What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?: A mockery of the “Big 3” careers, highlighting not only the disparity of opportunities, but also the disparity of its impact once attained. Doctors, lawyers, and engineers are unattainable, but the stereotyped Black rapper is not.
You Want To Be A Rapper?: The difference between how Hip Hop was birthed for the purpose of protesting, and the current ignorant use of its medium is debated. This serves as the symbol to divide older and younger generations as change struggles to develop.
What’s the Point?: A conscious rap highlighting the hate started by White politicians, but persisted by Black communities forced to live in those imposed conditions. Gentrification is hinted at the end by the time the issues are inescapable.
Who Pays You?: A statement which puts forth the ownership of Black people in the Bronx for the rest of eternity. What starts very formally, America himself speaks the slang of those he oppresses as if to reap the benefits of the only way up they are given in society.
What Will You Buy Anyway?: A demonstration of how lack of resources is the imposed damage that creates crime and tears down communities. Power and pride do not exist when it is being misinterpreted by oppressors.
So Are You Next Up?: Connecting back with the Native land which the Bronx was built on top of, we see how America’s lack of empathy has been the same for both minority groups. The connections aren’t realized until one enters the Earth from which they are contracted to, but also spiritually connected.
Did You Make It?: A demeaning end to remind you of the cycle.
These seven works provide words for the image they supplement. Just like the image is made of torn and cutout photographs, the narrative is a story told of broken, unrelated events that all contribute to the same oppression. Discovering the symbols in the image, the spoken word, and connecting them all to each other reveals the larger implications of the accepted, everyday, and unrelated harmful events that comprise the oppression married to the South Bronx experience. It is my goal to educate in this borough which education is not prioritized, and is the barrier between achieving large scale changes. Our communities do not need to burn for us to be united. Connecting the aspects of our culture into a universal art form aims to do so.
These works are directly informed by the experiences synonymous with South Bronx culture: the violence experienced, where it originated from, and the lack of solutions. This work aims to make people ask “What’s the Point?” in their efforts. Hopefully, a new approach will be inspired when the current cycle is deemed self-destructive, albeit imposed. Educating those from a place where I am from is deeply meaningful to me. I have lived seeing these experiences everyday. I am from the South Bronx, and I want it to change without the influence of gentrification.
