Jota Ramos: when music is stronger than weapons

During the nineteenth century, there was a large migration of slaves to Latin America, especially to Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. To this latter nation came a group from the Congo, to a town known today as Villa Rica, close to the coast and 36km from Cali (Colombia).

Interview: Pablo Sabugo
Photos: Eddie-Lee Lawrence

From that moment onwards these Africans, and later their descendents, have had to fight against a series of problems that have presented themselves throughout their history and which are today more apparent than ever. One of the descendents of these slaves is Jota Ramos, a young man of 24 years who, through hip-hop, is speaking out against the injustices that his people are suffering. A student of political science at the University of Santiago de Cali, Jota started to sing and protest from an early age against the inequalities that existed in his town, and together with friends created the group 'Soporte Klan'.

As time went on they became famous in the local area and nationwide.  This situation started to create problems with the people and groups who were blamed in the band's message, so much so that even Jota Ramos began to receive death threats. In light of these threats, he decided to leave his country with the intention of telling the world about what is happening in Villa Rica.  He began a tour in March this year called "Haga que pase" ('Make it Happen') that has taken him to diverse countries such as Argentina, Uruguay and Spain, amongst others.

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Without doubt the music has been very effective at reaching the youth. A while ago the Catholic Church had a priest who sang reggaeton, and got closer to young people this way.

Exactly, it's a good medium. Now, with regard to the Church, it makes me laugh, because previously they said that hip hop and rap were the work of the Devil, but when they realised the power of this music, there began to appear many Christians with huge followings making religious hip hop.

Another of your criticisms is that young people absorb everything that the mass media shows them.

Today the media is controlled by capitalism, a model that I don't agree with. Through this strategy the media influence the youth and control them. The people hang off the media's every word, and end up losing their own customs and culture. In Villa Rica you can sometimes see fashions and you don't know where they've come from.  For this reason we have a programme where we give cameras to young people, telling them, "Record your reality, record what is happening to you".

In this way we take advantage of technological advances and we are educating more. While before kids used to play outside, what happens today is they're now addicted to Playstations or some other type of video game.  Before, kids used to make up games and play in the street more.  It's even worse in the cities.

Have any of you been victims of paramilitary violence?

In 2007 I was at a party in a place called "paso de la bolsa" near Villa Rica, in an area controlled by the paramilitaries, which I didn't realise at the time.  On the way back I was leaving to take my car, and when I was walking in the street I found myself in front of a paramilitary group, and I was scared.

They stopped me and started to ask me a lot of questions, like who I was, where I was going, etc.  I'm very well known in the area and told them I was Jota Ramos from Villa Rica and that I didn't want any problems. They carried on asking what I was doing at that time of night.  Suddenly, one of them appeared with a machete and started to attack me with it.

I managed to dodge the first blow, but the second cut my fingers. I didn't lose them, but I was left with injuries, and even now I have mobility problems in some of them, and on one finger they had to attach a wood extension.  I was also left with scars on other parts of my body.

How did you survive?

Luckily their boss arrived and they stopped abusing me. I told them I was from Villa Rica, and they told me to leave straightaway or they would kill me.  Totally confused (because they'd also hit me with the butt of a pistol), I ran away hearing shots; later I reached a bridge a kilometre away, in an Army-controlled zone. There they helped me and called an ambulance.

They also asked who had done it to me. I told them what happened, but they didn't do anything. The truth is that I don't understand why they didn't kill me – normally you don't come out of that type of situation alive.

After this I started a campaign called "Youth Not War", because the people who'd done this to me were adolescents, as young as me, and through this I met people from War Resisters International. I travelled throughout Colombia, with big concerts in Cali, Medellín, etc. I'd recently had an operation and did the concerts wearing bandages and everything. The tools I used to carry my message were art and culture.

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