By Carlos Flores

Kalinda! Newsletter, Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College Chicago, 1995

CHICAGO - A collaborative relationship has existed between African-American and Puerto Rican communities since the migration of Puerto Ricans into New York City in the early 1900s. This relationship has been nurtured and maintained through the emergence of Latin Jazz in the 1930s and 1940s, the Mambo craze, the rise of doo-wop in the 1950s, and the boogaloo and salsa in the 1960s and 1970's-each a prime example of how the African- American and Puerto Rican- Latino communities have exchanged, collaborated on, and created these cultural/musical expressions.

The emergence of hip-hop culture in New York City during the late 1970s is another example of this continuing relationship. Juan Flores, director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York, states that the beginnings of rap are connective not so much because they link Black traditions and Puerto Rican traditions, but because they mark off one more step in a long and intricate Black-Puerto Rican tradition of popular culture, based primarily in the longstanding Black-Puerto Rican neighborhoods of New York City.

The experience of Puerto Rican's in rap has been the story of intense cultural negotiation, of jostling for a place within an ever-broadening field of expressive practices without relinquishing the particularities of their own community and heritage…. Puerto Rican's have been involved in hip-hop since the beginning, since it first emerged in the streets of Harlem and the South Bronx nearly twenty years ago. Along with their African-American counterparts, they were an intrinsic part of the forging of expressive styles which have become the hallmark of an entire generation and diffused throughout the country and worldwide.

Flores indicates that bomba, plena, and rap play significant roles in the communication among the people in a Puerto Rican community. The music serves as a diversion, and at the same time it allows people to communicate news and points of view, keeping people current and in touch with each other. For example, the bomba, which was developed in Puerto R ico in the early nineteenth century, originally allowed slaves to communicate among themselves and sometimes against those who tried to prevent them from communicating with each other. Rap is the musical language of contemporary young people, and it serves a similar function of allowing young people to communicate news and points of views as well as bringing them together.

These relationships were demonstrated by Flores in a lecture titled "From Bomba to Hip-Hop," which was presented on May 17, 1995, at the Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center and on May 18, 1995, at Columbia College. The presentation also included a performance by Latin Empire, a rap group consisting of Tony Boston (Krazy Taino) and Rick Rodriguez (Porto Rock), two cousins from the South Bronx. They provided the audience with unique styles of Spanish, English, and Spanglish (combination of Spanish and English) lyrics. The event was co-sponsored by the CBMR's Project Kalinda, Columbia College student organizations, and community agencies. It was also partially funded by the Lilly Foundation. Attending the event were students and staff from Columbia College and several young people representing various community agencies.

Boston and Rodriguez have participated in rap music for more than ten years, before it became a commercial success. They try to represent in a positive way the importance of respecting one another and of keeping the Puerto Rican culture alive. Rap has come a long way since it first emerged in the streets and playgrounds of Harlem and the South Bronx nearly twenty years ago. It has become a tremendous commercial success around the world as it continues to evolve with the influences of other musical styles such as reggae-rap, Latino-rap, and others.

Rap originated among African-American and Puerto Rican youths when the process of their coexistence in an urban setting resulted in an exchange of lifestyles and cultures.

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Reference

Flores, Juan. 1992-1993. "Puerto Rican and Proud, Boyee": Rap, roots, and amnesia. CENTRO de Estudios Puertorriqueño 5, no. 1 (Winter):22-32.

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Note: Dr. Juan Flores' book, "From Bomba to Hip Hop, Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity", has been published by Columbia University Press. 2000

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