Ricanstruction’s music and message dismantles borders, knocks down walls, and even insinuates it’s way into (and out of) the mental and physical prisons of this ugly and beautiful planet. By rican-figuring punk, hip hop, salsa, reggae and other sounds from the streets, with a radically refreshing mensaje for the masses, and an ideology of independence at all costs, they’ve managed to create art that is truly for and by the people. As the visionary voice of ricanstruction, vocalist Not4Prophet has taken his brothers (and sisters) in arms from the bombshelters and barrios of america, straight to a neighborhood almost right near you.

UGLY PLANET: When I think of Ricanstruction, I get a mental image that’s like a multi-media collage. There’s the band itself, but then there are also other performance aspects to your collective, as well as video and film production. How would you describe ricanstruction, both in the way you function as a collective, and as an arts/performance group?

NOT4PROPHET: We’re basically an autonomous anti-authoritarian (dis)organization made up of people who feel compelled to use art as activism, and see art as having a direct line and function as a tool of resistance against the shitstem, as well as one of the ultimate forms of freedom. We don’t really have “members”, we just do. If someone feels compelled to do something, they go do it. If others are diggin’ what someone’s doing (which is most often the case) they join in with them. And others who are perhaps not involved in that particular project might still go out and steal paint or film or make markers or commandeer a sound system. Artists become actors, musicians become painters, and angels become outlaws, and along the way we tear down the borders and transform the landscape of liberation.

Do you use all your media skills in your performances as a band, or are they separate projects?

Depends on what we are doing at the moment. If the action calls for certain types of skills then that’s what we utilize in order to seize the time and moment. We’ve done outdoor ”guerrilla” performances where we were out in the street and set up our musical equipment by a whitewashed wall that we picked for its “aesthetics” (and because it was near a light pole where we could plug in for electricity), and brought a video camera and started showing our films on the wall to whoever was walking by and decided to stop and watch. And then, after the films were over,  played some music while painting on that same wall and inviting writers from the neighborhood to burn, as a means of pointing out that property (private and otherwise) is theft.    

Is there space or interest in remaining together as a collective, even if the various members develop more of a focus on one project and lose interest in or inspiration for others, or do you see yourselves breaking up as the individuals within the collective evolve? I’m curious, as I can see how many artists might feel limited by being part of a collective.

Well, we try to mutually support artistic expression and growth amongst anyone who may come into our ”cipher”, but there are always people who will be there until they’re not any more. But it’s actually better that way, because in this day and age when big brothers got surveillance cameras on every corner, and every phone is tapped, and your computers are being screened, and we’re all being monitored, and every radical is a terrorist, and every citizen a potential terrorist, it makes more sense to act individually, anonymously, rather than being a “member” of any “organization”. But as I said, we are just “doing” as opposed to classifying ourselves as a collective with membership and tasks and jobs.

Was there ever this “click” moment when you “ individually and collectively“  were suddenly inspired to perform as a band?

When we started out we were mostly a bunch of Puerto Rican ex-vandals from Harlem and the Lower East side of Manhattan who (for
various reasons) felt the need to fight the powers that be. Some of us were graffiti writers and some were just adept at throwing bricks through windows, but we didn’t necessarily see ourselves as “artists” as much as just plain ol' angry anti-authoritarians. For us, graffiti was an ”illegalized” activist act (which is the best kind), but it wasn’t necessarilly any kind of boricua bohemian artistic endeavor. As we discovered that we had all sorts of “talent” out in “the streets”, our graffiti became more”artistic”, as did our brick throwing. And when we discovered that some of us could play musical instruments, we started to jam together for fun and no profit. Eventually we started playing benefits and rallies and demos, and gave ourselves a “band name”, which was ricanstruction. Guess that’s about as ”clich” as it gets for us.

Who or what inspired you?

The range is pretty wide, from Che Guevara, Pedro Albizu Campos, Oscar Lopez Rivera, Malcolm X, Lolita Lebron, Assata Shakur, George Jackson, Fred Hampton, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Emma Goldman, Luisa Capetillo, Martin Sostre, Kuwasi Balagoon, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, Ricardo Magon, the Zapatistas, Sandanistas, the FALN, FMLN, Macheteros, Tupac Amaru, Bob Marley, Fela Kuti, Bad Brains, Curtis Mayfield, Hector Lavoe, Nina Simone, Public Enemy, to our mothers and fathers who struggle and resist every day within the belly of the beast. We’ve seen people freezing, sleeping in the streets, stealing to feed a family of five, dumpster diving to survive, living in skin and bone, battling babylon with a sling and a stone, I guess we find our inspiration in the streets and the struggle, and souls of the people mostly.

From what I’ve read about you and heard on radio interviews, Ricanstruction expends a lot of energy to keep from being pigeon-holed into any certain musical genre. So I wonder, who comes to your shows: Is it mostly Puerto Ricans, or are you getting culturally diverse audience?

It’s a pretty diverse group of people by now. When we first started out, we were playing in the streets, so anyone who was around or walking by was our audience. That audience was pretty much poor people from the hood. Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Africans, white (and black and brown) “punks”. Since we were influenced and inspired by everything that ever came into our cipher it never made sense that we would do one thing, or be tied to a particular genre. It wasn’t any kind of deliberate attempt to be some kind of fusion band or something, just being honest about what moved us. My parents listened to bomba y plena, and my sisters loved salsa and merengue. But my brothers liked soul and funk. And I was into hip hop and punk rock, and other cats in the band were into jazz and other so-called genres. So naturally we had to commit what we called genocide in order to function in a way that would work for all of us.

Do you have a following based on your message, or do you get a lot of people coming just out of curiosity?

Early on I guess it was pretty much out of curiosity, with the exception of the people who knew us as friends and companeras and knew our “politics”. But it was always important to us that people get what we were trying to say or discuss or debate, but we also knew some folks would just wanna “rock out” or see what the crazy Puerto Ricans were up to. So we tried to create something where you may have come to “rockout”, or just out of straight up curiosity, but once you were there, you would be confronted by an in your face, radical stance, and a no compromise revolutionary message. We also overstood that pushing the envelop and smashing stereotypes and genres and borders with music itself was also a revolutionary act, so we always did all we could to not be “pop” or mainstream, and eventually folks started to “get it”and get with it.    

Musically, Ricanstruction seem to mix it up a bit, even  doing covers that come from various sources ranging from punk rock to reggae to jazz and salsa. You do a  version of Bob Marley’s “War” that I think is amazing. Do you do this more out of the band’s desire for artistic expression, or are you trying to challenge your audience to maybe expand their horizons?

I’d say both. We started out doing it simply because we were inspired by the particular song and the particular artist, but we also wanted people to feel what we felt when those songs (or that artist) inspired us, and to know that music is infinite and everywhere, and that genres are bullshit borders created to sell product and nothing else.

Do you ever confuse your crowd or find your self thinking “well, that didn’t work out the way I thought it would?”

Not often. But we have done shows where we cleared the room. But this tended to be out of town shows were we were booked with a bunch of bands who's apolitical vibe was totally contrary to ours, and subsequently to an audience who simply wasn’t feeling us and had no intention of trying. At this point I usually start shouting at them about the evils of babylon and how they are babylon, as they leave the room. So at that point it definitely works out the way I thought it would.

Now, I enjoy listening to and playing songs for fun and to express moods and emotions, but music that speaks out to larger issues, particularly oppression, injustice, sexism, racism (the list could goon and on, but I suppose it can be summed up “vaguely“  as oppositional politics), is what really takes me to a different level. Songs like Peter Tosh’s (and Bob Marley’s) “Get Up Stand Up”, or even U2’s Pride (In the Name of Love), take me to a higher plane and engage my entire being, mind, body and soul. It’s one thing to be out on the streets as an activist, but it’s completely different to be an activist on stage.

It’s definitely a different vibe, but it’s just another “stage” in the struggle. Malcolm X used to stand on a stage on 125th street in Harlem and speechify, but Che went to Cuba, Africa, and Bolivia to make revolution, while George Jackson organized in prison. I always believed that the (musical) stage was as legitimate as any other stage for revolution. You get to talk to people in, as Malcolm said “a language everybody can easily understand”, and rage like Marcus Garvey or Bob Marley, and dance like Emma Goldman. At the same time, you gotta overstand that the music “business” is a soapbox that’s been co-opted (and is controlled) by the fat cat corporations, and therefore your cultural coup may actually be filling some vampire’s capitalist coffers, while you claim (or believe) you are ”making revolution”. So you gotta be realistic (and honest) in what you are doing and trying to do, when you decide to make the “stage” your platform for revolution.    

Have the policies of the Bush junta provoked any change in your activism on stage?

Not really. Maybe the rhetoric has changed in our performance, just like it has changed in the performance of the latest junta, but we know that Bush is really just a bolder face of the same babylon that has been in control for hundreds of years in the un-united states. So the struggle is still the same for us. I have, however, noticed a change in some of the audiences we’ve played to, where the Bush juntas outrageous actions (like the dismantling of the constitution and the latest war on Iraq and the “terrorist” witch hunts) have either made them more”radical” or more afraid. We’ve actually been asked a few times since 911 if we’re not worried about voicing our views so openly. I don’t think we were ever asked that before, at least not that I can recall.

The corporate media almost exclusively produces corporate propaganda and covers up for the Bush junta. Ricanstruction and other collectives of “conscious” artists can play a crucial role in overcoming misinformation and can help shed light on the dark doings of those in power.

I guess we see (and overstand) that our biggest responsibility (besides kicking out the jams, of course) is to provide food for thought, to oppose the views and misinformation that the corporate media force feeds us. This is why we’ve tried to not only make music, but also films and street art. This is also why we’ve been involved in (and supported) alternative forms of media, like listener sponsored radio and pirate radio, and independent media on the internet as well. There are ways to get around and overcome the propaganda that they’re suffocating us with, so, yeah, this is definitely something “conscious” artists and artists of conscience need to make a priority.      

We’re hearing more anti-Iranian and North Korean propaganda on the news everyday. It looks like it’s only a matter of time before Bush has another war to wage.

Yeah, my biggest disappointment is seeing the millions of people who attend demonstrations and rallies opposing these wars and rumors of war, but then seeing how ineffectual this opposition is. It’s pretty obvious that if we wanna really stop these unjustifiable “wars” then we gotta step up our tactics.

His ruling junta has also taken environmental racism to a whole new level  From Iraq to Afghanistan, if they have their way, there will be a radioactive wasteland, because of the huge amounts of depleted uranium used in the wars there.

Which is why we gotta quit fucking around. No more marching, and speechifying, and lobbying, and pleading, and singing. As Malcolm said, “it’s time to stop singing and start swinging.” We’re in a real state of  emergency, a war of terror and destruction is being waged on the planet and all its inhabitants. We obviously need new tactics. Frantz Fanon said “violence only yields to violence.” Think about it, Is there time to sit around and discuss what we should do about that?

And the stuff stays toxic for four and a half billion years, so it will be killing indiscriminately for as long as there is life on this planet. This is way more evil then anything done by humankind before, the damage being done is incalculable. D.U. kills forever, and the radioactive dust from central Asia will eventually be blown across the desert, across China and over the arctic to North America. It’s a small world after all.

And the U.S. military has been testing weapons, missiles with depleted uranium, in the tiny island of Vieques, Puerto Rico for decades, and the cancer rate in Vieques is double that of the rest of Puerto Rico. And those same weapons that they first test in Puerto Rico end up dropping depleted uranium on Iraqis on the other side of the world today, and who knows who tomorrow. Yeah, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

And this is just one aspect of the gross incompetence that the Bush junta and the rest of the ruling elite display in their gross mismanagement of world affairs. As the worldwide opposition to the conquest of Iraq demonstrated, the elite couldn’t care less what people think or feel about decisions made behind closed doors, in secret meetings, by unelected politicians and corporate heads.

But it’s all about overstanding the reality of our surroundings and where things are at. If the ruling elite doesn’t care what the rest of us think or feel, then it’s up to us to find a way to remove them from their position of control, authority, and power. Permanently. This is also why it’s necessary to find ways to get alternative views out to the people. So we can all have our eyes wide open and can act intelligently and from a position of strength and empowerment. Ho Chi Minn said “the poet must lead an attack.” We do try to take this very seriously, because it is very serious.

Whatever the future holds for us, it looks scary right now. How do ya’ll keep from losing hope or giving up?

Well, for us, for so called Puerto Ricans, this struggle, this war, has been going on for at least 510 years, so if we haven’t given up hope yet then we probably never will. If anything, our music is about this on going struggle, which for us by now is life itself. The fact that we still have the capacity to resist, after so many years, gives us hope and keeps us from giving up. But really, we have no other choice. Like Assata said, we are caught up in the music of struggle and we can’t stop dancing.