Lights, Cameras and Cops
Hip Hop Show Gets Raided, Djs Get Handcuffed
By Angle Luna AKA Mextape

It's a cold January evening, and the night feels perfect to perform. I got my apparel down and yo I'm looking mad fresh, ready to roll to the spot with the crew. It feels like a video straight out of MTV Tres.

The location of our show tonight is really cutty. As I walk in, I see a warehouse packed with hip hoppers, taggers, skaters and rockers all united under one show.   As an independent rapper, I can't tell you how good it feels. The show was a message – organic underground hip hop has re-emerged in the Zea.   But if tonight is any indication, the police are also sending their own message – hip hop is a crime in San Jose.

The whole thing went down in a warehouse near downtown.   We were five minutes outside of all the upscale and monotonous clubs where they don't let you come in if you don't have enough money. The place was so packed that the b-boy smell was inevitable. The sound was all up in your eardrum, loud and rough, and every body was bumping their heads to the different acts, many who have built the scene in San Jose hip hop throughout the years – Megabusive, Two Left Feet, Stick Guillotine,   Dave Dub, Blurred Entities,   Grunge Tofu and other pioneers. The walls were covered with graffiti, black books were being violated, and the look on people's face was more “what's up” then mean mug, because they all knew tonight was something special. Backpackers and hyphy misfits came together to exercise our right to party like the Beastie Boys.

I was excited to be in the spot, and was up next to rap with my homies group. We took the stage and were ready to drop science like NASA. The beat came on and my homies opened with their verses. The third song came on and it was my time to shine when suddenly there was a light in the dark.

The light, as it turns out, was not the light that guides you to heaven,   it was more like the light that welcomes you to hell. The flash was from a cop that told me in a very rude way to get off the stage and that the party was over. My bubble   full of dreams was popped by a roller. What a way to start the first performance of the year.  

The music stopped and the lights turned on. I've never seen so many cops under one roof. Everybody ran in different directions.   But you couldn't get out of that warehouse even if you had wings to fly away. The cops had every body against the wall. A lot a peeps started to freak out and there was conversations like,   “Yo, can you call my mom and tell her that I'm going to jail?” “Naw man, I got warrants too.”

The Sergeant acted like he just busted a bunch of Colombian drug lords. Our DJ got handled like if it was all his fault, they put him and others in handcuffs immediately. The cops were questioning us all in a very vicious way. They were asking unnecessary questions like, “What gang do you belong to?” Some girls started crying because of their tone. At one point, the police threatened to search everyone – just because we listen to hip hop.

You would think that by the way the police were acting, they got tipped that this was some sort of meth lab, but no, they just got word that their was a show that was not fully permitted.   And for that they made us all feel like criminals.

The show, and the raid, is a marker in time. Today in San Jose we don't have any places to express ourselves, we are living in a hostile city where the powers that be won't hesitate   to send the SWAT team in on a bunch of kids that are doing something good for their community. Because really, all those young people that were at the show, were also not out on the streets getting into trouble.

San Jose, Cali is the city were I live and I love my town, but I also feel like my town don't like me or my culture – hip hop. I live in a city rich in culture, but poor in spaces to express it. That is what made this show so powerful. It was the hip hop community creating a space for ourselves – no corporate club owner, no major promotions company, just folks from our community carving out an evening to share our culture with each other. These type of activities should be celebrated by San Jose, not condemned. And the ironic part is that people are now just more excited to put on another show. Man, those cops really upped our street cred with that raid. I just can't wait for the next one.