CHICANOAL!

HERE COME THE FLYING LIBRE!

Brown & Proud

The West Coast and Southwest Mexican American culture is embodied in the cultural phenomena of chicano rap. Chicano rap is a subgenre of hip-hop, that is dominated by chicano rap artists. Chicano has definately made mainstream. A chicano rapper is an artist of mexican (chicano) descent. Chicano rap has been alive and growning since the 1989, with Mellow Man Ace's release of first major bilingual single. Mellow Man Ace is actually not chicano, he's Cuban-American, still many consider him to be the "father of chicano rap". The title of "first major chicano artist" eventually went to Kid Frost who debuted in 1990 with his hit single, La Raza.
There is a heavy influence of Mexican heritage on chicano rappers, and many references or themes that relate to the United States, or Mexican-Americans. Eventhough chicano rap's major following is here in the United States, chicano rap's popularity is not growing in both South America and Asia as well.

Lil Rob Puttin It Down 4 Da Brown Side

In this interview, Lil Rob reaches out to his fans and his chicano community. Chicano is different from your typical African-American hip hop artist, in the sense that there is much more of a focus on portraying the chicano community as a whole. Most of the chicano artists rap more about their community, than they do about themselves. In this interview with Lil Rob, he talked about how much he cares for and tries to cater to his fans by rapping about his upbringing in california and the hardships he had to face as a chicano artist in the making. In the end he even directly addressed his fans saying that he hears them, and its time for somone to keep representing La Raza.

I Am In My Homeland!

Chicano rap is more than just music, it the voice of our movement, the voice of Aztlan. Before America became a nation of immigrants it was our land, it was Aztlan, and now we want it back. For too long have we been called illegal immigrants in our own land. We are not the illegal immigrants, they are, they are the ones who came in the late 1880's and conqured our land. "The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened", The chicano people are reproducing faster than all the whites in America, and the chicano people continue to flood America at roughly 3 million new immigrants per year. A few decaded ago, the image of couple of high school kids hanging out eating hot dogs was an image that many felt familiar with. Today, that hot dog stand is now a taco stand and the kids aren't even American anymore, they're chicano!

M.E.Ch.A

M.E.Ch.A is the organization that will liberate Aztlan. We are M.E.CH.A, we are all the chicano who have bounded tougher to work towards our goal of one day reclaiming Aztlan. M.E.Ch.A stands for "El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlán" (The Chicano/a student movement of Aztlán). It was us Vicente Fox was refering to when he said in 2004, "We are Mexicans that live in our territories and Mexicans who live in other territories. In reality we are a hundred and twenty million people that live tougher and work tougher to construct a nation". Unlike the La Raza Unida Party, we use nonviolent student tactics such as protest and petitions to unify the chicano people under the banner of Aztlan. We are a student organization and we are found at high schools and Universities around the United States.

We have had leadership conferences held at universities the following universities:
1994: Arizona State University
1995: University of California, Berkeley
1996: University of Texas, Pan-American
1997: Michigan State University
1998: University of California, Los Angeles
1999: Phoenix College
2000: El Paso Community College
2001: San Diego State University
2002: University of Houston
2003: University of California, Berkeley
2004: Oregon State University
2005: California State University, Northridge
2006: Northern Arizona University
2007: Metropolitan State College of Denver, Auraria
2008: California State University, Sacramento
2009: University of Oregon

Unifying Aztlan, one chicano at a time!

Chicano Rap, Like No Other

Lean Like a Cholo- Kilo
Lil Rob- Neighborhood Music
Kid Frost- La Raza
Akwid- Los Mexicano
Molotov- Here We Kum
Mr. Capone-e- The New West Coast
West Side Connection- Gangsta nation
2MEX- Mosh To Da Sun
Tha Dogg Pound- Cali Iz Active
Lil Rob- California
Mr. Shadow- Open Up The Cell
Mr. Capone-e- These Soldiers

This mix tape consists of songs that I feel represent the various areas in the spectrum of chicano rap. Many of the tracks hold sentimental appeal to the chicano community such as Neighborhood Music by Lil Rob. Or like La Raza by Kid Frost, which is considered to be one of the pioneering singles of chicano rap. Other tracks- such as Lean Like a Cholo by Kilo- are showing chicano artists as hip rappers that go had and hand with your typical African American rapper. Almost all the tracks however, represent the nature of chicano rap by either aiming to bring a greater sense of unity among chicanos, or by rapping about their own hardships as a chicano.