Back to Safehouse
Download a player: RealPlayer | Windows Media Player | QuickTime
MAD
LIKE
FARRAKHAN
the concept
The lyrics
in Mad Like Farrakhan are rife with graff references and we wanted
graff
to be a central part of the video. The idea for Mad Like Farrakhan came
after RICANSTRUCTION’s tour of El Salvador in the summer of 1997. This
video was shot in the capital, San Salvador, during the May Day
celebration
held by the FMLN. (The Faribundo Marti National Liberation Front, were
the guerrilla army that fought a 12 year war in El Salvador against the
u.s. backed government. After peace treaties were signed in 1992 they
became
an above ground political party.) By accident, we caught this guy and
his
partner walking down the street shaking a can of spray paint. They then
walked up to this bank on the outskirts of the plaza in broad daylight
and started tagging the bank. The brother wrote "Romero, Zapata and
Tupac
Amaru Live!" Romero was a catholic priest who taught liberation
theology
from the pulpit. The u.s. backed El Salvadorian government wasn’t
exactly
feeling that so they killed him. Zapata was the great leader of the
Mexican
revolution. The "Zapatistas" in Chiapas named themselves after him.
Tupac
Amaru was an indigenous South American warrior who fought against the
Spanish
conquistadors. Tupac Shakur was named after him, as is a revolutionary
organization in Peru. The last line he writes on the wall is "The
struggle
continues!"
the story
When
RICANSTRUCTION
played May Day in San Salvador we went around with video cameras
talking
to people and asking them to talk about whatever mattered to them at
that
moment. We had two cameras, so the band split up, to cover more ground.
Omar, Joseph and Arturo ran across this kid shaking a can of spray
paint
and knew something was about to go down. Omar (a graff writer himself)
immediately focused the camera on him. This kid then started tagging up
a bank that was not far from the Plaza Civica where the May Day
festivities
were being held and there were hundreds of police and soldiers with
automatic
weapons and bulletproof vests. Amidst all of this, a bold
compañero
and his partner were intent on getting-up with a revolutionary message
that echoed the true sentiments of what people were feeling. -
Vagabond
LIBERATION
DAY
the concept
Liberation
Day was the first in what would become a series of D.I.Y anti-videos
for
RICANSTRUCTION’s full-length debut release "Liberation Day". Three more
anti-videos for the album would follow. The bands fierce independent
punk
spirit was the inspiration for this video. The video footage was
carefully
chosen and placed according to lyrics and music. The lyrics are
incendiary,
the music revolutionary. When it’s all over you’re just left feeling
overwhelmed,
and wondering what the hell just hit you, what the hell just happened.
And yet at the same time the song leaves you empowered. Ultimately
that’s
what we wanted to leave people with, a belief that we each individually
get "to decide the way to LIBERATION DAY".
the story
Liberation
Day was shot in an old abandon warehouse by the East River on the North
Side of Willamsburg Brooknam. It was filled with some of the best graff
in the city and again we never asked permission to shoot there, we just
did it. It was cloudy and rainy that day and there wasn’t a lot of
light.
By the time the clouds started to clear, the sun began setting. My
producers
Melvin Estrella and Re-sister got a friend who owned a business on the
South Side that rented generator trucks to outdoor concert events,
which
were available due to weather cancellations. The weather that had
worked
against us now seemed to be working for us. For $75 dollars and a few
pizzas
we got a generator truck and were able to work for another two hours.
That
extra time made Liberation Day possible. - Vagabond
DREAM
IN
PORTO RICAN
the concept
Dream in
Porto
Rican is straight up old school hardcore in the best tradition of the
Bad
Brains and Black Flag. The lyrics talk about surviving the modern day
genocide
of people of color in the ghettos of this country called amerikkka.
Inspiration
is drawn from the early hip-hop pioneers like Afrikabambatta,
Grandmaster
Flash and the Furious Five, KRSONE and Public Enemy. An odl school
ghetto
hip-hop video done with a hardcore punk band is essentially what it
comes
down to.
the story
The video was
shot on an abandoned lot on 117th street in El Barrio, NY. In a true
anarcho-punk
stylee we built a small stage the afternoon before, without asking
permission
from whoever owned the lot. This whole concept of buying and selling
and
owning and renting and leasing rubs us wrong, so asking permission was
out of the question. Crazy Horse said it best "One does not sell the
earth
upon which the people walk" and Chief Seattle asked the white man "How
can you buy and sell the sky?" and 500 years later these questions
still
remain unanswered while rents go up like eviction notices. The lyrics
make
plenty of reference to this and in keeping true to our beliefs we did
as
we pleased. The people next door in the community garden looked out for
the stage until we shot the next day. An open invitation went out to
our
co-horts and community to come down and participate and we wound up
having
a conscious party. At the end of the day we took apart the stage and
gave
it to the community garden next door. They used the wood to fortify
their
"Casita". - Vagabond
NO
MONEY
DOWN
the concept
No Money Down
is a direct assault on capitalist corporate commercialization. It was
shot
to look like a surveillance video you would find in a bodega. The bar
code
in the upper left-hand corner has a special significance. The numbers
under
the bar code mark the date (12.10.1898) that spain sold Puerto Rico to
the u.s. for $20 million dollars at the end of the spanish-Cuban-
american
war. The dollar amount at the bottom of the screen starts out cheap
(because
selling-out at any price is cheap) and runs backwards as a symbol that
the time for being "bought and sold"" is running out.
the story
Originally
the concepts for these anti-videos came up separately and were
developed
separately because there was no telling if we were ever going to find
the
money to make them happen. "No Money Down" was shot in the summer of
‘97
a few months after we had all gotten back from the "Salsa Con Sabotage
Tour" in El Salvador. We invited a few friends to come down to do what
they do whenever RICANSTRUCTION plays. We did 12 takes and it exhausted
everyone but it was a lot of fun and that comes through in the end. And
the fun didn’t distract from the message we wanted to send. -
Vagabond