Who do I vote for! Or do I Vote at all?

I can’t believe it’s election day and I have yet to make up my mind on who to vote for!  I mean I went to the poll this morning at 7:00 A.M. and due to problems at a project I’m building I had to leave right before I voted!  So the issue is who do I vote for?  I mean everyone has made up there mind based on what ever factors they deem important to them and also on what the candidates are saying.  But at the end of the day it has to be about more than just the words and lies told during the campaign and about the reality of what will be done!  Who is the right man for the job?  Who can really make something happen to change the status of our country?

That is my major issue, I don’t have a clear idea!  But I do know I don’t think either candidate can do a great job, in fact none of them are totally capable of being president!  On one hand we have a man who can talk up a storm and charm anyone out of their panties!  The other is a man who many don’t like only because of who he has backed!  Yes BUSH sucked and was the worst president of our time and possible history, but a lot has to be said.  He doesn’t care what people think of him and he does what he feels is the best job as president.  Yes he spend billions of dollars on a war that even I dont believe in, but at the end of the day he also made a statement that we will not be bullied around and that you cant come into our country and cause havoc at  your own leisure!

We need someone with the mentality for the people and someone who has the balls to stand up and fight when necessary!  I dont believe in war and I dont like sitting back and being abused either so when push comes to shove I feel Bush made a choice to protect us as best as he thought possible.  Maybe not the best choice, but we havent been attacked since, so something must be right!

Barack as much as I would love to feel 100% about him, I cant!  I honestly can not back this man up 100% there are so many loops holes in what he says and what he is trying to implement that when trully analyzed we cant figure out who he is for!  We dont know if hes trying to make the poor man richer or the richer man poorer!  A lot of what he says makes no real sense and I dont know what to think right now!  I want to vote because it is something we all should take advantage of, but if you are unsure you cant make the wrong choice only because you have a choice!  Thats like letting a man go back to the streets after supposedly killing someone only because you dont know if he did it or not!  if you have 100% assurance he didnt do it you have to set him free, but if you have some doubt that he may be the one who committed the crime you need to hold him until proven otherwise.  Right now I feel that Barack has not completely convinced me he is the right man for the job and if he does win, and by the looks of it he will i just hope he can prove me wrong and make me feel that he deserves my vote.  Because having a presense and speaking very elequently doesnt make you the president, it is the change that you make while in office that does that!  All were doing is voting you in, now you need to earn that title and do what  you said you can!

So all in all, I may not vote this year, not because I cant or because i wont have time but only because I dont know who to vote for.  I am very split and unless something miraculously happens within the next few hours I wont vote at all.  Its sad when after such a long period of time in watching this whole campaign you are still stuck on who to vote for.  Im not the only one because I have met many who are in the same boat!  I dont want McCain because I dont want the same crap for another 8 years and I dont want Barack because in all honesty I dont trust his choices and what he seems to stand for.  I want change, but I want real change for all of us, not just the some.  Its not fair to favor one over the other and that is the problem with this country!  We have groups and in having so many different people workig against each other only causes huge problems so we cant fix it unless we come together to do so.  So until 2012 well see what happens with who ever wins, and hopefully by then I’ll know who to vote for. Sad I have to wait 4 years to decide.

Latino Urban Rappers - They Have Talent!

The Urban scene in the Latino community is growing and it seems that although we have some real heavy talent that its taking way too long to get anywhere!  I have heard songs that surprisingly enough would do very well on Anglo radio and yet haven’t gotten any love on our own stations.  The industry truly doesn’t know what talent is and only seeks to continue to support those they have gotten monetary gains from.  There is a lot of talent out there right now, I mean production has been taken to a whole new level and artists have stepped up their game where if you actually listen to the music you will take notice that you can hardly differentiate from English Hip Hop except for the Language difference.

In itself that’s a huge accolade to give a Latino Rapper, to say that they have music that stands up to an every day standard within the Hip Hop community is stating a lot.  Artists such as Temperamento, Kufa Castro, Malverde, Noztra, Salazar Brothers, Zaturno, Sami Cultura, Cuban Links, Aro Sanchez, Vakero, Lapiz, Toxic Crow the list can keep going.  My whole point is that the scene has changed enough that we have good enough artists to support and allow to grow in the latest Genre to come out of our community!  if we believe in who we are as a people we can take on any type of style and make it our own.

The talent that we now have, have done just that!  They taken and honed a craft that was once totally dominated by the English Rappers, and although we have had some great success with artists such as Fat Joe, Big Pun, Cypress Hill, Mellow Man Ace and many others!  We have still not had the impact of having a Top Latino MC spitting in our native tongue!  We have to push the envelope to see the growth potential reach the full capacity it can have.  If Hispanics are the LARGEST percentage based buyers of HIP HOP music through out the entire United States and have been spending billions through out the years, why hasn’t anyone though of using that to our advantage?  Why is it we still support everyone else  but our own?

Supporting our cultura is the only way we will get to where we should be as a people in general.  We cant depend on others to get us there, we have to claw our way up.  I just think that since we already spend millions upon millions on buying English Rap music that if we took our real talented young artists and actually supported them that in turn we will see them sell millions!  If we purchased just half of what we buy for other cultures and put it to our own, we would see a significant growth which will make the Industry execs spin their heads and react!  We need a start, so lets just do that!  Start!

Wall Street’s Golden Parachutes!

The Government is out of their damn mind!  The package they have put together and thank God has failed to pass would allow each of the top executives of the companies they are bailing out to KEEP their golden parachutes.  Packages that the bailout would not be able to exclude because they had been in place before the government stepped in to save the companies and prior to the Democrats adding curbs on CEO pay.  How in the world can they put that on our shoulders?  This is all being put on us “THE PEOPLE” and even though we didn’t benefit from all the good business they generated we sure as hell are going to benefit from the breakdown!  Not Fair!

Had the bill passed Millions of dollars would have been paid out to people who were on employed for less than three months, THREE MONTHS!  How the hell can you pay someone $22 Millions dollars for working only a three month period?  Another gentleman which was CEO of Washington Mutual and held that seat for a WHOLE 3 weeks would have been $3 Million richer!  So what this tells me is that all we are doing is keeping the rich richer while taking away from the lower and middle class and now basically crushing their hopes of ever getting anywhere!

Bush is trying I will say that, but I believe he is only trying to show face without having a clue!  Can we please go back and re-read what is being voted on?  Can you exclude that part of the deal and use that money where it actually is needed?  Yes bail out the organizations which need it, but don’t give money to the damn people who caused the problems in the first place!  That’s rewarding someone for messing up, and aren’t we already doing enough of that by giving away $700 Billion to the banks? Golden Parachutes, I wish we could just give these people golden showers!

Government Bail Out - Will it Work?

The President says we need it, The House says it’s not a good move and we’re all just hanging out in the wind waiting for an outcome!  I don’t typically speak about political affairs, especially the economy but this is one time I want to just state a little of what I feel on the matter.  Economics is definitely not my strong point and I rarely discuss it so I don’t come out looking a fool, so for all of you who would enjoy a momentous giggle on my behalf here it is!  I don’t get it!  I literally don’t understand what the hell the U.S. Government is doing!  Why are we bailing out companies that should be held responsible for their own failures?  Yes I do realize the large ramifications of not doing it, but I also know business and this is not good business!  I have managed, owned and worked for many different companies my entire working career, and how many times have I felt the sting of errors in judgment after making a mistake?  But here comes the good ole U.S. of A to the rescue and now their putting the entire Nation at risk! I don’t get it!

$700 Billion, a number that amazes the hell out of me and one that isn’t even close to enough to begin to fix the problem at that, is on the line!  Money that “WE THE PEOPLE” have worked so hard for and possibly don’t even have to lose are faced with losing everything.  We are at a point that ANY mistake that the government makes will put most of us out on the street and left with not one worthless American penny to our names!  How can we allow this?  Yes allow!  WE THE PEOPLE as it is so clearly stated in the constitution control this country!  At the end of the day it is our vote and our say that makes or breaks this nation, but yet we are left out wondering what we will do when we get screwed!  We are all just getting screwed because of the fact we have not one word to say on what is happening on capital hill!

2008 is a voting year and everyone is out to make a difference and change the world!  Yes but what will happen after the winner is selected?  What will be the next step?  Will there even be a country for this man to run after the government gets done with it?  I’m not speaking against the government as a whole, just the poor decisions that have been getting made and those that are just getting worse.  We can’t blame it all on the government only because we elected these people into office, maybe we were lied to and convinced to vote for them under the wrong pretences but none the less we still voted them in!  We need to make that change ourselves now!  Vote very carefully because as of right now not only do these banks need a bailout, but so do we as the U.S. citizens!  I haven’t chosen who I will vote for, but I have been paying very close attention to the whole game being played and I have changed my mind quite a few times and yes I am a Democrat but this isn’t about no damn Elephant or Donkey it’s about the right person stepping into office and how the needed changes will be done to bring us out of this mess we have been put into!  So Vote, but Vote with all the information you can get, not only because you bought a Nice tee Shirt!

Who is To Blame?

It seems that many are considering Hip Hop en Español to be violent and not worthy of promoting.  Something that has always amused me not only on Hip Hop but with everything in general from Movies, TV and Radio shows.  Through out the years people have been blaming everything but what the true blame is for all of the violence that occurs with our kids.  We see murders taking place, kids killing each other on rampages and suicides happening for no apparent reason. The common denominator on all these occurrences is who/what gets blamed!  MUSIC? TV? MOVIES?

Yes we can point the finger and say well, look at what they are saying or doing, children listen and mimic what they see and hear!  Very True! But lets also think of one big part of that statement, “Children listen and mimic what they see and hear” so what are they seeing at home?  If our kids are doing what they see and they are all of sudden doing such horrible things; did they see it at home?  Somewhere down the line they are learning what they are doing and for people to say that they can honestly blame it on one thing in particular such as media I believe that’s ignorant.  First they copy what they see at the home, and secondly they live what see in their communities!

With all that said there isn’t a true blame for what happens and takes place in society except to blame society itself!  If we as a whole were able to better control what happens, truly have a judicial system that takes care of its people and police each other as we should, we would not face such dilemmas!  Not one society through out the world has a perfect system; no one can say we have no violence or robberies happening!  NO ONE is perfect!  Society is driven by so many different factors that it would be almost impossible to ever resolve each of them, but we need to start somewhere!

Money is the root to all evil, if we were not human we wouldn’t have this urge to be greedy and have everything we want. If we would live our lives comfortably without the need of over extending ourselves, we wouldn’t live life struggling!  All of these things cause problems to arise, greed causes you to do thing that take it to another level and create horrible situations.  It starts from the root and reaches to the tip of each branch; life is dying because we allow it to die.  My issue with blaming Music, not just specific genres but all music in general makes me laugh only because they are only saying what they see; only expressing what they have been feeling for so many years! What is wrong with that?

If you teach your child to do something from an early stage in life, they will do it! If you tell them not to steal, curse, KILL! They won’t do it!  But if you don’t instill morals and love into a child they will grow into the worst possible creatures imaginable.  Stealing comes from need of something to also the greed of wanting it.  If we have all of our children grow up to be studious and hard working men and women we wouldn’t be faced with them having to steal because they can maintain themselves and never have a need. 

It just bothers me to see people holding back a movement that has been so long in the making because they feel that what they sing about is wrong.  Yes I don’t condone what they do and say, but why stop the expression of it? Why can’t you take your child and explain to them that what they are listening to is not what they should do? Is it because we are lazy and do not want to take a moment in our lives to teach a child? But yet fall back and buy them the very thing that you blame for their behavior? That is ridiculous! Right now possibly the biggest thing to happen to Latin music is taking place and now we see people blocking it because they say that artists such as Temperamento, Lapiz, Vakero, Toxic Crow and so many more are a bad influence and say and do too many things that they shouldn’t! Why shouldn’t they? 

Their not teaching them anything, just doing what they do on an everyday basis, acting as they always do. If you don’t like it, don’t let your child buy the CD, prevent them from watching the videos, but do not stop someone from speaking freely.  We were not only given that right by law but also by God!  This topic is possibly one of the most controversial topics I have ever chosen to speak on but one that just amuses me, because I can’t believe that people will not take blame for their own children.  It starts at home people, stop them at the door and they will not open and go through it! 

The Dominican Republic is facing a huge rising of great talent and artists that have so much to show and prove, but yet we have people writing in and complaining that they shouldn’t be allowed to come to the States because of their lyrics?  Yeah like we don’t have artists here doing worse!  As if the movies, novelas and music we have here are any better!   Reality is that parents as a whole need to take responsibility for their own, and raise their children properly.  I was raised in a home where we understood everything taking place; we saw it and chose not to live it.  The neighborhood we were raised in was not the best in the city but yet we survived and prospered, a child is only as good as the parent which raises them. 

Stop the cycle if you were raised incorrectly, Love your child and make it a point to teach them properly and you will not see them turn out bad.  I have been listening to Hip Hop since I was 8 years old, and I haven’t killed, raped or robbed anyone and millions of other people haven’t also.  At times we will have unfortunate cases where someone is not mentally stable and do things without control, but for the most part it can be avoided with proper guidance. Music is expression, Movies are stories and Radio is life as it happens, you can not stop any of it when it deals with reality of who we are and what we do.  Let our expression be without boundaries, let us grow and prosper.

Hispanics have been struggling for years to fit where they say we don’t, our artists trying to find a place where they can feel comfortable to express themselves and for us to stop them because of certain things isn’t fair.  First we thought Reggaeton was too sexual so we banned it in certain countries and now Hip Hop en Español is too dangerous to allow into the United States (one of the most violent driven countries in the world). Yea that makes perfect sense.  Hip Hop wasn’t stopped when it started and I can express with 100% certainty that the movement of Spanish Hip Hop will not be held back, if anything it will be catapulted beyond what many are expecting. Be Ready!

Written by:
Hector “Heist” Alvarez
Si No Sabias, Nao Yu No!
www.Perrealo.com
www.myspace.com/heistness
Home of Latin Hip Hop!

 

The Latin Hip Hop Segregation!

In a time when so many things bring up attention to racial issues, we are faced with a similar problem within our own culture and community.  I don’t know if this would be called racial discrimination or just unfairness but it is out there.  Although this will raise a lot of others to face a reality and also make remarks about the thoughts I am about to express, I am faced with stating how I feel about it.  When the whole explosion occurred within the Music industry, and all of a sudden Reggaeton made millions for so many Artists and Record Labels alike we saw that not everyone was able to take full advantage of it.  If you really analyze the Genre and see which artists made it to Radio and actually saw sales sky rocket you will take notice that they were all predominantly Puerto Rican!  I am also Puerto Rican so commenting on this is something I can have valid feelings on because I see this to be wrong!

Very few if any other Spanish Speaking Artist made an impact if they were not from Puerto Rico, in fact if you really look at it this music was made famous by producers that weren’t from Puerto Rico but from the Dominican Republic, yet an artist Singing Reggaeton from the Dominican Republic was not able to get the respect and wide acceptance as one from Puerto Rico!  This is very unfair and a huge problem within our own community, more because of the lasting impression this can make on our youth but also this will keep us from growing and continuing to reach a larger audience because we ourselves our putting restraints on our own music.  We have the biggest possibilities before us, but we keep anything from happening because we can not get past the simplest of things and that is that we have so many different countries that speak Spanish!  There are 23 countries and we should be proud to have this many, but instead of rejoicing and being one united culture we allow this to be a wall that separates us.

This is a situation similar to that of a few years ago in the Hip Hop community, when we saw the east and west go head to head.  But here we have something that can be resolved and made right.  On the East Coast of the United States you have Puerto Rican & Dominican artists in the forefront of Latin Hip Hop, and although Reggaeton’s popularity is fading you still see very little in artists not of Puerto Rico doing well!  But all in all you can still take notice who dominates the Genre of Latin Hip Hop in the East Coast market.  On the west coast you will have a more difficult time breaking in if you’re not Mexican, Latin Hip Hop is much more popular on the West Coast but also more dominated by the Mexican rappers.  The different styles and interpretations of Latin Hip Hop on each coast is very noticeable, one being more party oriented and the other more street oriented but both still Hip Hop.  On the West Coast Spanish Rap is very different from here on the East Coast, but Music is Music no matter what you are, and if it’s the same Genre it shouldn’t even matter anyway.  And this is not only a problem in Hip Hop but with so many other Genres within the Latin Community including Salsa, Merengue, Bachata and every other Spanish Music.  For us to be in a situation that if you’re not this or that and from a certain part of the country you’re not going to have the support and backing makes it a problem.  I see this as segregation within our own and its something that will continue to harm us and not allow us to make it as far as we should.  How many millions of us are there, but yet we have to struggle to make the numbers others make when unified.

There is enough racial discrimination taking place for us to be suffering from our own internal discrimination, where as this is not an issue of race this is an issue of not supporting one another fully.  The segregation I speak of is not a problem where we are racist with each other, but it’s a problem that does appear to deal with being less supportive of one over the other.  Reggaeton being a great example as to what took place not less than two years ago, for it to have blown up into a national phenomena and then slowly falling off due to not having an overall support from everyone.  I believe that if we all were to unify and work on something together instead of working against each other we may in fact get further and have something that can last for a longer period of time and not just have fads come and go.  We have experienced this fad syndrome various times in our past and yet we fall right back into it over and over again.  In the late 80’s into the early 90’s we have Freestyle music come and disappear as fast as Reggaeton seems to be going.  We have core fans of Freestyle but who knows what would have happened had the marketing support and growth of the Genre been done in a different way!

When Reggaeton hit everyone was already talking about the Fad syndrome and the possibilities of it not lasting!  So many great songs were released by artists and not given a chance if they weren’t from Puerto Rico!  That is not only unfair to the artist but to the consumer as well.  We can not continue to deny those we seek to appeal to, the fans which purchase the music we struggle so hard to make.  If we make the music and put it out, it will be purchased.  But if we continue to shelve artists for what ever the reason especially if the reason is not being one thing over the other then we face never having a solid hold on any Genre.  If you notice we go through periods of when one Genre is hot and then all of a sudden we have something else, such as Salsa being the hot music of the moment for one minute and then all of the sudden Merengue comes in.  I just feel if we just support Music for the Music we will have better success and longer lasting impressions within the Music world.  Let’s not be our own worst enemies and continue to make music that lasts and not just fade away.

Written by: Heist
www.Perrealo.com
www.myspace.com/heistness
perrealo@gmail.com
Si No Sabias, Nao Yu No!

 

Do They Know Latin Hip Hop?

This year’s Latin Billboard Awards were at their best, we can not deny that Latin Music has made a huge impact within the last two years and many are reaping its benefits.   But as so many things must come to an end and a new beginning give way to bigger and better things; we see that many are still not properly schooled in what is happening around us.   Billboard Magazine is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis. Its most famous chart, the “Billboard Hot 100″, ranks the top 100 songs regardless of genre and is frequently used as the standard measure for ranking songs in the United States.  Everyone pays very close attention to this weekly magazine and follow it very closely as the industry changes.
 
The issue we are facing at this moment is the misrepresentation of our music.   We have many sub-genres which are categorized as to follow sales and maintain organization within the Latin Music Market.  This year at the Latin Billboard Show we saw a misplaced artist take home an award which he shouldn’t have gotten at all.   Not to take away from Toby Love in any shape or form, the young man is a great singer and his album “Toby Love” which is wonderful rendition of Bachata/Tropical music was a huge success and deserves all the merits it has garnered. But that is just it, the fact that he is a Bachata Singer and was placed under “Latin Rap/Hip-Hop Album of The Year” shows that we are being represented completely wrong.   How is it that this same artist can win “Tropical Airplay Song of the Year, New Artist” but yet even be placed in a category dealing with Rap and Latin Hip Hop? Does anyone else see something wrong with this?
 
This is not about the artist Toby Love; this has nothing to do with his music or any artist at all actually.   This has to do with Billboard directly and how now we have to look at this company and question if what they are reporting is based on a true understanding of the music they track.   Latin Hip Hop & Latin Rap have always been in the shadows of every other genre out there, and now not only are we being overshadowed indirectly by other genres it is now direct because we are being hit with losing to artists who have no place to be competing against our TRUE Latin Hip Hop Artists.   How can Toby Love win to Akwid?  These young men have been in the game so much longer and have sold so much more but yet lost to a Bachatero!
 
Billboard will try and say that they had no other place to put Toby Love and that the only category that would fit best for him was the Latin Rap and Latin Hip Hop category, but we all know the reality is he should have been put into the same category as Aventura which is Tropical and Bachata.   If the young man came from those roots, and his music is based around that music he should have been there to begin with.  We are only making things harder for others when we make errors such as these!   If they don’t know the music, then they need to hire someone who does and work more closely with people who are living this on a day to day basis.  Do not ruin what so many have been working so hard to develop by making mistakes that only take away from the achievements so many are making and have made.  Years ago we would have understood because there wasn’t such a huge assortment of music for Latinos, but now we are in a position that we do have so much going for ourselves that we have to keep creating new genres to keep up with the times.
 
Latin Hip Hop is the next big thing, and many know this to be a fact.   MTV will be airing music by Latin Hip Hop artists very soon in upcoming shows, and many others are already participating in bringing this culture to the forefront.  Artists that work everyday to make a difference were overlooked for this mistake and for that Billboard needs to realize what they have done and rectify this immediately before it happens again next year.   We had many Latin Hip Hop artists who had New Albums last year lose out on being recognized only because someone made a bad call and said put Toby Love in the Latin Rap and Latin Hip Hop category.   I feel strongly against this, not because he won but because he was erroneously put there.  Either you get on track or step out the car! We need to know our music and how to market it if were going to remain a player in any genre!   We only harm ourselves when we continue to make these mistakes.
 
Written by: Heist
www.Perrealo.com
www.myspace.com/heistness
perrealo@gmail.com
Si No Sabias, Nao Yu No!

 

The Heist

The Latin Hip Hop Advocate, Promoting the Movement of Latinos in Hip Hop!  One of the few in the North Eastern Region completely devoted to the pursuit of Latinos growing in Entertainment and Politics.  Having founded www.Perrealo.com as well co-produced & co-created the First All Spanish MC Battles “Batalla De Los Gallos” an International event I have been on the grind for many years and continue to move forward.  Now launching this Blog as a means of expressing myself freely and openly about all my opinions and beliefs with no care about what others will feel or say. 

This website is my window to throw out what ever I wish to, If you are here then somehow we have either met or you have heard of me.  Be it good or bad, you will get to know the real me and if you like me great but if you hate me, then all I can say I must be doing something right!  Hope you enjoy and come back often, it should be an interesting ride!