SANTOS
9 PM TUESDAY
BEAUTY BAR
A native San Diegan born to Salvadoran immigrants, Santos grew up knowing little about his Central American background. His parents refused to teach him Spanish and kept him in the dark about the world they left behind, a country rooted in economic strife, gang violence and drugs that continues to bear the scars of years of civil war. It wasn't until he emerged as part of the widely popular Salvadoran rap group Pescozada in 2004 that he began to fully explore his roots, a quest that led to his first solo effort, 2008's "Salva-vida."
An ode to El Salvador that doubles as a distress call sent from afar, the lyrics unexpectedly hop between Spanish and English. And while rapping in Spanglish may be anything but a new phenomenon, songs like "Bala Cuchillo o Cuerda (Bullet Knife or Rope)" make it more than obvious that his newfound bilingualism is not just for show. "Lo que pasa en mi paiz de mais es un cancer," he says. "What's happening in my country of corn is a cancer."
How is your music received in such a rock-heavy town like San Diego? The hip-hop scene in general is pretty weak when it comes to local support and show turnout. In regards to the hip-hop in Spanish, it's probably less than half of that, so there really isn't much to work with. The flip side of that, however, is that I love living in San Diego. If you think about it though, it really doesn't make sense how the dynamics play out here especially since we are so close to the border.
And in El Salvador? El Salvador plays out pretty weird, too. It's hard to believe for a lot of people but El Salvador was a very big death metal country from the late '80s to about '01 or '02. Around '01 (or) '02, a hip-hop group of two ex-pats living in New York went back to tour in El Salvador. They're called Los Reyes Del Bajo Mundo (Kings of the Underworld). They decided they would be a part of a rock fest out there to get in front of as many people as possible. When they hit the stage they were stoned off by the kids who wanted to hear death metal. That was the first step in a very slow process of getting the country to accept hip-hop as a legitimate form of music.
El Salvador became my testing ground for performing from '03 to '06. In that time I probably performed about 40 to 50 shows with a local group called Pescozada. The shows ranged from five people to 30,000 when we opened for international acts. The country is now experiencing a hip-hop cultural explosion. Hip-hop acts from Spain are now starting to come out and book shows. It feels good to know that I was a part in making all that happen.
How would you describe your music to someone who's never heard it before? As far as flow and delivery, it's like someone took DNA samples from Eminem, Pitbull and Jay-Z. I like to write about very personal events and situations in my life, social commentaries and occasionally a party track. The thing about being an artist or a musician is that if you're only ever talking about yourself or constantly putting yourself on a pedestal then you are not using your gift for what it was meant for. It's meant to heal, wake up and move people.
What do your songs say to someone who isn't Salvadoran or even Hispanic or a Spanish speaker? I do write a lot about El Salvador and about situations that people are suffering through, but that is only because I've lived there and seen it firsthand. If you really think about it, the world is a very small place, and it's not like El Salvador is a microcosm or the only isolated country where these things are happening. There is a very real silent war going on to slowly but surely subjugate all people on this earth. I guess it's just my effort to document some of it in the hopes that more people start to wake up.
Four things most people don't know about El Salvador? Iguanas, armadillos, possums and turtle eggs (now illegal) are all considered food in the pueblos. We have the most consistent surf spot on the whole of the Pacific Coast, La Libertad. El Salvador is about the size of San Diego County and holds 10 volcanoes. The way we call each other "dog" in California, in El Salvador some people call each other "serote." Serote means a large defecation.
