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.

In each place he has been sponsored by different organisations. He has now reached his last stop, London, and is backed by War Resisters International. In this city he showed people the situation that exists in his town through the documentary ‘Mi Fink’, made with members of the community, the group Soporte Klan, and the Villa Rica Foundation.

What more is there to say about “Make it Happen”?

It’s a musical and audiovisual venture that brings together a documentary we made in Villa Rica about traditional farms.  It includes the music of Jota Ramos and his group “Soporte Klan” which is basically a political message that denounces what has happened to the land of the campesinos, and the threats I received, as well as showcasing our music and some concerts.

Why did you receive death threats?

Last year we realised that the people of Villa Rica have been losing their lands so we started to organise ourselves with the community and the music group.  We also made the documentary to denounce the situation.  Mysteriously, after this, I received a message telling me that since I was organizing a quickly growing movement, my cause would no longer be supported, and I was told I was going to be killed.

Who made these threats?

This is the strange thing, because it wasn’t signed by anybody, as these types of threats normally are. The message came by post and was put under my door, but nobody had signed it.  They were also going through parts of the town trying to stop people from mobilizing.

Why did this happen to you?

Like many people, I make music and do social work in my community.  I think that our fight is an international fight which must be brought about by the poorest and most oppressed, the unrecognized people, especially women.  We all need the same liberty and equality, we all have the same oppressors in the world.  I have been highlighting this as one of the ideas we have in the ISBO collective (International School for Bottom-Up Organising), another organisation to which I belong.  I think the objective of the death threat is to stop the movement because I have revealed many things that have happened in the community and that continue to happen.

What is happening in regards loss of land by the campesinos?

The big landowners established themselves in 1948.  The campesinos in the area survived off the land, because Villa Rica is a very fertile zone for agricultural production. First of all the landlords tried to buy land off the campesinos, but many refused to sell. Up to this point there was no problem. Difficulties began when these people started to fumigate the crops with a substance that destroyed the harvest.  There were also plagues of pests that ate the crop fields, leaving people’s livelihoods in ruins.

Afterwards, house by house, the landowners started making offers for the land of the campesinos that had been left destitute by the plagues and fumigation. This way it became easy for the landowners to purchase them.  The problem with this sort of cultivation is that it uses such strong chemicals for its growth that when the harvest finishes, the land is left virtually dead.  The next harvest, worked by the small farmers, produces nothing as the fields are now infertile and so the farmers end up selling the land.

Another guilty party in this situation was the Agrarian Bank, which awarded loans with high rates of interest directly to the campesinos, using the titles to their land as loan guarantees.  The problem was that, thanks to the plagues and the fumigation, people were unable to pay back the loans.  The farms were therefore left in the hands of the banks, and then bought by the sugar plantation owners.

Everything was a strategy to remove land from the campesinos…

Exactly. The biggest problem is that the people leaving their land are left with no money, and end up working for the sugar plantation owners who pay very little, often less than the minimum wage.  There are people who work 16 hours a day and receive only four dollars. This is done through contractors who rehire people – it’s all a legal manoeuvre which allows them to pay as little as possible.  We are returning to a new form of slavery – the campesinos end up being slaves on their own land.

So we started to work against this.  Our message is to tell the people who are about to sell, ‘resist with your lands’. To the rest we tell them that we have to start to look after what we have and make a productive plot of land in order to start to harvest our own food.

And what about the young people?

They don’t have the money to go to university so they have to get jobs for the same companies. For this reason we aim to motivate them to do different activities, like art and music, and above all to try to get to university.

Does the system help to combat this problem?

The system in Colombia means that Afro-Colombian communities cannot get ahead.  The system is set up to control them, with the result that they cannot escape their poverty and have to work for these sugar companies, dominated by local and multinational businesses. The situation of losing land to growing monocultures doesn’t just happen in Villa Rica, but also in Tumaco, Chocó, and other regions in the country, but with African palm. The difference in these regions is that different armed groups are pushing out the people who leave as consequence, and afterwards landowners come to buy the land and plant African palm.

Are the paramilitaries involved in what is happening In Villa Rica?

Not directly. The owners of the plantations and sugar mills have armed guards, permanently watching over their crops. They possess a type of licence that allows them to carry arms, something which is within the bounds of legality.

Given the situation it’s inevitable that many of them end up in armed groups.

In Colombia the armed groups are always there, offering another alternative: the army, the guerrillas, and the paramilitaries. So they’re seen as a way of getting money. The presence of these groups in the area also creates fear amongst adolescents and they feel the need to have a weapon.  What also happens is that those already part of these groups begin to talk to others, telling them about the advantages of belonging to a gang.  In the end they start killing each other. We are friends, we grow up in the neighbourhood, but later we join opposing gangs and immediately become enemies. We automatically start informing on our friend who’s in the other gang.

But who is really to blame for this?

I really don’t understand how the system can turn a state into this, when the purpose of the state is to defend the people, to provide benefits.  But this same system is so corrupt that it is directing all of these problems, leaving the poor people in these towns killing one another. In the end it inculcates citizens with the belief that it’s necessary to implement a policy of ‘democratic security’ to protect the rich, but 80% of the Colombian population is poor.  Despite this, education and health continues to be privatized, denying the opportunity for this section of the population to develop as a community.

The whole time they want slaves working for the big multinationals. I find it difficult to understand the situation, although there is also a very sophisticated strategy: the media promote what is going on. For example, the owner of these sugar companies, the most lucrative business in the country, also owns RCN, one of the biggest media companies in Colombia, which are allied to the state.

Why don’t people protest against this?

In essence, opposing this situation equates to opposing the state. Part of what I do on the tour is raise awareness of this.  This journey has really done me a favour; if I hadn’t done it, I would already be dead.  They would have killed me to prevent people from hearing my criticisms. I’ve already had a first warning. So if the world knows, if international organisations are aware, it makes it very difficult for them to get rid of me. My cause is already well-known abroad and people would know the reason for my death.  The main point of the threat was to turn the community against me. Because we’re getting organised, it was a way of trying to stop the process.

How did “Soporte Klan” come about?

We were born from a very beautiful process which is one of the reasons why we’re now involved in social work. My friends and I used to go to a school every day where there was a lady who was giving out hugs and food to children.  We used to like going there and we enjoyed making music, art, rap and hip hop.  They were rhythms that were popular in 1998.  I was very young.

At the same time, the Villa Rica Foundation created a group with young people, each one doing different things: some singing, others dancing, etc. So I started to sing there with other people and formed a group called “Magia Ra”. Afterwards we got together with another group and created “Soporte Klan”.

What came first, the album or the African influence?

The foundation wanted us to be a bit more professional, and gave us a teacher to help us study a bit about music and rap.  I was around 12 at this time. Subsequently we set ourselves the goal of making our first CD.  It was 2003. For this album we wanted to do some political good and we researched how black people had reached Villa Rica, and so we called it ‘Africa-Villa Rica’. After this research we were able to understand our culture.

For example, in Villa Rica there used to be a slave plantation called Hacienda Alto, and when slavery was abolished in my country (1830), the foreman didn’t want to give people their freedom.  Some of them escaped, then returned to kill the foreman of the hacienda, liberating the other slaves who they found there. We put all of this into our songs. In this way we discovered the strong African influences in our town. That CD really took off in Colombia, so much so that the Ministry of Education described it as being very educational, since it was music mixed with native instruments and history.

The foundation was saved..

In 2006 the Foundation was on the verge of ending. Many of the members had left.  Some of the people who had guided us as a group of youths in the Foundation in previous years and who had always been there – come what may – suggested to us that we take leadership in the organization, since we came about through this process.  With my group we realised that somebody would have to replace those people who had left.

We are always concerned with talking about the problems of our town through our music, the social difficulties for example. But in our community we weren’t doing anything to begin to reduce these problems. So we decided to take charge of the Foundation and do more than just make songs. In fact, we kept the venue called “El Palenque” and when the executive committee changed, a member of our group stayed on as the legal representative of the Foundation. There we work on audiovisual projects with young people.

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.

These days, with the guerrillas and paramilitaries, do you see a solution or a strategy to end this climate of permanent war?

It’s very complicated. The war isn’t ending because many people benefit from it, and not just Colombians. An end to the war isn’t convenient for many overseas countries, because if they legalise drugs everyone will become drug addicts, but it doesn’t bother them that the situation persists. It’s the same for arms manufacturers: they’ll lose a lot of money if the armed conflict in my country ends.

Venezuela has bad relations with the United States.  What do you think?

I’ve been to Venezuela and the social situation there is much better than ours. I do not support war or so much military spending, but they have oil, and the funny thing is that the profits from this natural resource are going to the people.  On the other hand, in my country (Colombia) the multinationals take everything and the people remain poor. It pains me that we are sister nations but we allow the USA into Venezuela through the backyard.  The US is interested in oil, and wants to attack Chávez.

In this way they want conflict between our countries so that they can intervene on the side of Colombia and overthrow the Venezuelan government. I don’t agree with this because I am against war. When I was almost killed I saw the consequences of this type of conflict. I wasn’t in the war but I almost paid the price through the existence of one. I could have died and no-one would have known about it. The only thing I know about war is that nothing good comes from it.

But there doesn’t seem to be a solution.

Society must return to how it was before.  Maybe we didn’t have schools, maybe we didn’t have clothes but at least we survived because we helped one another. Now we have everything for a good life, but we are killing ourselves. Society has to understand that we are human, that in order to go on we have to appreciate that nature is there, that we must respect her, that we are alive thanks to her, and that we mustn’t carry on destroying her for material things. We must get back to strengthening interpersonal relationships, to have a richer life as a society, to be more human. In this way we will once again be able to coexist for a long time.

And what would you like to see happen?

My objective is to bring people together, because in this world there are many who are oppressed. Those that suffer the most are indigenous people, the descendents of Africans, Latinos, Asian people and women.

The working class in general. In the end we are all human, and we are all equal. I’m seeking that those on the bottom rise up and put themselves on a level with humanity.

I don’t want there to be any divisions because one person is black and the other white, or because one is a man and the other a women. We are all on this planet that belongs to no-one in particular, but to all of us. Capitalism is ruining the world, ruining nature. Societal changes make people think more about material things than about their own lives.

What makes you a leader?

We are all leaders. In fact “Make it Happen” is based on that idea because I realised that you have to make things happen yourself. From a young age I learned that when I want something, I have to do it to make it happen. “Make it Happen” reveals a lot about how I think and what I’m like.

(Translated by Robbie Macrory)

EDITORIAL NOTE: This is a revised version of the interview that was published a week ago. The Prisma decided to withdraw the original from our website in order to make changes so that we represent, with absolute fidelity, the views of Jota Ramos. In this final version are the true words expressing Jota’s feelings, thought and life experience.