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The country falls/ the overthrow is already happening/ Companies use the media to attack/ A new president rises without a vote/ They bring down a commander/ But they don’t silence the “hood”

Listening to the lyrics of Patriotas, written by Venezuelan rapper Master and three others from the artist collective Area 23, it is hard to imagine that someone raised in  23 de Enero, one of the poorest and most politicalized neighborhoods in Caracas, didn’t care about President Hugo Chávez’s election in December 1998. “It didn’t catch my attention when he came to power”, says Master, baptized as Jorney Madriz. “But I did pay attention when he was overthrown in 2002.”

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“Before Chávez, the youth in Venezuela experienced a time of political apathy”, says the rapper. “When the president arrived, though, a huge portion of the population was awakened, and it’s hard not to see the new political attitude”. Master was one of the young people that experienced the turbulence in Venezuela at the beginning of the century. From that crucial moment on, his personal story is representative of the country’s.

The insurrection in the “hoods” crushed your shamelessness/ What happened in Venezuela, did they kill its vocation? / Did they erase our fight and terminate our revolution?

Master’s debut in the universe of rhymes was as spontaneous as the popular resistance against the attempt to overthrow Chávez in April 2002. “It’s hard to explain how I began. I didn’t have a conscious political reason”, explains the artist in a smooth, rhythmical tone. He says he came a long way before finding his style. “You either go with the flow of the commercial American rap, or you go against it. I decided to go against it. I was 12 years old”, he says. Now he is 28, dressed from head to foot with the hip-hop uniform, large pants, oversized shirt and a cap.

The way politics entered his compositions was even more natural. In the 23 de Enero neighborhood, politics were in the air much before the arrival of the “commander”, the way Master refers to the Venezuelan president. The rapper lived in low-income housing developments, built during the government of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1952-1958). The neighborhood changed its name to “el 23”, the way its residents call it, to pay homage to the date the dictator fell, and so it became a traditional place of popular resistance. El 23 became a legend when, in 2002, thousands of people left the neighborhood to occupy the streets of the capital and demand the return to power of President Chávez, kidnapped by the coup military officers.

In the break of dawn military officers prepared the ambushes/ To reveal the process will be an expensive task / Special shows so no one is aware/ That the people are on the streets and will come to the rescue

Kidnaps are not tolerated, may the voices be united/ The brave will defend themselves from a fort in Tiuna/ Freedom skydivers that didn’t stop/ They marched, attacked and got our sky back

The military coup, impelled by the press and supported by the government of the Unites States, didn’t last more than a couple of hours. Chávez, who was removed from the government at dawn on April 11th, was back in the Palacio de Miraflores, with the help of the Skydiving Brigade, 48 hours later. “On those days, I really understood opposition. That encouraged me to compose”, says the rapper, who lived in the north state of Carabobo back then.

Now that are so many voices that the whole world listens to/ Venezuela is not afraid of the power of an empire/ No, it’s no afraid anymore

“We believe in Chávez because we see him as a strategic ally, who opens up a crack in the State so people like us can participate in it”, says Master. Only in 2005 a Ministry of Culture was created – the area was handled by a private institute before that. The Culture Mission, which was launched in the same year, is especially dedicated to promoting culture that has Venezuelan roots, training cultural and artistic groups.

“We are an instrument that can be used in different ways. We are the voice of the revolution”, says Master, at the end of the afternoon at the noisy Praça Bolívar (Bolívar Plaza), in Caracas.  A few meters from there, the Teatro Nacional (National Theater) was already filled with Venezuelans of all ages that who were about to see different rap groups. In the audience, a man that was about 70 years old was waving one of his hands to the beats while holding a small TV in the other. Chávez was announcing a new security plan.

Besides being a rapper, Master is also a visual producer at Ávila TV, created 8 years ago by the government of the Metropolitan District of Caracas as an audiovisual school. “The idea is to take a camera, a microphone, a computer, things that used to be reserved for other people in Venezuela, and go to the streets. It was so meaningful that we decided to use the channel as trench warfare platform”, he says.

After a little while, the government created 31 Epatus (Escola para as Artes e Tradições Urbanas – School of Art and Urban Traditions), that operates under the roof of the Ministry of the Popular Power for the Communal Economy, where citizens of all ages can get to know the hip-hop culture.

Both a cultural and political character, Master is rolling up his sleeves to help with the presidential campaign. “It is strategic for us that the commander continues where he is”, he declares, sounding categorical. “I sometimes think that it would be good to have some other options of leaders. But not now. Now we need to find the thousands of other Chávez’s that are still being formed.”

Translation: Kelly Cristina Spinelli 

A seis dias do primeiro turno das eleições, o ex-guerrilheiro e ex-prefeito de Bogotá Gustavo Petro, de 62 anos, continua liderando as pesquisas da eleição presidencial colombiana, com 41% das intenções de voto. Base forte, mas insuficiente para evitar um segundo turno, que deve ocorrer contra o ex-prefeito de Medellín, o direitista Federico Gutiérrez, de 47 anos, com 27% dos votos.

Figuras de papelão com a cara de Petro e bandeiras do movimento colombiano e indígena. Com esses e outros símbolos, pelo menos 50 mil pessoas compareceram no domingo (22/05) à Praça de Bolívar, no centro Bogotá, para o encerramento da campanha do candidato de esquerda.

Petro aspira tomar o poder da direita colombiana. É a primeira vez que um candidato está tão perto de alcançá-lo. “Temos esperança nele, sobretudo para que a pobreza e a violência acabem”, explica Isabel, uma moradora de Bogotá que participava pela primeira vez de um evento político.

Durante o comício, a fala de Gustavo Petro se concentrou justamente nessas duas questões. "Simplesmente viver juntos em paz como objetivo central da mudança", disse o candidato, que concorre às eleições com Francia Márquez como vice.

Se as previsões se confirmarem, será a primeira vez que a esquerda conquista o poder na Colômbia, país historicamente governado por elites liberais e conservadoras.

O direitista Federico 'Fico' Gutiérrez, 47, e ex-prefeito de Medellín, é o mais bem posicionado para disputar o segundo turno contra o Petro em 19 de junho. Mas ele é seguido de perto pelo empresário independente Rodolfo Hernández, 77, cuja candidatura é apoiada pela franco-colombiana Ingrid Betancourt.