From the Bronx to the World: Latinos’ Contribution to Hip-Hop
From upper left to right: DJ Charlie Chase, Prince Markie Dee, Kid Frost, Fat Joe, Big Pun, B-Real, Cardi B, That Mexican OT, Ice Spice
“‘Cause Latins goin’ platinum was destined”
We all remember our first time. I was a child cooling off from a sweltering Southwest U.S. summer day in a public swimming pool. One of my stray splashes spattered an older blonde-headed swimmer. "Stupid Mexican," said the red-faced teen. The comment confused me more than it angered me. My roots trace back to Panamá—a country many miles from America’s southern border. I didn't have the chance to correct him about that or my intelligence, but I would have similar opportunities to set others straight in the coming years.
As a teenager, I’ll be asked, "Hey, is that your uncle?" about a disheveled homeless Latino man. "How can I help you, Jose?" said a Texas business owner when a 20-year-old me entered his auto shop. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, a stranger flung a four-letter driven insult in my direction, assuming I was Arab—yet another case of mistaken identity. On a business trip, a senior-level executive was eager to tell me about her Salvadoran nanny. “My kids can understand Spanish,” she bragged.
Even innocuous remarks could sting, like a friend's seemingly complimentary "You look sharp, Rico Suave." The comment dredged up memories of the cringe-worthy song by Ecuadorian rapper Gerardo, which still induces a sense of nausea. The bilingual novelty track, embracing the Latin lover cliché, reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1991. I endured its irritatingly catchy hook—Ricooo Suaaave—during high school. All the while, a superior Spanglish rap song existed.
In the ‘60s, young Latinos in the southwest spearheaded the Chicano Movement. The term “Chicano,” once used derogatorily by Anglos to refer to Mexican-Americans, became a badge of pride. “La Raza,” Kid Frost's lead single from his 1990 debut album, Hispanic Causing Panic, is a Chicano anthem. I probably don’t need to remind you that I’m not Mexican-American, but the song, which translates to "the race," filled me with a sense of identity that I didn’t realize was missing.
Despite its relatively brief duration, El Movimiento tackled institutional racism while advocating for equitable labor conditions and political enfranchisement. Kid Frost's music video for "La Raza" channels many emblematic symbols and imagery, notably Aztlán, the ancestral homeland of the Aztec people—terrain that spanned from northern Mexico to the American Southwest. The U.S. appropriated much of this region following the Mexican–American War, which ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.
I couldn’t articulate it then, but Frost’s video was different from the prevailing representation of Latinos on primetime TV. The maids, gardeners, and Miami Vice-like criminals on screens signified more than callous stereotypes. These images whispered to many a not-so-secret narrative that these are the roles available for Latinos in American society. To paraphrase another red-faced adolescent—Hispanic Jobs.
Regrettably, "La Raza" didn't resonate as profoundly within mainstream culture as "Rico Suave," yet it sparked a personal awakening and marked a moment in hip-hop.
Kid Frost and Gerardo weren’t the first to rap in Espanglés. That honor likely goes to The Mean Machine, which put out “Disco Dreamin” in 1981. Of course, we can’t forget Cuban rapper Mellow Man Ace and his 1989 song “Mentirosa.” Yet, Latinos in hip-hop date back even further than that.
In the 1950s, the U.S. corporate push to transform Puerto Rico from a sugar-centered agrarian economy into a hub of cheap labor had profound short and long-term impacts on the island. The Operation Bootstrap initiative exacerbated wealth inequality and created economic hardships for rural communities and individuals lacking the skills needed for industrial employment.
Hundreds of thousands departed the "Isla Del Encanto" for America’s shores. They came to New York City for jobs and, as many before and after, a better life. The Puerto Rican Gran Migración—Great Migration—from 1950 to 1980 eventually resulted in twice as many Puerto Ricans residing in the U.S. as in Puerto Rico. Many of these Boricuas settled in the borough renowned for giving birth to hip-hop.
So, which came first, the Bronx’s designation as the “Boogie-Down” or hip-hop—chicken or egg? The moniker is likely a by-product of the disco era, but that’s neither here nor there. What's undeniable is that over 50 years ago, poor and working-class Black and Puerto Rican youth from the borough created a means of self-actualization through artistic self-expression that would grow beyond their wildest imaginations.
The ‘70s era scorched terrain of the South Bronx proved fertile ground for hip hop's foundation, the four pillars—DJing, emceeing, breakdancing, and graffiti. You might recognize the names of the pioneers who emerged from this environment, such as the father of hip-hop, DJ Kool Herc; Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five with their groundbreaking song, “The Message;” and the inventor of the scratch that birthed turntablism, Grand Wizard Theodore. However, you may be unfamiliar with hip-hop trailblazers with Spanish surnames. Names like Cedeño, Mendes, and Rojas.
Luis Cedeño, better known as DJ Disco Wiz, formed the Mighty Force Crew with Grandmaster Caz. Together, they played a pivotal role in introducing Prince Whipper Whip, one of the first Latino rappers. Carlos Mendes, a.k.a. DJ Charlie Chase, a 2012 inductee into the Technics DMC DJ Hall of Fame, was a founding member of The Cold Crush Brothers. Tito Rojas, also known as Devastating Tito—not to be confused with "El Gallo Salsero"—was a member of the Fearless Four, the first rap group signed to a major record label (Elektra Asylum). Mark Anthony Morales, better known as Prince Markie Dee of the hip-hop trio The Fat Boys, brought talent and humor to the group, propelling them from a 1983 Radio City Music Hall competition to starring roles in the 1987 film Disorderlies. Going further back, Felipe Luciano, one of the original members of the late 1960s poetry collective The Last Poets—often considered a precursor to hip-hop lyricism—was Puerto Rican.
These Latinos, along with b-boys like Richard Colón, better known as Crazy Legs of the Rock Steady Crew, and graffiti innovator Lee Quiñones, helped cultivate a developing culture. It's easy to understand how hip-hop's fast-moving history could cause them to get lost in the folds. Nevertheless, they were there, helping set the stage.
As DJ Charlie Chase said on a 2024 episode of Drink Champs, “They tell you Latinos created hip-hop. That’s not true. Were we there to help develop it, in the evolution, absolutely…”
Fat Joe (Joseph Cartagena) got in a little hot water recently on this point, but we’re not there yet. Speaking of Don Cartagena…
Before American Idol, America’s Got Talent, or The Voice, there was the "Amateur Night" segment of the long-running late-night TV show It’s Showtime at the Apollo. Allow me to correct myself. It wasn’t just a TV show but an African American institution. The program ran from 1987 to 2008, peaking in the '90s.
In 1991, a chubby Puerto Rican kid from the Forest Houses housing project tested his mettle on the Apollo’s unforgiving stage. Fat Joe won the talent show three times—a not-so-easy feat, which catapulted a rap career that would endure for over three decades, beginning with his 1993 debut album, Represent.
"Using language to say something meaningful about or represent the world meaningfully to others" is the textbook definition of representation. The ‘90s marked the “keep it real” era of rap, where emcees balanced braggadocio rhymes with street-based authenticity. During that time, you had to “represent” to be counted among the top rhyme sayers. Fat Joe showed that Latinos had a place in hip-hop’s budding hardcore sub-genre in the East. Around the same time, a group from El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, also known as Los Angeles, was doing the same.
It was a late Saturday night in Northern Virginia. I was in my sister’s then boyfriend’s parents' house days before I shipped out to Panamá to finish high school. Alone in a dark room, I sat affixed to a radio, record button at the ready. I was a sophomore with limited means, and my Sony Walkman could only be satisfied by the weekly hip-hop program on DC’s 89.3 FM. Midway through the broadcast, a baritone voice broke through the static.
“Yeah, that’s the nombre, heard that homey,
Peace to Mellow and Frost en el deporte!
Sen Dog is not a kid, a veterano,
I’m down! Another proud hispano,”
I nearly fell out of my seat. "Another proud Hispano!" The verse introduced me to Sen Dog and B-Real, better known as Cypress Hill. The duo's 1991 eponymous debut album was a distinct entrant into hip-hop's hardcore sphere. In my opinion, it was their crowning achievement, but it would be their 1993 Grammy-nominated single "Insane in the Membrane" that catapulted the stoner emcees into superstardom.
Cypress Hill became the first Latino rap group to go platinum, selling over a million albums. This achievement made them the first mainstream hip-hop group to flaunt their Hispanic heritage. In 1999, they released Los Grandes Éxitos en Español, an album featuring Spanish versions of their songs—another hip-hop first.
Cypress Hill performing at the 2018 National Cannabis Festival in Washington, DC. (Photo by Will Colbert)
By the end of the 90s, artists like Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and Enrique Iglesias dominated radio rotations, commanded the media’s attention, and appeared on countless magazine covers. It was coined the "Latin explosion." While the label was corny, Latinos receiving accolades, albeit for pop crossover records, was incredible. However, for those of us rocking baggy jeans, Polos, and Timberland boots, a once-in-a-generation rapper embodied the epitome of Latino artistry in this era.
As Fat Joe recounts in his memoir, The Book of Jose, it was an ordinary day on 166th Street and Tinton Avenue in New York City. Joe’s debut album had succeeded, but he wasn’t yet too famous to roam his Bronx stomping grounds without much fuss. While leaving a neighborhood bodega, he came across a cipher of Latino rappers. One emcee, then known as Moon Dog Punisher, was spitting mind-blowing, rapid-fire rhymes. The rest, as they say, is rap history.
Before the release of his debut, Christopher Lee Rios, better known as Big Punisher, or Big Pun, would build fervor among rap fans from his verses on “Firewater” off Fat Joe’s EP, Envy, “Off the Books” from The Beatnuts' third studio album, Stone Crazy; and a song with one of his legendary alliterative verses that is still quoted today...
“Dead in the middle of Little Italy,
Little did we know, that we riddled some middleman who didn’t do diddly…”
On April 28, 1998, Big Pun’s much-anticipated debut album, Capital Punishment, was released. The opus proved that Pun wasn’t just a great Latino rapper. He was a great rapper, period. His ethnicity was an asterisk that didn’t matter to anyone who cared about hip-hop. Capital Punishment raised the bar for lyricism and sold over a million copies, making Pun the first Latino rapper to go platinum.
Tragedy eclipsed the success. The Bronx rapper’s promising career was cut short by his untimely death on February 7, 2000. Pun was 28-years-old. Without this heartbreaking loss, people might have celebrated the Puerto Rican rapper as one of the most gifted lyricists since Rakim.
The early 2000s ushered in a cadre of Latinos poised to assume Big Pun’s mantle–Chino XL, Immortal Technique, Noreaga, and Joell Ortiz, to name a few. While each found success, none quite reached Pun's popularity. It would be a generation before a Latino rapper ignited the same enthusiasm from rap fans.
According to the latest U.S. census estimates, Hispanic Texans now constitute the largest demographic group in the state, surpassing White Texans by nearly 129,000—a poetic demographic boomerang. The great-great-grandchildren of the Mexicans forced off their land by manifest destiny—the 19th-century belief that the United States was predestined to expand its territory across North America, including Mexico—now form the majority in the Lone Star State.
Virgil René Gazca, better known today as That Mexican OT (OT standing for “Outta Texas”), was born in Bay City, Texas, shortly after Big Pun’s death. Like Pun, the 25-year-old Mexican-American rapper is making a name for himself, not because of his heritage but his mastery of clever wordplay. The rapper’s 2023 major-label debut album, Lonestar Luchador, is a phenomenal showcase of multisyllabic rapid-fire lyricism, chopped and screwed Southern-fried rap, Tejano music, slab culture, and so much more.
That Mexican OT fully embraces his identity on songs like “Barrio,” but that wasn’t always the case. “I hated everything about myself. My name. My ethnicity. The way I looked. My hair. Everything. I despised everything about myself. But now it’s my career to be myself,” says Gazca in a 2023 Washington Post story.
According to a recent study by UnidosUS, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, and the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy (IEP), nearly 14 million Latino students are now in U.S. classrooms. That’s over a quarter of the 50.8 million students in K-12 public schools.
The UnidoUS and IEP report, Analyzing Inclusion of Latino Contributions in the U.S. History Curricula for High School, highlights the absence of significant moments, events, and figures representing Latino contributions to U.S. history in school curricula. Notable figures, such as Dr. Helen Rodríguez Trías—a Puerto Rican pediatrician who played a pivotal role in reducing infant mortality, fought for reproductive rights, and became the first Latina president of the American Public Health Association—Sylvia Mendez, a civil rights activist instrumental in dismantling school segregation in the landmark Mendez v. Westminster case, and Labor leaders Dolores Huerta, as well as Cesar Chavez are largely excluded. The list can go on, but you get the idea.
These omissions deprive students, like the pre-Mexican OT Gazca, of inspirational role models to bolster their self-esteem. Even worse, it enables misinformation and negative portrayals of Latinos by politicians, the media, and internet trolls.
Fat Joe recently felt the sting of those who stoke the flames of discord on the internet. On August 26, 2022, the Bronx rapper attempted to celebrate the Latino contribution to hip-hop on social media. In the video clip, he lists a handful of Hispanic hip-hop pioneers. "When hip-hop started, it's Latinos and Blacks–half and half," said Joe. The provocative statement may have been a bridge too far.
The online backlash turned into debates about race and appropriation. Opportunists have repeatedly stolen Black music and culture. The vultures are always circling, but I wouldn’t put Joe among them. Perhaps, much like myself, he was nostalgic and joyful about seeing himself in the music he loves.
I’m no rapper, but I’ve embraced all aspects of the culture for as long as I can remember. I recall memorizing the Miranda Rights before the Pledge of Allegiance because of a Melle Mel song on one of my parents’ cassette tapes. Oh, how shocked they were when one day I told them they “had the right to remain silent” and “had the right to an attorney.” I absorbed everything, as children are apt to do, and that was especially true of hip-hop. It’s hard to reconcile being a tourist in a place I consider home.
Incidentally, Latinos are not a race but an ethnicity—a common misperception. If race is a social construct, then we Latinos epitomize the fluidity of identity. According to Marie Arana in her illuminating book LatinoLand: A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority, nearly two-thirds of Latinos are mixed race.
After over five hundred years of race mixing, we represent every possible hue. Members of the same family are often racially categorized differently depending on where on the genetic roulette wheel their features fall.
You get a taste of this hybridization in Latin music, with its mixture of European forms, African rhythms, and indigenous instrumentation. “We are a microcosm of the diverse nation the United States is gradually becoming,” writes Arana.
Cardi B, the first female rapper with five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, exemplifies Latino diversity. The NYC-born Grammy Award-winner from Washington Heights, New York, is of Dominican and Trinidadian descent. She identifies as Afro-Latina, acknowledging the rich African heritage of many Latin Americans. This legacy has shaped Latino culture and music for generations.
The first non-Native American person to settle in what would become New York City was Afro-Latino. In 1613, Juan Rodriguez, a sailor of mixed African and European descent born in the Dominican Republic’s Capital, Santo Domingo, was part of a Dutch convoy bound for the Hudson River to trade for furs with indigenous tribes. Upon concluding the trade with the Lenape Indians, the convoy sailed back to Holland, while Rodriguez opted to remain. Taking destiny into his hands, he mastered indigenous languages, married into a tribe, and embarked on a new life in a new land.
Over time, Rodriguez was joined by other Dominicans, echoing the familiar tale of immigrant community beginnings. Today, Dominicans constitute the fifth-largest Latino population in the United States, with a significant concentration in New York City.
Juan Rodríguez Way in Manhattan, NYC
The stretch of Broadway from 159th Street to 218th Street in Manhattan is named after Juan Rodríguez, but the average person likely doesn’t know why. As it is in U.S. history, so it is in hip-hop. Latinos may not be listed among America’s founding fathers or mothers, but we’ve been here all along—contributing.