West Coast Rappers, Pachuquismo, and Super Bowl Half-Time: "Appropriation" or "Appreciation"?

 Daniel Cano

                                                                                      

Chicano postmodernism

     The minute the Super Bowl half-time kicked off, I raised the TV volume, sat back, and got ready for the show. Like everybody else, I knew I’d be watching a rap extravaganza, but how they’d unfold it was anybody’s guess. Could it hold up to past Super Bowl half-time shows?

     Dre started out, his back to the camera, working the sound board like he was captain of the Enterprise. He stood, hands outstretched, a savior. From a corner came Snoop Dog, his suave movements, not the strutting, high-stepping, robotic movements of many rappers. No, Snoop is smooth, laid back, like…hey! Like an old-school cholo, cool, swaying, elbows out, hands clasped, a dance meditation, a modernized pachuco-shuffle.

     I scanned the set and my eyes settled on the lowered ’62 and ’64 Chevys, shiny, as if they’d rolled right off the show room floor, Tupac’s “California Love” perfectly setting the tone. Then I thought, though I’ve seen low riders in many rapper videos, they didn't originate in Compton, Watts, or Willow Brook, but in East L.A. San Fernando, L.A,'s westside--Los Angeles, the country's car capital. We lacked behind every other urban center in public transportation, so we took to our cars. 

     Since Mexicans/Chicanos started moving into South L.A. and Compton in the late ‘70s, early 80s (the latest census shows Compton almost70%, Latino), are low-riders a metaphor for the blending of two cultures?

     I started thinking about the latest cultural concept “cultural appropriation vs. cultural appreciation,” and I watched the show more closely. I’m not a rap fanatic, but I take-a-listen when I’m in the mood, so when my favorite rapper Kendrick Lamar popped up out of a multitude of dyed blonde male dancers, I noticed everybody was wearing khakis, like 1960’s Chicano cholos, even the choreography reminded me of Chicano dance-steps, back in the day.

                                                                                        

The car, Chicanos, and khakis, West L.A. circa 1955

     Is rap culture closely tied to old-school pachuquismo, albeit a hipper, updated version? Is it a blending of many cultures, I mean, Mary J. Blige and all of Kendrick Lamar’s dancers as blondes, appreciation or appropriation of northern European women, Swedes, Danes, and Swiss?

     Appropriation is exploiting a culture, like raping it of its finest parts. Appreciation is taking from a culture respectfully, with no intent to offend or disrespect. I heard a popular country singer recently say he added rap intonations to some of his songs because he appreciated the melodies and beats and thought they’d go perfectly in his music. When the listener asked how the singer even knew about rap the singer answered something like he doesn’t live in a box, American music influences, like rap, soul, metal, are everywhere, even in the deep south.

    I remember waiting at a stop light, my windows down. I heard the bass thumping of car speaker at high volume pulling up beside me. I expected to see a souped-up Honda Accord, tinted windows. No way. This is Los Angeles, U.S. of A. The vehicle that pulled up was a high, big-tired, 4x4 pickup, a guy inside with a red face, full beard, a cowboy hat, work tools in the truck’s bed, and he was blasting Tupac, obscenities galore. Sometimes I think Americans are more alike than different.

     Back in the early 2000s, the Los Angeles Times published a series of articles on the violence in South Central L.A. high schools between black and brown students, hinting at a race war. It all started with a fight between an African American kid and a Mexican kid. Many of the students in my community college class lived in that area. When I asked them about it, they said the newspaper "sucked." The reporter made it sound like the two ethnic groups couldn’t live next to each other. That was wrong.

     A Mexican student said many Mexican and Central American families have been living side-by-side with black families their entire lives. Why didn’t the newspapers do a series about kids in both cultures playing ball, hanging out at the park, riding bikes, visiting each other’s home, sharing meals, or being there for each other when one family needed help. It’s only when there is friction the media gets interested.

     The kids fighting in school didn’t like each other, and their friends took sides. Sure, there are kids, and some families, who try making everything about race, but they’re the minority. The fight wasn’t about race but about two guys who didn’t like each other.

     Many Baby Boom Chicanos and their kids grew up listening to the iconic “Oldies.” The majority of artists who sang oldies were African American, the Impressions, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Little Anthony, or the Shirelles. Art Laboe’s dances at the El Monte Legion Stadium were filled with young Chicanos listening to a night of music headlined by groups of mostly black, oldies' artists.

                                                                                      

Early Chicano car culture, Brentwood barrio, circa 1930

     You didn’t find many Chicano homes in the 1960s or ‘70s without an album by the Temptations, Supremes, Four Tops, or Marvin Gay. Music goes deep. You can hear the influence of soul and blues music, among other genres, in bands like Los Lobos, Tierra, Santana, even the early work of Lalo Guerrero, the boogie era, appropriation or appreciation?

     What about Tex-Mex, Little Joe, the Texas Tornadoes, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Cannibal and the Headhunter, Thee Midniters, the Sir Douglas Quintet, Question Mark and the Mysterians, or today’s country bands who hire Flaco Jimenez to add some Mexican zest to their music with his accordion? I even heard local mariachi belt out Motown tunes. Appropriation or Appreciation?

     America, in all its cultural complexities, is, paradoxically, a representation of many cultures and of one. In Catholic school, I was taught for twelve years by Irish nuns, priests, and brothers. I not only have an affinity to everything Irish, especially the accent and music, sometimes I even see myself as Irish. Fortunately, I always saw my teachers as tough but fair, and, yes, some loving, when they had to be.

     So, as Dre and Snoop Dog began rapping and swaying to Dre’s music from the Chronic, I sensed a familiarity to the music and African American street culture. I recalled my black friends in the military, guys who had my back, then my Good ‘ol Boy friends from the Arkansas and West Virginia, Italians and Poles from Chicago, and New York, race or ethnicity not a factor, and I appreciated our humanity, as well as our, always expanding, culture--American culture, and I realized even Rap belongs to all of us.