Hip Hop is not Dead: The Emergence of Mara Salvatrucha Rap as a form of MS-13 Expressive Culture
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Date
2014-01
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Ohio State University. Center for Latin American Studies
Abstract
This
essay
asserts
that
the
hip
hop
culture
of
the
transnational
street
gang,
Mara
Salvatrucha
(MS-13),
helps
to
account
for
how
the
gang
and
its
members
consolidate
their
identities
within
their
marginalized
community.
This
impoverished
and
peripheral
sector
of
the
population
produces
a
kind
of
rap
whose
style
of
music
and
lyrics
seek
to
represent
a
misrepresented
and
often
vilified
gang
culture.
The
outside
depictions
of
the
gang
emanate
from
film,
television
and
news
programs,
magazine
articles
and
other
kinds
of
popular
media,
and
they
tend
to
look
at
the
gang’s
acts
of
violence
without
taking
into
account
the
dreadful
economic
and
social
conditions
that
would
lead
teenagers
across
the
Americas
to
willingly
enter
this
very
dangerous
environment.
In
dismissing
these
origins,
such
articulations
ignore
the
notion
that
MS-13
members
rely
on
their
gang
for
money,
food,
shelter,
and
a
sense
of
belonging.
Mara
Salvatrucha
rap
draws
from
80s
and
90s
West
Coast
gangsta
rap
in
order
to
relate
their
own
stories
of
growing
up
on
the
streets
and
surviving
by
any
means
necessary.
This
gang
music
reflects
violence,
poverty,
and
hardship
while
also
asserting
the
notion
that
banding
together
as
a
community
provides
the
only
real
protection
from
these
societal
ills.
Furthermore,
Mara
Salvatrucha
rap
extends
beyond
the
limits
of
Compton,
Watts,
or
other
localized
environments,
and
spreads
its
narrative
past
the
United
States
and
on
to
Latin
America.
The
audience
hears
about
life
on
the
streets
of
El
Salvador
and
in
the
neighborhoods
of
Guatemala,
in
addition
to
inner
city
and
suburban
Los
Angeles.
Description
Keywords
Citation
alter/nativas, latin american cultural studies journal, no. 2 (Spring 2014)