Hip Hop, TV and History..

After a four month hiatus, I'm back with a couple of things worth checking out. The first mixtape by Fort Apache, a valencian hip-hop duo featuring Nega from the infamous political hip-hop outfit, Los Chikos del Maíz [Children of the Corn in spanish], called "Cine, Ideología y Cultura de Masas".

Then, a few cool promos of Breaking Bad Season 3, that begins tomorrow Sunday March 21st, 2010 in AMC. Finally, a trailer of 2008's documentary "The People Speak" that features famous personalities reading pieces from Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". RIP, Mr. Zinn, one of the greatest american intellectuals of the 20th century (meaning greats such as Hunter S. Thompson, C.Bukowski, W. Bouroughs, A. Ginsberg, Hemingway, etc)

Rapeando en Rojo

In the center of the Malasaña neighborhood, in Sala Taboo, the event "Rapeando en Rojo" took place to a full venue of punkies, rappers and "commies". Featuring Los Chikos del Maíz from Valencia and two other hip hop groups from Madrid. The first act was Mentenguerra who sang a couple of tunes accompanied by one hypeman, NoGobal, and one hypewoman, Greta from hardcore punk band Antitedax (in which Mente also plays the guitar). His stage presence was ok but the flow was kind of generic. One bad thing is that the two hypemans don't help the mc standout much.


Then came madrilean hip hop group, Aire & Humo, who definitely impressed me a lot. Three mc's (Punki, Koah and Lío) who have great flow and politically-charged lyrics with catchy punchlines. During their set, they were joined by Moha from "Arte de Liar". They are very underground and compromised with the socio-political causes, but worth checking out.


At last, came the headliners from Valencia, Los Chikos del Maíz (Mc's Tony and Nega), with EZLN-type masks to sang their hits to the crowd. Songs like "S.O.S. Mc's de Combate", "Spain is different", "Estilo Faluya", "El Gobierno lo niega", "Trabajador@s", "Sultanes del Funk" and "B-boy Parade" from Nega's album were sing-alonged by the attendees. During "A Dios le pido", they changed their clothes to some Maradona's soccer jerseys. Although Nega was a bit wasted, their set went very well as the public responded great to their ironic, sarcastic and anti-capitalist songs. It was a different rap show but very entertaining because we got the chance to see political rap acts who are very underground and of course, The Children of the Corn from Valencia.















Pictures by MCJ Photography (c)