ABSTRACT
In response to neoliberal policies that have been in place since 1985, Bolivian young people have increasingly used hip hop music as a means of protest and to reclaim social and political participation. Hip hop in Latin America tells the story of the struggles that marginalized people have suffered, and speaks to the effects of international policies fueled by globalization. This paper focuses on what the Bolivian hip hopper Nina Uma calls “Hip hop revolution”: a hip hop that critiques and interrogates the social, political, and economic structure, the differences between the haves and the have nots, and proposes using hip hop to spread “education as cultural action of freedom”. This article examines the ways young people of El Alto, Bolivia are making sense of their social, political, and economic context.
