Chilean hip-hop artist and musician Ana Tijoux joins us in studio to perform some of her songs and talk about the political themes behind them. Tijoux was born in France in 1977 to parents who were jailed and later fled Chile under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. «Hip-hop is the land of the people that don’t have a land,» she says.
Tijoux returned to Chile in 1993 and in the late 1990s became known as part of the hip-hop group Makiza. As a solo artist, she has collaborated with musician Julieta Venegas on the hit song «Eres Para Mi,» had her song «1977» featured on the TV series Breaking Bad, and won multiple nominations for both the Grammys and Latin Grammys. Her work explores topics frequently heard on Democracy Now!, from the words of Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano to the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.
In this interview, Tijoux performs a musical set, including «Antipatriarca,» off her latest album, Vengo, and «Shock,» a song inspired by Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine. She talks about motherhood, feminism and her collaboration with Palestinian hip-hop artist Shadia Mansour on the song «Somos Sur,» or «We are the South.»
While here in New York City, Ana Tijoux performed Wednesday, July 9, at Central Park SummerStage. She performs Friday, July 11, at Club Europa in Brooklyn.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, joined here in our Democracy Now! studios by the Chilean hip-hop artist and musician Ana Tijoux. Ana Tijoux, or Anita, was born in France in 1977 to parents who were jailed and later fled Chile under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. She returned to Chile in 1993 and in the late ’90s became known as part of the hip-hop group Makiza. As a solo artist, she’s collaborated with the musician Julieta Venegas on the hit song «Eres para mí,» had her song «1977» featured on the TV series Breaking Bad, and won multiple nominations for both the Grammys and the Latin Grammys. Ana Tijoux’s work is deeply political, exploring topics we frequently discuss here on Democracy Now!, from the work of journalist and author Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine, to the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. Ana Tijoux joins me now in New York, where she’ll be performing this evening at Central Park SummerStage and on Friday at Club Europa in Brooklyn.
We welcome you to Democracy Now!
ANA TIJOUX: Thank you so much.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s great to have you here for the first time. Talk about your music, what inspires you, Ana.
ANA TIJOUX: I would say that music, my way to arrive to the music has been almost like a big crush, because I’ve got a lot of colleagues of mine that arrived to the music because—since they was very young. But I arrived because I used to like to write. And then, I don’t know how I discovered that singing, it was better than writing. So it was in that way, and thanks to so many amazing musicians from Latin America that inspired me and pushed me to write.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you were born in France to Chilean parents. Talk about your political education, how you came to understand what was happening in Chile and Latin America.
ANA TIJOUX: I mean, I think, like, there is so many, like, prejudice about having a political education. And I would say that to have a political education is a vision with life and dignity of life. So, I had the chance to have amazing parents that always put on the table some subject and talk about it and have some reflection with the world. So it was not only about Chile, but about the vision about the world. And since today, we continue to talk about the same topics, basically; it’s always the same history repeating one to another. In the same way, I feel that the music is an amazing weapon, an amazing tool, like to have this reflection with the world. It’s a conversation, a dialogue with the world. And so, I would say that to have a political education has been like—is the DNA of my work and what I do. But also, I feel that music got to be free also and to be free of the political by himself. But I think there is a lot of ignorance about just political. We say «political,» and everybody say, «No, no, no, no. Please, don’t touch that. Don’t go there. Like, make music, but don’t make political.» But I think it’s got—had to do to be sensitive and sensible about what happened also, and I can make a difference between to be an artist and to be sensitive. I think they are—both of them is a marriage between both worlds.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you, Ana, about your latest record, your latest CD, Vengo, and one of the inspirations for it, a man we’ve had on Democracy Now! quite often, the great Uruguayan writer, Latin American writer, Eduardo Galeano. This is a clip from a comment he made a few years ago about why he writes.
EDUARDO GALEANO: Trying to rebuild, to rediscover the human history from the point of view of the invisibles, trying to rediscover the terrestrial rainbow mutilated by racism and machismo and militarism and elitism and so many isms—that was the intention, at least, to speak about the nobodies from the nobodies’ voices.
AMY GOODMAN: «The nobodies’ voices.» Eduardo Galeano talking about what inspires him. Ana Tijoux, how did you discover Eduardo Galeano?
ANA TIJOUX: My father gave me a book of him when I was six, Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina. And I remember—
AMY GOODMAN: The Open Veins of Latin America.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes. And my father gave me that book with an amazing dedicatory, saying, like, «Perhaps you will not understand this book right now, but it’s a book that will make you open eyes about our history and our identity.» And, of course, I didn’t understand when I was six. Like, I was trying, but it was too complex. And I feel that it’s almost—it’s a terrible metaphor, but I would say, perhaps, it’s this kind of Bible that talk about who we are and make you, like, to have a position about Latinamericanismo, you know? And it’s an anthem, I feel like, that book. And all the books of Galeano have been like very important in my life also.
AMY GOODMAN: So, why don’t you start with one of the songs on your latest album, «Antipatriarca,» «Antipatriarchy,» and first, before you sing it, tell us what it’s about.
ANA TIJOUX: Of course. Like, I always feel like very ignorant about feminism, and I think it’s got to do with this very machist education that we got and is in our DNA, in the deep of the DNA in the society. And sometimes we repeat these machisms without wanting to do it. So I always—I used to see feminism like in a very faraway of my life, and then I felt so stupid. And then I began to read, like, Gabriela Mistral and Simone de Beauvoir, and it was like, pfff!, where was my head? And also, like, with the education of my older kid—
AMY GOODMAN: Gabriela Mistral is the first Nobel literature prize winner from Chile.
ANA TIJOUX: Chile, yes. And then, also with the education with my kid, with Luciano, and trying to not repeat some stuff that we repeat with kids, and especially with boys, no? You know? There is this machism so involved in our society. Even in the revolutionary, all the revolutionary are guys. So—
AMY GOODMAN: You mean the machismo, the machismo.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes. And you see, OK, Camilo Cienfuegos, Che Guevara, Martí, Simón Bolívar—and where are the women? Like, it’s like—so, I decided to make that song called «Antipatriarca.»
AMY GOODMAN: And can you just say a few of the lines in English, as we listen to it in Spanish?
ANA TIJOUX: Yes, I will try. Like the chorus says, No sumisa — how can we translate this? Like, I’m not under—
AMY GOODMAN: Not submissive and obedient.
ANA TIJOUX: Not submissive, not obedient, a strong woman. No sumisa ni obediente, mujer fuerte —
AMY GOODMAN: Independent and courageous.
ANA TIJOUX: And courageous—you’re better than me.
AMY GOODMAN: If only I was in Spanish.
ANA TIJOUX: My brain trying to work like trfrfrfrfrfrf. Mujer fuerte insurgente, independiente y … romper las cadenas de lo indiferente. Break the chain of the indifference. Anyway, like antipatriarca and happiness. Like, you know, «antipatriarchy,» you say?
AMY GOODMAN: Antipatriarchy.
ANA TIJOUX: Antipatriarchy.
AMY GOODMAN: So now you can do it in the universal language of music.
ANA TIJOUX: I promise I will make it in English one day better. So, with Perito.
Yo puedo ser tu hermana tu hija, Tamara Pamela o Valentina
Yo puedo ser tu gran amiga incluso tu compañera de vida
Yo puedo ser tu gran aliada la que aconseja y la que apaña
Yo puedo ser cualquiera de todas depende de como tu me apodas
Pero no voy a ser la que obedece porque mi cuerpo me pertenece
Yo decido de mi tiempo como quiero y donde quiero
Independiente yo nací, independiente decidí
Yo no camino detrás de ti, yo camino de la par aquí
Tu no me vas a humillar, tu no me vas a gritar
Tu no me vas someter, tu no me vas a callar
Tu no me vas denigrar, tu no me vas obligar
Tu no me vas a silenciar, tu no me vas a golpear
No sumisa ni obediente
Mujer fuerte insurgente
Independiente y valiente
Romper las cadenas de lo indiferente
No pasiva ni oprimida
Mujer linda que das vida
Emancipada en autonomía
Antipatriarca y alegría
Y a liberar
Y a liberar
Y a liberar
Liberar, liberar, liberar
Yo puedo ser jefa de hogar, empleada o intelectual
Yo puedo ser protagonista de nuestra historia y la que agita
La gente la comunidad, la que despierta la vecindad
La que organiza la economía de su casa de su familia
Mujer linda se pone de pie
Y a romper las cadenas de la piel
Tu no me vas a humillar, tu no me vas a gritar
Tu no me vas someter, tu no me vas a golpear
Tu no me vas denigrar, tu no me vas obligar
Tu no me vas a silenciar, tu no me vas a callar
No sumisa ni obediente
Mujer fuerte insurgente
Independiente y valiente
Romper las cadenas de lo indiferente
No pasiva ni oprimida
Mujer linda que das vida
Emancipada en autonomía
Antipatriarca y alegría
Y a liberar
Y a liberar
Y a liberar
Liberar, liberar, liberar
Liberar, liberar, liberar
Liberar, liberar, liberar.
AMY GOODMAN: Ana Tijoux, and Pera Prezz on guitar. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We’re talking to Ana Tijoux, the Chilean hip-hop artist. Her latest album is Vengo, or I Come. Ana, talk about bringing hip-hop into your music, from hip-hop to Víctor Jara, and what that means.
ANA TIJOUX: I always feel that because I began to listen to hip-hop in France, and I think that hip-hop is the land of the people that doesn’t have a land, or was like, as me, was born in a different country. That’s the role that I feel that make hip-hop in France for me, as my friends in school, from Algeria, Morocco, Cameroon, Congo. So, OK, we was born in France, but then I feel that hip-hop was almost like a family for us, like, and make an identity, and where we could like put our energy of trying to understand who we were or where we go. And at the same times, you can make and I can make like a difference between this music that has been the music of our country—in this case, Víctor Jara, Violeta Parra—all this amazing music that you listen and you become super-over-emotional, because—
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us who Víctor Jara and Violeta Parra are.
ANA TIJOUX: For us, I would say that it’s almost like the mother and the father for me, lyrically speaking and musically speaking. Both of them born in different moment of Chile. And Violeta was a very free woman in her creation. And Víctor Jara also like very political engaged, and all his music like—it’s like those kind of music that you listen and you are emotional like almost immediately, that touch a fiber in our society.
AMY GOODMAN: He was murdered right after—
ANA TIJOUX: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —Pinochet rose to power in those days after September 11, 1973.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes, yes. He was in jail like in the Estadio Chile, that is named—that has his name right now, Estadio Víctor Jara.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about what you’re doing now as you travel with your music, the message you’re trying to bring out.
ANA TIJOUX: I mean, like, I think what is amazing about to have this possibility of traveling is to meet other culture and other—is about to have a vision of the world and share. It’s a dialogue with—on life. I think every life is a dialogue with the rest of the crowd, you know? And even for us, I think, to come to North America has been amazing, like to meet—like, trying to understand this weird country for us, to be honest, you know? And at the same time feel that the act of resistance are very similar in some places, different of course because it’s a different country. But so many law that has been applied here with the immigration, we know that are going to be the law that’s going to be applied—it’s a copy-paste for Latin America, you know? So, for us, even to have this possibility with the music to share this is also like to have—I think we are sociologists, very bad sociologists, but we’re trying to have this vision with the music.
AMY GOODMAN: You moved back to Chile in the early ’90s under President Aylwin. It is now, what, 20 years later. You have a student movement that is extremely active. Can you talk about the influence of Naomi Klein’s book, The Shock Doctrine, and the song that came out of it, for you?
ANA TIJOUX: I mean, to be honest, I first see the documentary about Naomi Klein, and then I say, «Wow!» And it was almost like when you see a teoría, a theory, and so many stuff like—because I don’t feel that—I’m not an intellectual, academic; I’m just a musician. And we work with emotion, and it’s so beautiful when you see other people working in other places that can touch you and make you have a reflection, and then you make like some mixture with that and you make songs, you know? So when I see the documentary, I honestly saw many stuff about Chile and the situation of Chile and how we was a laboratory, and also how work Chile in so many ways. You know, it was like, «That makes sense! Of course!» And then I decided to buy the book, and that make much more and much more sense.
AMY GOODMAN: So your song, «Shock»—
ANA TIJOUX: Yes. Very simple song.
AMY GOODMAN: —for The Shock Doctrine, became a kind of anthem for the student movement of Chile. Can you say the words in English before you sing it?
ANA TIJOUX: I mean, this is a song that we made in Chile like in the middle of the protest. And as a mother, it was amazing to see all those kids like very clear about what they wanted and about a free and a quality education and very politicized. And I think they are, and they was, and they are, for us, a big inspiration, in all sense. I think they wake the whole country, in all sense.
AMY GOODMAN: So, play the song, «Shock.»
ANA TIJOUX: OK, so this is «Shock.»
Venenos tus monólogos
tus discursos incoloros
no ves que no estamos solos
!millones de polo a polo!
Al son de un solo coro
marcharemos con el tono
con la convicción que !Basta de robo¡
Tu estado de control
tu trono podrido de oro
tu política y tu riqueza
y tu tesoro no.
La hora sonó, la hora sonó
No permitiremos más, más tu doctrina del shock
La hora sonó, la hora sonó (doctrina del shock)
La hora sonó, la hora sonó (doctrina del shock)
La hora sonó, la hora sonó (doctrina del shock)
La hora sonó
No hay países solo corporaciones
quien tiene más, más acciones
trozos gordos, poderosos decisiones por muy poco.
Constitución pinochetista
derecho opus dei, libro fascista.
Golpista disfrazado de un indulto elitista
cae la gota, cae la bolsa, la toma se toma la maquina rota.
la calle no calle, la calle se raya
la calle no calla, debate que estalla.
Ya todo lo quitan, todo lo venden
todo se lucra la vida, la muerte
todo es negocio.
Como tu todos, semilla, pascuala, métodos y coros.
Venenos tus monólogos
tus discursos incoloros
no ves que no estamos solos
!millones de polo a polo¡
Al son de un solo coro,
marcharemos con el tono
con la convicción que !!Basta de robo¡
Tu estado de control,
tu trono podrido de oro,
tu politica y tu riqueza y tu tesoro no.
La hora sonó, la hora sonó
No permitiremos mas, mas tu doctrina del shock
La hora sonó, la hora sonó (doctrina del shock)
La hora sonó, la hora sonó (doctrina del shock)
La hora sonó, la hora sonó (doctrina del shock)
La hora sonó, la hora sonó
La hora sonó, la hora sonó
Golpe a golpe, beso a beso.
con las ganas y el aliento
con cenizas, con el fuego del presente con recuerdo,
con certeza y con desgarro, con el objetivo claro,
con memoria y con la historia el futuro es !Ahora¡
Todo este tubo de ensayo,
todo este laboratorio que a diario,
todo este fallo, todo este económico modelo condenado de dinosaurio.
Todo se criminaliza, todo se justifica en la noticia,
todo se quita, todo se pisa, todo se ficha y clasifica.
Tu política y tu táctica,
tu típica risa y ética.
Tu comunicado manipulado ¿cuantos fueron los callados?
Pacos, guanacos y lumas,
pacos, guanacos y tunas,
pacos, guanacos no suman.
¿Cuantos fueron los que se robaron las fortunas?
Venenos tus monólogos
tus discursos incoloros
no ves que no estamos solos
!millones de polo a polo¡
al son de un solo coro
marcharemos con el tono
con la convicción
Tu estado de control,
tu trono podrido de oro,
tu política y tu riqueza, y tu tesoro no.
La hora sonó, la hora sonó
No permitiremos más, más tu doctrina del shock
La hora sonó, la hora sonó (doctrina del shock)
La hora sonó, la hora sonó
La hora sonó, la hora sonó (doctrina del shock)
La hora sonó.
AMY GOODMAN: «Shock,» from the album La Bala. You not only did that for the student movement, but also for the immigrants in Arizona and in southern United States.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes, because it was a tour that we had, and they communicated from Arizona from law of Sheriff Arpaio, of immigration that he was putting. And immediately we went, and so they invite me to sing. So, of course, like, let’s go. Like, it was immediate. I think that’s what the music is, no? To share it, and an invasion.
AMY GOODMAN: And how do you feel your music is received in the United States? And how does it compare to Latin America?
ANA TIJOUX: That’s been amazing, because for me, at least, and I think for us, it’s very new to understand like Latin American community also, for us, like this Chicano third generation that doesn’t speak sometimes Spanish. And for us, it’s like, «Why don’t you speak Spanish?» So it has been very interesting for us to understand, like, and to have some crowd that say to you after, like, «You know what? I should speak Spanish.» I say, «Of course.» Like, I think that has been the most amazing situation. And also arriving with our language, because, to be honest, we don’t speak—we don’t sing, sorry, in English. And to arrive with our work and with our language has been an amazing experience.
AMY GOODMAN: Your work, some were introduced to, because your song was played on Breaking Bad, the TV series. What effect did that have?
ANA TIJOUX: That my grandmother felt that I’m great.
AMY GOODMAN: That what?
ANA TIJOUX: My grandmother say, «OK, you are somebody.» No, no, I would say, like, for the media, it’s amazing. And we are very proud, because this is an amazing series. It’s not any series. Like, to be honest, I don’t want to be populist about this, but we are very proud to have our music in a series that also trying to put the antihero, which is very interesting for us also.
AMY GOODMAN: Say it again, trying to…?
ANA TIJOUX: To put the antihero. It’s not the typical hero in the series.
AMY GOODMAN: The antihero.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the musical instruments that you use.
ANA TIJOUX: With this last album, it was different from the others because always I used to work with the DJ very—beats, DJ, BPM, MPC, which is a machine to make hip-hop. And then, with this last album, it begin to be almost like a deep necessity of asking to myself, like, «Why we don’t use Latin American instruments? And in what moment we begin to be so blind about what happened musically in our country, even in country friends as Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, whatever?» So in this album, we decided to put gaitas, charangos, tiples, cuatro, and to really make a laboratory of different instrument and invite different friends to play music with us. And that was amazing. And I think that is a very interesting laboratory for us that is just beginning.
AMY GOODMAN: Ana Tijoux, can you talk about your assessment of politics in the United States and President Obama?
ANA TIJOUX: What I think? It’s a very nice face. That is what I think. I mean, it’s a nice face that doesn’t change anything. We can see with—I mean, I don’t live here, obviously. But every time that we come and we get the possibility to join with friends that are in communities in act of resistance, it’s no difference of—it’s a very violent country. That’s my vision about this, like with a nice face.
AMY GOODMAN: And your own country, Chile? Michelle Bachelet is back in power.
ANA TIJOUX: I feel that’s the same in Chile. That’s—
AMY GOODMAN: A woman who was tortured along with her mother, her father killed in prison.
ANA TIJOUX: So, that doesn’t say anything, I feel. I’m not agree at all with—I think it’s a nice face, too. That the persecution against the Mapuche in Ngulu Mapu in the south are the same that what it used to be, so it’s no different. It’s a nice face, too.
AMY GOODMAN: What are the powers that are in power in Chile, then, if you say it’s not about the president?
ANA TIJOUX: In people, in community, I feel, because I’m very pessimist, in theory, very, very, very. But I’m very optimist in practice, en la práctica, because we got the chance, with Peralo, to see, to go to some community that make people in ghettos that work in community and have their own center of autogestión, we say in Chile, where people are organized with themselves making—planting their own fruits, with making talleres. I don’t know how we say this, I’m sorry. Making class of sociology, music, and you see some students coming. It’s a place of resistance and beautiful resistance, but in places like—you know? And that’s happened a lot in Chile, I feel.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about why your parents went to France. What happened to them in Chile? What did they do in Chile?
ANA TIJOUX: They made so much amazing stuff. As so many young people, they was in resistance, and they was politically involved. And so, as so many students and other kids, because my father was a kid, literally, used to have 70 years old. And so they make—they called a tour of torture center, but as so many other parents of us, you know? And that’s the story of the dictatorship in Latin America—Uruguay, Argentina, Chile. And so, they was expulsados; they take out from the country in 1976.
AMY GOODMAN: Anita, Ana Tijoux, can you talk about your song «Fat Fish Can’t Fly»?
ANA TIJOUX: I mean, this is a song that I write for my kid, my older kid, Luciano, because I feel, as a mother—because we can have all this discourse, and I can talk so many stuff here in the camera, you know, about social and revolution. But then I feel that it’s at home where we got to apply with the day by day with our kid. That’s the realness, you know, the routine and whatever. So, I feel, as a mother, that sometimes—I don’t know if I have too many questions with the world, but it’s hard to be a mother in a way that sometimes I feel that it’s you against the world, because everything is against you, trying to put some information to your kid or to give him some tool to have—to be a kid or a next man, to have a reflection with the world. So, for example—I don’t know. I’m thinking about cellphone, iPad, pad-pad, pad-pad, and all this information that the world goes so fast, so fast, and it’s very hard as a mother to try to say to a kid, «Go slow. Go slow,» like, «Don’t try to burn life, because life goes so fast away from your hand.» And, «Yeah, Mama, whatever.» So I decided to make this song, because at the end I feel that music, the message go much more easy also. And it’s a song I talk to my kid and to kids, in general, saying that they can have the power, they can be the owner of corporative, they can be the owner of the world, but you know what? They can fly as you can fly. And that’s the song, «Peces Gordos No Pueden Volar.»
AMY GOODMAN: «I’m another mother that sleeps little, dreams much, learns more from her children than the adults in the world. Then later she implores: True to your values you must be.»
ANA TIJOUX: I love the way—I should rhyme that in English. Bloom-bloom-bloom-bloom-bla-bloom.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, again, the universal language. Why don’t you play it for us?
ANA TIJOUX: Voy a Tomar el viento a mi favor
y a navegar hacia un viaje mejor
y a contemplar la infinidad del sol
con la certeza de un trato mejor
Fiel a tus valores debes ir,
caminar por esa senda y resistir
para que tu conquista es ese buen vivir,
aunque lo tengan todo tienen de ti,
que los peces gordos no pueden volar
Soy otra madre que duerme poco pero sueña mucho
que aprende más de sus hijos que del mundo adulto
cuando grande quiero ser un niño
reírme contigo de un modo sencillo
con las pocas horas que tengo contigo
debo yo pelear con peces que quieren ser amigos
que hablan al oido, a través de comerciales
y que seducen mediante sus canales
pero ya ves estamos tu y yo,
construyendo un mundo para los dos
Fiel a tus valores debes ir,
caminar por esa senda y resistir
para que tu conquista es ese buen vivir,
aunque lo tengan todo tienen de ti,
que los peces gordos no pueden volar
Hijo yo sé, nada tiene sentido
incluso lo que yo diga, no suena divertido
o te digo que el mundo esta acabado
los peces gordos, estan en todos lados
con las pocas horas que tengo contigo
debo yo pelear con peces que quieren ser amigos
que hablan al oido, a través de comerciales
y que seducen mediante sus canales
pero ya ves estamos tu y yo,
construyendo un mundo para los dos
Fiel a tus valores debes ir,
caminar por esa senda y resistir
para que tu conquista es ese buen vivir,
aunque lo tengan todo tienen de ti,
Cuando grande quiero ser un niño
reírme contigo de un modo sencillo
Hijo yo sé, nada tiene sentido
pero en el fondo de la historia, tu sabes que
los peces gordos no pueden volar.
que los peces gordos no pueden volar.
AMY GOODMAN: «Fat Fish Can’t Fly.» I want to go right into another song—
ANA TIJOUX: OK.
AMY GOODMAN: —that’s on your album, Vengo.
ANA TIJOUX: OK.
AMY GOODMAN: And it is «We are the South.» Talk about your collaboration with the Palestinian hip-hop artist Shadia Mansour.
ANA TIJOUX: Shadia. I mean, with Shadia, we got some friend in common. And I saw her video, and I was a super fan. I said, «Wow! She’s amazing!» And all this Arabic, like, flow, you know? And I feel that we are not so many MC, female MC, you know? So every time that I see a female MC, I’ve got this very proud stuff, like, «Ah! A woman! That’s amazing!» You know? And so, I meet some friend of her, and as a fan, I ask for her email, and I write her an email. And she knew about me also, and she knew about Víctor Jara, and she knew about some stuff about Chile. And then we begin to speak to one to another. So that’s in those kind of email that we decide to make a subject about the song that we wanted to make together. And we decided to make a song that basically talk about the resistance in the South and to make a parallel between act of resistance in Chile and in Palestine. And also because in Chile we got one of the biggest Palestinian community in the world, so she was very interested to come. And the fact, we bring her. We made a concert, and it was sold out, people outside the concert. Like all the Palestinian community in Chile is big, big to her. We even got a soccer team with this, Club Palestino. So we had so many, like, a connection. And at the same time, she was telling me how Víctor Jara was important for her, and she knew some song in Spanish with the lyrics.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened with this Palestinian soccer club in Chile?
ANA TIJOUX: So, this Palestinian soccer team, that apparently is well known in Palestine, they decided to make a T-shirt and with the number of 11 in the back. And number 11 is made with the Gaza—with the [inaudible] of Gaza. It was 11, you know? And then, I think that it was the Asociación Chilena de Fútbol, I think, that decided to say that they couldn’t have this—the T-shirt anymore. So they had to take out from the market.
AMY GOODMAN: So they had the number in the shape—
ANA TIJOUX: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —of the map of Gaza.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes, and all those Palestinian—sorry, Chilean, they are—most of them, they are Chilean. Like, there was one Palestinian. And so, we had the possibility to meet them with Shadia and know all the story. And they told us that in 2005, it was an idea of one player of this team to have that T-shirt. So they had to take out that T-shirt out of the market. And they tell me that everybody asks for the T-shirt all around the world, from Jordania—and they are selling this T-shirt all around the world, from the number, you know?
AMY GOODMAN: So talk about «We are the South.» Talk about the song.
ANA TIJOUX: It’s about to be the proud without entering in chauvinism, you know? It’s got to do with identity and about very similar history sometimes that repeat in an act of resistance. And so, for us, it was very important to make a song that talk about this identity and this act of union and altermondialista also, in the beautiful fight of rebellion, beautiful rebellion.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the song, this time not you playing it live, but because you sing it with Shadia Mansour, we’ll play a clip of the video.
AMY GOODMAN: «Somos Sur,» «We are the South.» That’s Shadia Mansour, the Palestinian hip-hop artist with our guest, Anamaría Tijoux, or Anita, performing. And that also is on the latest album, Vengo. I wanted to end by talking about the economy. It’s hard to believe you put this all together, but another of your music videos has to do with the TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a very complicated, secretive agreement.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you put it into music? And why does it matter to you?
ANA TIJOUX: They called to me, to be honest. I didn’t know at all about this, and an amazing woman called me in Chile, and she told me, like, «You know what? We are an organization that’s trying to unblock this media about what is happening about this.» And we joined to us—she had to make me a magíster classroom, because it’s a very complex—it’s a very complex economic that will affect all of us. And she asked me to make a song, so—and immediately I begin to read, and it was very immediate, in the same way like—it’s like what I was saying. You read Galeano, it’s like, «Oh!» Everything, I think, that is amazing about art, like there is so many stuff that inspire you. And so, we decided to make a song to help to promote and to show, through our music, what’s happening.
AMY GOODMAN: So this is «No to TPP.» Translated in English, roughly it’s: «Tell me who is the thief, if you steal everything without a reason. No to the TPP, and no to the fine print that is unseen. Spread the word, and tell your sister and your neighbor that there is a silent hurricane coming to decide our fate.»
ANA TIJOUX: No al TPP y no a la letra chica que no se ve
Por la libertad y la salud de conocer la real etiqueta de lo que no se ve
Corre la voz y cuéntale a tu hermana y tu vecino
Que se viene un huracán silencioso a decidir nuestro destino
Dime, dime quién es el ladrón
Si tú todo lo robas sin control
Dime, dime quién es el ladrón
Si tú todo lo robas sin razón.
AMY GOODMAN: «No to TPP,» Ana Tijoux, the Chilean hip-hop artist. Your plans for the future?
ANA TIJOUX: To be happy. My plans? Continue composing and, yeah, so many plans that sometimes—try to organize all the plan I’ve got in my head and trying to apply them.
AMY GOODMAN: So you have two kids.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Luciano, who is nine years old.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And your little baby Emilia, who is what? One.
ANA TIJOUX: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what was it like having a daughter eight years after having your son?
ANA TIJOUX: Very different. Very different, because the same with the machism. That’s why I made «Antipatriarca,» like seeing Emilia and reflection with Luciano and Emilia, and about people that I really like. And you think that they can be more reflexive or critical, but with Luciano, it’s more like, «You have a girlfriend? You should have a lot of girlfriends. Emilia, you should have one boyfriend,» you know? And so it has been amazing, like seeing that, the clothes, the color of the clothes—everything blue or purple—the toys. But it has been amazing like to have a little couple and to see them talk to each other. And, wow, that makes sense of this crazy world, I think, to the motherhood.
