Bocafloja Quotes

Quotes about:

Community Culture Exercise Latin Latin America Racism Rap

The racial question, and thus class struggle, of course, I think they are processes which necessarily are intersecting all the time. I understand that there are moments they disassociate, but in the end they are things that go walking together practically all the time.

Bocafloja

Struggle, Thinking, Class

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

6 Copy quote
The countries made themselves independent from Spain, but only changed owners, who stayed in positions of power were the criollos, the Spanish descendants who were the new administrators of power and wealth in the country. And those families for generations have maintained themselves in positions of power. Latin America founded itself on everyone being equal, but in reality we aren't.

Bocafloja

Country, Latin, Independent

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

5 Copy quote
I think in terms of the themes that I have worked on most is establishing questions of race in the context of Latin America. This is a theme that makes uncomfortable a lot of people, and it obviously makes the Latin American Left uncomfortable.

Bocafloja

Latin, Thinking, Race

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

5 Copy quote
If I stop today at a protest and I read a speech, it is a speech that remains in that moment, and whoever captures it does, and whoever doesn't, doesn't, and just keeps walking. It is very sterile, and it can seem even inaccessible and boring for a community.

Bocafloja

Community, Doe, Speech

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

5 Copy quote
On the aesthetic level, decolonized music presents itself as a direct antagonist to the traditional values promoted by the culture industry.

Bocafloja

Culture, Levels, Aesthetic

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

6 Copy quote
We should remember what a rapper like Tupac Shakur was doing, to a certain degree, who came from an experience of politicization very close to being a "Panther Baby". He knew, he came from that experience of the Black Panthers, and accounting for all his contradictions and process of growth, he achieved politically through gangsta rap things that no conscious rapper has achieved, such as establishing political, ethical, and moral codes between Crips and Bloods in the United States.

Bocafloja

Baby, Rap, Gangsta

Source: www.counterpunch.org

13 Copy quote
I believe a lot in gangsta rap, I see in it a lot of positive things as it is. I believe it is only about doing politicization work. Revolutionary change will come from there, it won't come from conscious rap.

Bocafloja

Believe, Rap, Gangsta

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

14 Copy quote
It is not like the white Republican, the conservative, who clears it up for you and says, "I don't like you", to your face and then you know immediately he is an antagonist. Racism operates in a lot of ways, and so I live it every day.

Bocafloja

White, Racism, Way

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
I believe that white people need to check themselves, account for their privileges, and undergo whatever interaction with communities of color with that understanding. They have to add up all those processes and articulate those privileges to try to equalize the historical process.

Bocafloja

Believe, Color, White

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
I believe that also it should be stressed and made clear that our antagonistic position is not to say "I don't like whites" for the simple fact of not liking white people. It's like, our fight is not against the white person per se, but against the exercises of white supremacy and the form in which whiteness and the politics of whiteness operates.

Bocafloja

Believe, Exercise, Fighting

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
Every day of my life I have been in situations, not just in Mexico, in the US too, in which I identified the form of operation as racism. There are situations in which a smile, a laugh, a greeting are racist exercises.

Bocafloja

Exercise, Laughing, Racism

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
A lot of the exercise of embracing identity as a political affirmation is not just simply parked in the question of skin color or culture, but more it is a political affirmation with all these implications and more.

Bocafloja

Exercise, Skin Color, Political

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
I am conscious of how my body signifies in every space. In every place of the world our body has a different significance.

Bocafloja

Space, Different, World

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
I can't marry myself to one idea or one form of doing politics or one form of understanding politics. I believe that we have to play the game of strategy, and understand how to move the pieces because this is how the political spectrum functions.

Bocafloja

Moving, Believe, Games

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
European militants recognize Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the Mexican militants followed their example and legitimated his work because the Europeans said, "Hey, Mumia Abu-Jamal is relevant in the US. I, the European, am telling you. I am your political guide, your icon, your mentor for political references. I am telling you that you should support the relevant causes."

Bocafloja

Icons, Mexican, Support

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
I think that in the colonial imaginary of the average Mexican, in how it drives us, the economic dependence on the US, and in some cases cultural dependence, is quite palpable, very strong.

Bocafloja

Strong, Thinking, Average

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
When you arrive really inside the discussion of race, practically they institute a Mexican-ness, a Latin-ness, a racial community that just isn't true. So, we know who are the people that have the majority of power, access and privileges in Mexico, and they are white Mexicans.

Bocafloja

Latin, Race, White

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
I believe in terms of the work that I do, in establishing dialogue about race relations in Latin America, steps on one of the most relevant themes today.

Bocafloja

Latin, Believe, Race

Source: www.counterpunch.org

4 Copy quote
We have to remember that the experience of gangsta rap as such in its foundation is an anti-systemic experience primarily. And it is an anti-systemic experience that is not in some cases politicized, but in general results in a much more transgressive, much more uncomfortable music for the structures of power, than conscious rap or political rap.

Bocafloja

Rap, Gangsta, Political

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
A white leftist Mexican activist isn't the same in the media as the son of a farmer in Guerrero, they aren't worth the same. In the same imaginary of the Latin American Left exists a racism, a racism that corresponds to processes of colonialism internal to almost all countries in Latin America.

Bocafloja

Country, Latin, Son

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
The Latin American Left, the criollos, direct descendents of Spaniards, they don't want to accept that they are the whites of Latin America. They don't want to talk about race. The discussion for them is based on class struggle, rich against poor, but doesn't offer the possibility of a dialogue about racial questions.

Bocafloja

Latin, Struggle, Race

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

7 Copy quote
We have to remember examples of many artists of conscious rap who have been coopted by the Department of State of the United States to be cultural ambassadors in different parts of the world, like Syria, like other parts of the Middle East, including conscious Islamic-American rappers that are representing an international political agenda for the United States through cultures more affable for people of color in other parts of the world.

Bocafloja

Rap, Islamic, Artist

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
I believe the advantage music has is the capacity to multiply itself, the capacity to keep itself in space and access itself at different times and in different processes and to make profound analyses, analyses that through musicality would be able to connect with people who don't necessarily have the energy or wish in any exact moment to connect to well-read or critical analysis.

Bocafloja

Believe, Critical Analysis, Space

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote
I believe gangsta rap, as such, in its foundation is simply anti-systemic and transgressive.

Bocafloja

Believe, Rap, Gangsta

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

5 Copy quote
I believe that music offers us possibilities for analysis, at least in my case, more profound in many ways, but at the same time that profundity is an accessible profundity that has atemporal repercussions.

Bocafloja

Believe, Profound, Analysis

"Decolonial Rap". Interview with Andrew Smolski, www.counterpunch.org. May 15, 2015.

4 Copy quote

Latest quotes from interviews

"The racial question, and thus class struggle, of course, I think they are processes which necessarily are intersecting all the time. I understand that there are moments they disassociate, but in the end they are things that go walking together practically all the time."

- Bocafloja,

www.counterpunch.org, added Dec 22, 2015

More (31)