El Alto is a sprawling, fast growing, dusty city. It is located in the altiplano of Bolivia above the city of La Paz, located in a canyon down below. El Alto has over a million people, few trees, and a growing number of young people using hip hop to express themselves politically, culturally and spiritually.

Cuchi Amaru, a rapper from El Alto, explains that when he raps, the demons that live inside of him are released through the music; when he compares himself to other rappers, he reasons they must share the same demons.

Youth growing up in El Alto are fighting a lot of demons: poverty, racial discrimination, widespread alcoholism and a shortage of basic resources like water and well equipped schools. And a growing number are finding community and outlets for expression within the hip hop community.

Khana Aru Imanthatu is Aymara for "The underground voice of clarity in hip-hop," and is the name of a space that rappers, graffiti artists and break dancers have organized in the neighborhood of Wayna Potosi to share their skills with others who are interested. The artists are self-taught and for them, a huge part of hip-hop is sharing knowledge, both artistic and political. Every night people come to the space, which has linoleum floors for break dancing and walls filled with graffiti drawings and posters of rappers from the United States. I was invited on a Tuesday night, when the MCs come together to practice and refine their skills.

Rappers Grover Canaviri, Rolando Cazas and Ever Rodolfo make up the internationally known hip hop trio Wayna Rap, known especially for their songs in the indigenous languages Quechua and Aymara. Grover and Rolando run the sessions with MCs on Tuesdays and Thursdays, encouraging young people to find their voice and share their stories. There were 18 people (6 women) and two puppies in the space on the Tuesday I visited, and the themes of the songs included stories about life in the streets, abandoned children, poverty, alcoholism, domestic violence, Bolivian politics and corruption, discrimination against El Alto for its poverty and indigenous population and supporting Aymara, Quechua and Guarani women.

Wayna Rap chooses to use indigenous languages in its pieces, because, as Rolando says, "Before when you spoke these languages, the people would say, oh this campesino, there was a lot of discrimination ... but now, we are proud, hip-hop makes you proud, more than anything, that is the message, you have to feel good about who you are." And Grover added, "The attitude of a rapper is always present, a rapper always picks himself up, its the spirit of struggle that he has." By using Aymara, the language of their parents and grandparents, Wayna Rap is trying to rescue a language that is slowly dying out as families move to urban areas and also because of extreme discrimination against indigenous languages and families.

For everyone listening at KAI on Tuesday night, the response was unanimously supportive of songs in Aymara "this is our language," they told me proudly when I asked how they felt about hearing raps in Aymara. But this language is not spoken as much amongst the younger generation who have grown up in El Alto; it is the language of their parents and grandparents.

The new constitution of Bolivia, however, ratified by President Evo Morales (the first indigenous president) makes it a law for all people to learn to speak and use at least one indigenous Bolivian language (the three main ones are Quechua, Aymara, and Tupi Guarani).

To learn more about hip hop in El Alto, and to hear more hip hop in El Alto, please check any of the following links:

Wayna Rap on MySpace
YouTube video