule to meet and talk at a café in a King Cross.

 On arrival, I am greeted by Jane who welcomes me and offers tea while Jota finishes a black coffee, in this Christmas-lit cafe on Caledonian Road. Jane works with the Colombian Solidarity Campaign and has been assisting Jota for several years. As a grey-haired aunty type, Jane does not fit the stereotypical image of hip-hop groupie, nor entourage. But then, Jota isn’t a stereotypical hip-hop artist.

 Jota’s English outperforms my non-existent Spanish and he communicates effectively that there is a translator en route to assist with the interview. Already I can see Jota is someone that garners support. He is surrounded by allies, even when halfway across the globe.

 Soft-faced and sporting finger length twists, Jota’s calm manner belies a smouldering passion that ignites as soon as he begins to talk about hip-hop. While we are waiting for the translator we dip into stilted conversations about hip-hop’s purpose; it’s potential as a social and educational tool; it’s ability to empower and inform communities, and quickly I wish I had started the recorder earlier.

 Jota is not here for small talk, or to promote a new release. His project is much bigger than that and he is devoting his time in exile from Colombia to build links with the disparate global hip-hop community, and especially those invested in working towards social change through education and political activism.

 I had been made aware through my communications with his loose-knit team that Jota has been travelling for the past 8 months having fled his home after a spate of police and military shootings that have targeted hip-hop activists, including some of Jota’s close friends. 

 As we are chatting, our translator arrives. Steven, another ally, in the shape of a young London-based Colombian warmly introduces himself, and we begin the interview proper…

 [the dialogue attributed to Jota in this interview is the translated retelling of his answers to my questions via Steven.]

 Jota, I am old enough to remember Hip-hop coming to the UK for the first time. I was in primary school and for me, the culture was, at that time, just about having fun and dancing - nothing serious. The politics and other stuff came later and so, I am interested in how your relationship with hip-hop started?

So, the way I see hip-hop is not from the urban perspective, but it is more from the rural perspective, because my community comes from outside the city, in the countryside, outside the urban space, where hip-hop was born.

One example of this is with our first album we produced. The instrumentals on it were drums, live drums. We didn’t have the computers or tools to produce instrumentals, so we had to do it the acoustic way. And we, in our hip-hop, don’t like to talk about division or violence, or gangs. We like to talk about the positives and negatives of different communities, and just talk about it. 

When we speak with hip-hop from the rural perspective, about the violence that is going on and the peace agreements, with the government and  the different guerrilla groups, it is actually more dangerous than if you are to be a gangster rapper, or a rapper that incites violence in the urban area, like we see in America or different places.

Around the rural area where I am from, we have military, we have paramilitary, we have guerrilla groups and we have narc [drug] traffic groups. So, as we speak through hip-hop, the dangerous part is that we don’t want to be seen tilting towards any of these sides or taking any sides within these four big things that are happening there. What we like to do in our music is talk about our view on it as a citizen, or as an inhabitant of that area, not as the different ways that these groups see themselves.

Right, so positioning must be difficult. It’s interesting when you talk about hip-hop and it not being machines; not being turntables; having live instruments that are not traditional within hip-hop. What is it that makes that music hip-hop, and not another type of music that could have another name?  What identifies it as hip-hop?

The foundation of hip-hop in our perspective is to talk about your reality. When we were growing up in Colombia in the nineties, there was a lot of influence from TV and radio from outside of Latin America. We wanted to do Hip-hop like the Americans, but we just didn’t have the tools. They had turntables, and computers and they had speakers, where we only had instruments and our own hands or whatever we could find to do this. So, where they were talking about their reality, which is very true, we were living our own, which is what makes it hip-hop.

The way that our new  hip-hop style arose, with this more traditional way to make hip-hop, we realised it was a good way to bring the youth back to the roots, because all of the youth were trying to look somewhere else; to the north and to different countries, and they were forgetting their own roots and sounds. At the same time, we were able to talk about issues that were not talked about in any other place. We were able to discuss our reality, and in this way empower our community and empower the voices of all the people in that community.

Thinking about the parallel with sampling in American hip-hop, and how it digs into existing material, is there something similar happening in Colombian Hip-hop, but in a live way? Thinking of how you describe your use of traditional Colombian sounds and instrumentation, it seems similar. Is there something in that about preserving that past as well as building a future?

At the very beginning our instrumentals were 100% made from drums or live instruments, but as time went on, we were able to get samples and computers and so on, and we were able to merge them both, keeping the traditional flavour and the base and tempo of the instrumental. The foundation of the instrumental and the music comes from a traditional background, and we transformed that by mixing it with the modern hip-hop that you see in the global North. But the most important thing we were doing, when we realised, was that when we did this new merge of hip-hop with traditional music, it was a way to save the cultural music, because all of our media was from the West through TV, social media and internet, everything come from them, so everyone was driven away from traditional music and when we did these instrumentals, the youth were able to see both worlds.

You said that by making this music it was a way of connecting with the youth. Does this mean that Colombian hip-hop stands in opposition to American or western Hip-hop, or does it share elements?

We see it not as a competition, but an evolution - the next step. We actually endorse the hip-hop of the global North because they are political and they talk about their reality, so by doing that in our own way it was giving us those tools to empower the community. So, we leant from them and made it in or own way. We started finding traditional drums like the Caja, Gaita, Marimba and all these instruments that have never been used to make a hip-hop instrumental. They are completely new [to hip-hop] because they are indigenous. They are original, so it comes before western society. It comes back to the beginnings, to the origins. Also, with the initial tempo for hip-hop, we made it quicker in our music, as traditional music is for dancing, so we merged that and accelerated the beat and bpm of the track. That’s why we want to see it as a merge, not a division.

Much old school American hip-hop was also at a faster tempo. It was more of a dancing music and the politics come through in storytelling. This idea of speaking reality or speaking your truth in hip-hop interests me. Growing up with 90s hip-hop and west coast gangster rap etc, the argument about glamorising the political situation or being critical or documenting reality was (and is) always a tension within hip-hop. I wonder where the line is and whether this is something that is considered in your music? How do you tell a reality without it becoming dramatized and glamorising?

“We see our music as an inspiration, not to the public or the youth, but to other hip-hop artists; to reconnect with their roots.”

We see our music as an inspiration, not to the public or the youth, but to other hip-hop artists; to reconnect with their roots, so if there is Asian hip-hop or Indian hip-hop, [we believe it is important] that it has their background; their roots. Or if they are native from African heritage, that it has African roots. All of this we want to see around the world, and we have proven that it can be done, and we haven’t seen this in many places. We want to see other hip-hop groups endorse this background, and not only the new.

So, the music is to motivate the global hip-hop community?

It is for the global community to mix. Not only to be listening to hip-hop, but to listen to other music; to listen to different genres; it could be modern or traditional, but it needs to be merged, it doesn’t need to stay always ‘hip-hop’ where it has to be this way; it can be different ways, from different communities, because all of our realities are different

So, it’s about inspiring creativity, authenticity and your own particular culture into the music?

Around the world, yeah.

I know you do community work, workshops and education work. How did that come out of being a young person, finding this music and making music? What is it that makes you want to use that for a social purpose?

We figured this out when we realised we couldn’t just announce what has happening; that we had to do an action about it, and not just talk about it. So, in 2012 there was a bomb planted by one of the guerrilla groups, in the next town, in our native rural area. After this happened it injured a lot of children, so right after the attack happened we went out into the streets. All hip-hop artists, all rappers, musicians went out to the streets and we talked to the youth and worked with them, and that’s when we realised that we could empower them to use music or hip-hop (or any other type of art) to give a voice to the people to go bigger than their local community, Your voice can be heard further away through music, through art. And its easier to talk about it as well, as its very complicated subjects when it comes to violence or any type of negative experience. Because the youth were very keen to listen to hip-hop around the world, we realised this was a perfect moment to connect with them and to make them understand, through the workshops and the talks you mentioned that they could play a big role in the world. Through hip-hop they could talk about it; they could make actions and get funds from it, which as an individual you wouldn’t be able to do. This is our tool to empower their message, through hip-hop.

And what have been some of the effects of that?

“The ministry of education took our first album and supported it to become an education tool for the afro-heritage communities of Colombia and South America.”

One thing is that through the government seeing how we engage the communities, the ministry of education took our first album and supported it to become an education tool for the afro-heritage communities of Colombia and South America. We also have an organisation [in Colombia] for the wellbeing of children and they focus on women’s rights and children’s rights, and we got them to get funding from the government to hire rappers and bring them from around the rural communities to learn about issues that they would never know before; issues that these organisations are there for. But the way to the people is through the music, and through hip-hop. Before, in a normal rural community sense, most of the youth will end up going to the guerrillas, or to the narc traffickers, or they join the military, especially as military service in obligatory in Colombia. But what we saw was that 80% of the youth that we had in our workshops, or shows or other activities ended up pursuing a different path and didn’t end up going towards violence, or towards the normal groups that were around them; they saw a different picture. This is why the security issues came, because of those 3 effects that happened in our community.

It sounds like at some level of government there is support for this work, and it sounds like the hip-hop that is being brought into the schools and into social causes, is the traditional, rural Colombian hip-hop, and not the urban hip-hop. How did this come about?

It started with the first album, as we were the first to do it. But after that, others followed. Other hip-hop artists and musicians started seeing that their music wasn’t just about them but that they could have a bigger role in society and in their environment.

Do you model this to show people there is another option for how their life can be, and what they can dedicate their life to?

Exactly, that is the goal, and the purpose.

Ok, so this is beautiful so far. we have this indigenous, traditional hip-hop that is connecting with the youth; its telling truth and critiquing society; it’s in schools and getting co-signed by the government, but, I know this has caused problems, which is why you are here, and not in Colombia. How has this caused problems and who is it causing problems with?

After the peace agreement that we had with some of the guerrilla groups in Colombia in 2016, some of the guerrilla rebel groups left the rural areas and went to the cities, as that was the agreement. At the same time as that happened we saw the military and paramilitary groups come back to the rural areas, that were previously controlled by the guerrillas. They are coming from a military background and they were lacking people to wage war. The military heads looked at the causes of their shortage of manpower and the lack of support for the Colombian military in these rural communities, and they accused us of being military targets, as we were a threat to them as an organisation, as well what they stand for.

Between 2016 and 2017 there were 26 youth murders that happened. I personally had 2 attempts on my life within this period when there was an attack on our communities to try and bring back the war, and the fear that brings people to do that. That is why I had to get out of Colombia in that moment, because that is when the security issues started happening.

So how long have you been out of Colombia and how dangerous is it to go back?

I have been outside of Colombia for 8 months with support of the international social leaders movement. There is support and aid for people seen as being social leaders, as not everybody sees that as bad thing, and some even see it as a very good thing. And so, they wanted to support me and save me from this same fate, that if I had stayed in Colombia would have likely come for me. So, when I left 8 months ago I left with task, and with a mission, to go around the world to get as much hip-hop, rappers and musicians to know about this. Because of this, I will be going back with many other people to the rural areas and communities, with international support, and we are going to tell those people, and those military or narc traffickers that we are not alone, and to please leave us alone. We are united and we are not alone. Before, they saw us as an empty community where they can do whatever they want, and nothing will happen. So, in May 2020 I am going back and there will be a big gathering of many rappers from around the world to show this unity. Within this gathering, which will be 10 days long, all of the artists will get a chance to meet with the parents of the 27 young murdered leaders, for them to understand and to talk to them about the reality. What we want to see after that, and what we will see, is all of the artists are going to commit to get that message across through their music in their own parts of the world, so that we can see that knowledge spreading around the world.

So where are you going on the rest of this journey before returning to Colombia in May, and what can members of the international hip-hop community who maybe read this and find out about your story through this interview do to support?

What we have in mind is that we are trying to build a global network of hip-hop musicians, who think like-minded that hip-hop can be a tool towards positivity in the world, and we are going to make sure that this knowledge is spread in different languages and places around the world. We are going to start developing connections with the youth, so for example, I have been to Capetown in South Africa where this same process is happening, but you only learn about this if you go to the places. And now, there are about 10 young South African rappers and artists who are going to this event in May. They will learn about our side of the story, and so they will see that they are not alone. Everybody can see that their own realities might be the same reality, because everyone seems to believe that they live in different realities. The purpose of this network is to guarantee that we can all speak out and denounce what is happening in our own communities. It is to prove that we are not alone, and that if we are all in it together, then it might just be much better than if we fight alone. We are all facing the same threats, so we need to all come together, slowly and strongly, to empower each other and spread these message as one.

We leave the interview there with Jota’s final words hanging in the air. The juxtaposition of this upmarket café, in full Christmas regalia, with this humble yet profound rural rapper in exile is surreal. The respect that Steven shows towards Jota and the diligence with which he wrestles with words to convey exactly what Jota is saying into English, is inspiring. Here, I find myself immersed in a tributary of global hip-hop culture where the pureness of purpose and the potential for transformation are at the core of the practice. This is an alternate hip-hop universe where labels, and laws and commercialism have yet to taint the form. Jota is leading a revolution with a global mandate. He is gathering an army of artists who will travel across the Atlantic to face real soldiers, mercenaries and drug traffickers armed only with words and drums. It is an ambitious project, yet Jota speaks with an authority and passion that elicits confidence in its success. Few of us in London or other parts of the ‘developed’ world will ever likely find ourselves facing the level of danger that Jota has in service of hip-hop culture. That he persists with this mission while maintaining an open and receptive demeanour is unfathomable. He is the epitome of leadership. Standing front and centre in opposition to forces, much larger than he, who threaten the lives of his people and his country and culture. Jota stands firmly on the right side of history, on the shoulders of his ancestors and clearly and simply, for what he believes to be right. Not by any means necessary, but through the necessarily peaceful means of music, art, culture, community and hip-hop. And, in his presence, it ain’t hard to tell why he is gathering so much support for his cause. Viva la hip-hop revolution. 

©Poetcurious. 2019