UC Riverside Department of Music presents:

Renzo S. Aroni Sulca

“Quechua Rap: How Youth Indigenize Hip-Hop in the Andes and Diasporas”

Quechua hip-hop is an emerging transnational cultural phenomenon connecting Andean communities and diasporas. Artivists such as Renata Flores in Ayacucho, Cay Sur in Juliaca, and Bobby Sanchez in New York have turned to rap music as a testimonial, political, pedagogical, and decolonial practice deploying the most widely spoken Indigenous language of the hemispheric Americas, also my mother tongue. Following the Bronx hip-hop culture of resistance, Andean youth in urban contexts embrace hip-hop music to resist contemporary neocolonial and neoliberal forms of exploitation, state-sponsored anti-Indigenous racism, and environmental degradation. In addition to language, Quechua hip-hop also reclaims Indigenous roots and knowledge to envision more inclusive worlds. Such is the case of Hampiq Rimay (Heal by Speaking), a multiethnic and non-binary collective initiative for Quechua language and culture through hip-hop workshops. As a decolonial practice, Quechua hip-hop promotes gender inclusivity, Indigenous memory, and healing of centuries of violence and trauma while rejecting essentialist and static notions of Indigeneity. Instead, Quechua rappers redefine and reimagine what it means to be Indigenous today by intertwining their Andean roots with hip- hop culture and mixing and updating rural and urban artistic, cultural, and linguistic practices of resistance in contested spaces. This talk will address a new research project based on preliminary findings in Peruvian Southern Andes and beyond, combining ethnographic fieldwork and oral history interviews with young Quechua rappers. 

Bio:

Renzo Aroni Sulca is a Quechua self-taught musician, historian of modern Latin America, with a regional focus on the Andes, and Assistant Professor of Indigenous Studies in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at NYU. He writes and teaches about Indigenous hip-hop, oral history, Quechua language revival, and the relationship between memory, culture, and political violence in contemporary Peru and Latin America. Before joining NYU, he taught at Columbia University and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. He is completing a book manuscript, Crossing a River of Blood: Resistance and Massacre in Peru’s Shining Path. It explores how, from 1980 to 1992, Peru’s Indigenous Quechua-speaking people engaged and ultimately resisted the Shining Path guerrilla insurgency, contributing to its defeat. He has published book chapters in both Spanish and English and co-edited Una revolución precaria: Sendero Luminoso y la guerra en el perú, 1980–1992 (IEP, 2023). His articles have appeared in academic journals and magazines, such as the Journal of Latin American Studies, Latin American Perspectives, NACLA Report on the Americas, and National Geographic. He is also the creator and co-host of Kuskalla, a podcast about Quechua and Andean knowledge. In his leisure time, he refreshes his mind and spirit by playing the 12-string pumpin guitar from his native Ayacucho in the Peruvian Andes.

Part of the 2024-2025 Florence Bayz Music Series

The Florence Bayz Music Series offers online concerts, lectures, and presentations of academic research by Department of Music faculty, postdoctoral researchers, students, and international guest artists and scholars.

Dr. Amy Skjerseth (she/her), Assistant Professor of Popular Music, Coordinator

Events are free and open to the public.

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