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May 07, 2008

No Country: Calle 13 - Residente O Visitante · by Abe Beame

Many of us believe Hip Hop is at its best when it transcends common questions of aesthetics and picks up the mantle for the moment in which it’s delivered. Chuck D’s voice crashing in like a garbage can through a plate glass window as Smiley tacks a tattered picture of Martin and Malcolm up on the wall in Sal’s, Ice Cube commenting on a city that was a tinderbox waiting for the spark of injustice, Chubb Rock charting our nation’s descent into the hands of the military industrial complex and its affect on his native borough. These days the American Hip Hop market offers little in terms of social or even cultural importance, having been relegated to iPod commercials and cell phone rings. However, for alternatives one need look no further then the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the oldest remaining colony of the United States, where two stepbrothers are arguably making the world’s most important Hip Hop. Their last album was released in the spring of 2007, and to understand what the duo is up to is to renew faith in music as a movement.

Calle 13 refers to the street in the Trujillo Alto subsection known as El Conquistador where Residente, the MC, and Visitante, the producer, would meet up as kids. The stepbrothers come from a culturally rich Puerto Rican family. Residente’s mother (who occasionally sings for the group) was part of a renowned local acting troupe and their father was a painter and musician turned lawyer.

Post-college, the brothers were working on their first album when Filiberto Ojeda Rios, the commander and chief of the Boricua Popular Army who advocated sovereignty for Puerto Rico by violent means, was assassinated in what the FBI claimed to be a botched raid. In response the brothers released a song called “Querido (Dear) FBI”, a song in which they accuse the United States of foul play and promise retribution. The song coupled with the assassination reenergized the Puerto Rican independence movement, which had largely slipped away from the collective consciousness. Calle 13 became instant celebrities and catalysts for change, socially relevant pop stars. Clearly, this is not your little sister’s reggaeton.


Querido FBI

Residente O Visitante, Calle 13’s sophomore effort is a mixed bag. The album alternates between socially conscious political material and sensationalist sex romps. From the group’s inception this has been the case, but here Residente shows a wit and Mathers-like penchant for tongue and cheek shock humor aimed at his would-be censors. On the self deprecating “Mala Suerte con el 13” (Bad luck with 13) Residente allows Spaniard female MC La Mala Rodiguez to turn the tables on him as the dominant female who chastises his pathetic loser, revealing the wink and smile behind his misogyny. The majority of the flack Calle 13 receives is for this juvenile preoccupation with raunch, but the feeling the listener comes away with is a strong sense of individuality. The blue material stands side by side with the political, and what emerges is the relationship between the two stances. Residente clearly equates explicit sexuality and vulgarity with freedom and honesty.


Mala Suerte Con El 13 (fan video)

This approach of general rebellion is illustrated no better than on the album’s first song, “Tango del Pecado” (The Tango of Sin). On this song, Residente outight claims his use of dense hybrid slang is an affront to the language brought by Imperialists to his island. “Tango del Pecado” is believed to concern Residente’s alleged relationship with Denise Quinones, a former Miss Universe from Ponce. In Puerto Rico the relationship between the impoverished beast and the well bred beauty lead to a scandal reminiscent of the affair between former Miss World Cindy Breakspere and Bob Marley (parents of Damian) in Jamaica. If “Tango del Pecado” is indeed Residente’s response, it’s a potent one. The song follows Residente wooing an unnamed woman to rebel against her disapproving parents and take a walk on the wild side. However, Residente frames his song in the language of Santeria. For example, the opening line of each verse translates roughly to “Three shakes of the Ram’s head”, a reference to the Santeria ritual dance for the orisha Chango.


Tango Del Pecado

“Tango Del Pecado” discusses the largest hurdle of the Puerto Rican independence movement: a majority of removed, resigned, pacified citizens so focused on the trees they can’t see the forest (sound familiar?). Santeria is a religion with roots in Africa. Carribean slaves hid their Orishas in the figures of Catholic saints to appease their masters and cling to the tenets of their faith. In Puerto Rico there are deep lines separating race and class, its racial profile is composed of the white European Imperialists who exploited the people and the land, the African slaves they ferried in to carry out the labor, and the native Taino Indians that populated the island. Because of its African roots, Santeria is viewed as an ignorant, Negro peasant faith, and by embracing Santeria and its African heritage Residente is raising a middle finger towards race conscious bourgeois pretension. In this light, “Tango” is transformed from a macabre seduction to a treatise on race and class in the Commonwealth.

Like Che Guevara, Residente views his struggle in the grand terms of a centuries old culture clash between Euro-American Imperialists and Latin America as an entity. In Residente’s verses Puerto Rican historical figures and groups such as the Nicaraguan Sandinistas and the Araucanian (Mapuche) Indian tribe of Chile (a group who resisted occupation from a number of would be conquistadors over 600 years) co-exist and share a cause, contributing to an atmosphere of unified struggle. For instance, On “Pal Norte”, (To the North) a defiant diatribe on statehood and citizenship, Residente is joined by Orishas of a different sort. Namely, the group of Cuban expatriates who sing on the hook, a showstopper that earned Calle 13 a Latin Grammy for best urban song.


Pal Norte (fan video)

Throughout the album Visitante casts a wide net. Morricone guitars, wailing electric guitars paired with lively brass, rich grand pianos, electric distortion, morose bleating horns and orchestral strings are just a few elements present and constantly in concert with one another on his diverse beats. “Algo con sentido”, “Uiyi Guaye” and “La Era De La Copiera” feature synth driven production more Person Pitch than Psycho Les; in general his work is more layered and labor intensive than your run of the mill looped Euro Rap.

Much like Residente, Visitante incorporates a multi-cultural range of Latino musical traditions including Puerto Rico’s African bomba drums, Cuba’s rumba beats, Mexican Norteno polka, and of course stuttering Reggaeton drum patterns.

The album is no classic by any stretch of the imagination. Residente has a strange habit of alluding to sex organs as food throughout the album. (“Each time I think of your baked potato/It makes me want to do undisciplined things to my pillow”) It’s possible that this is intended to highlight the absurdity of his journeys into the explicit, but there’s no other word for it but corny. Or perhaps lazy.

Residente will take entire songs off, and while the production is always solid, at times his unnecessarily affected delivery, employed presumably to assure his audience that he isn’t being serious, has an adverse effect on the music (“Limpiar El Sucio”). Perhaps these can be dismissed as sophomoric tendencies that Residente will be able to shake off. Even with these faults he proves time and time again to be a captivating writer, a student of history who can blend the personal and political with an ease and sophistication that few present day English speaking “conscious” rappers are capable of.

The political aspects of this subject are too intricate to weave into an album review. While Puerto Rico is unquestionably subject to the economic and political rule of the United States without enjoying the privileges of an actual state, there remains a belief among some Puerto Ricans that this status is preferable to the instability of independence. A growing number feel differently. Last year marked the 90th anniversary of the Jones-Shafroth Act, which officially rendered Puerto Rico the property of the United States of America. With American hearts and minds focused on a war, a sagging economy, and an election, it appears that nothing will be changing anytime soon. Something tells me this will do little to divert from the efforts of The Resident or The Visitor. The Euro-American penchant for exploitation and oppression has proven one historical precedent: the Revolution goes on, even when we’re not listening.

Author’s Note- This piece owes a special debt to Emily, who spent hours wading through Residente’s bastardized take on the Spanish language so I could make sense of it. Thank you.

Comments for "No Country: Calle 13 - Residente O Visitante"

  1. Calle 13 is really one of the dopest latin hip hop projects out there. relevant lyrics and dope beats. those cats are doing it.


    — eurok upsetthesetup    May 7, 04:31 PM   

  2. nice post

    I think Residente’s one of the best mcs in hip hop right now


    — E aka Fidel Cashflow    May 8, 01:03 AM   

  3. I think the puerto ricans have about a thousand food names they use as synonyms for genitals, it’s not just these mcs that do it.


    — ths    May 8, 04:14 AM   

  4. Let’s hear it for well-written breakdowns and Emily.


    — sankofa    May 8, 09:42 AM   

  5. residente is one of the few ‘reggaeton’ artist who FLOWS. christ i hate reggaeton (that shit makes my people look bad) but this cat is NICE.


    — coqui    May 8, 10:19 PM   

  6. “Author’s Note- This piece owes a special debt to Emily, who spent hours wading through Residente’s bastardized take on the Spanish language so I could make sense of it. Thank you.”

    That’s how Puerto Ricans speak spanish. Take Taino, african, english and spanish words, toss them together and you have the Puerto Rican dialect of Spanish. You have no idea how hard it is for me to talk to other spanish speakers out here in the midwest.


    — coqui    May 8, 10:27 PM   
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