It’s a neighborhood where life goes on during the day, business as usual. Children walk to school in uniforms carrying lunch boxes. Shopkeepers open their storefronts and cabs rise and descend the steep slopes of the Comuna 13, one of the largest districts on the western edge of Medellín.
As night falls on Comuna 13, a different neighborhood comes to life; one still plagued by turf wars.
Made up of 20 barrios, the Comuna 13 is home to some 140,000 residents. It has parks, schools, health facilities, and for many commuters, a vital link to the city’s center thanks to a modern cable car, the Metro Cable. At night, the Comuna 13 tells another story.
Turf wars between rival gangs fight for control of the city’s drugs and illegal weapons trade. A decade ago, fighting between FARC guerrillas who had besieged the commune and urban paramilitaries was so intense, that the Colombian Army launched “Operation Orion” to take back this barrio with tanks and helicopter gunships.
Home to thousands who moved to Medellín, the capital of the Antioquia department, after being displaced from their land by the on-going rural conflict, the partisan hatred has subsided somewhat. Homicides are down and street to street battles are largely a thing of the past. Yet tragically this neighborhood continues to make headlines nationally due to the many targeted killings of community leaders.
The neighborhood’s rich cultural diversity makes it a dynamic musical hotspot.
But, with the racial diversity that characterizes the Comuna 13, as well as Medellín being a gateway to the Pacific Coast, the community has become a musical bastion of untapped potential. Many young people have created ensembles and bands to build a sense of solidarity and convey to the city their important message of peace.
Rap and hip-hop are the contemporary sounds of the Comuna 13. These beats and lyrics are a means by which youngsters envision a peaceful future, one of social inclusion rather than economic alienation. Yet tragically, too many of these local voices continue to be silenced by those who want a return to the “war zone” lifestyle rather than making the commune a “territory of peace.”
Rapper Elíder Varela, known as the “Duke” and member of the band La Élite, was shot in the neighborhood last year. Musicians Andrés Medina, Luis Felipe Muñoz, Roberth Steven Barrera of Alto Rango and members of the Hip Hop Kolacho School were also assassinated months later.
Corporation Son Batá is a musical collective that began back in 2004 in the Comuna 13. Its main musical mission: to create new sounds based around Hip Hop and fuse modern beats with traditional rhythms of the Pacific. Other musical genres explored by Son Batá include Cuban Son, Funk and Salsa.
For many local residents, musical training is a part of life starting in early childhood.
This grass-roots initiative in a concrete jungle has empowered youth through cultural awareness, and builds self-esteem. Since it was founded, Son Batá has helped hundreds of youngsters, from children to teenagers, respond to the violence that engulfs them by taking up musical instruments and putting musical diversity at the heart of the community. The organization sponsors the commune’s annual Hip Hop Festival, known as Revolución sin muertos – Revolution without death.
Son Batá is a social movement based around music. Several of its members have gone on to win national awards at music festivals, such as the Petronio Álvarez in Cali. Influential rockers, such as Doctor Krápula, rally to their cause, speaking out against the gang-related violence that can’t silence the aspirations of so much musical talent and determination
