Interview with a Muse: Chhoti Maa, the migrant Goddess
YOU ARE NOT SAFE. Chhoti Maa is coming to a town near you. Whether she’s screaming protest chants or free-styling with her eyes closed so she can catch the holy ghost, or studying up on ways to deconstruct, to make magic, to soothsay...one thing is for sure, she's poised to uplift her peoples with each downchant of Babylon.
I first met Chhoti Maa aka Vreni a few years back. We both played at a basement Hip Hop show in West Oakland. I was at once enchanted by the way she balances the feminine with the fierce. Her styles are a reminder that these two ways of being are not diametrically opposed, but instead, part of the fabric of being a woman--walking with grace in an often cruel world. Her songs are lullaby-like, her raps (which are primarily in Spanish) are ferocious. As a fashionista, she rocks bold colors like the corals and turquoises found on the murals in the Mission.
Chhoti Maa was born in Mexico in 1988 but fate would have her moving between and beyond constructed borders. The plethora of places she's encountered is apparent in her music. I've been blessed to collaborate with her. Last year, Chhoti Maa visited the incarcerated students I teach at the SF Juvenile Justice Center. She performed to them, we wrote songs and poems and a sense of sacredness was established that lasted for weeks afterwards. More recently, Chhoti Maa and I met up to work on a song, but ended up ditching the writing process to spark and take part in a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Oakland. As a comrade, she's overwhelmingly lovable. Chhoti oozes joy and amor, besos and blessings simply because to give and receive love is an act of resistance!
Chhoti and others will be performing THIS Saturday for the 30th Annual EMPOWERING WOMEN OF COLOR conference at UC Berkeley. Read more about her history, process and projects in the works below...
What (who) were your musical muses growing up?
It was the early 90s. The first concert I ever went to was when I was 3 or 4 in Mexico City. We were all up in the nosebleed section watching Michael Jackson. I loved his music and ever since then he was one of my muses!
I also grew up with all the US exported 80s music. But I also had my grandma’s influence and her taste in music around me. I listened to older Mexican music, especially Boleros songs from my region, Bajío. I played composer, Jose Alfredo Jimenez, as well as Guty Cardenas and Agustin Lara. We also had that Cumbia blasting in the barrio and the music of the estudiantina.
In third grade, the rock band, El Tri, was my thing! But when I first migrated to the U.S. I was in Texas, I started developing my own music library. My first muses and English teachers were Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” and also Destiny’s Child “Writings on the Wall.” I listened to the albums on my mp3 player before going to bed. My auntie, who stayed with us sleeping on the floor, would be telling me to turn down the volume.
When we moved to Georgia, I remember I started listening to more and more music. I was in the school’s choir and eventually, as a senior, I made it on the Black Awakening Choir through which I learned to sing music from the South.
So, because of my environment, I began to explore Southern Soul, Blues, Country and Gospel. I also learned from the great Black Jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughn and Dinah Washington.
At the same time, I kept listening to those Latin equivalents, people like Chavela Vargas, Elvira Rios, Omara Portundo. Later, Bahamadia’s smooth killah style, and most recently, Anita Tijoux has inspired me greatly.
Overall, I believe that the fluxus between worlds has exposed me to a rich sea of muses, so I thank the migrant goddesses for that blessing!
Where did you get your artist name? What does it mean?
I baptized myself in Richmond, Virginia. It took me at while to get there but, at that moment, I had been performing at open mics. I got addicted to the rush, to the art. I had just gotten out of a noise band (Diamond Black Heart) and my name was Triptych…haha.
Around that time, I had the privilege of living with my sister and my cousin Erika. We would nerd out, and sometimes on the weekends we would watch Indian films, primarily Bollywood films. I came upon older Bollywood films such as Bhatar Mata and Chhoti Maa. I felt compelled to the words Chhoti Maa as they translate into Little Mother and that translates two ways in Spanish = Mamasita o Mama Chiquita (depende del folclor sigue multiplicandose las traducciones).
The name is my own personal reminder to be my own mother and to be a nurturer in my communities. And as a migrant, I am attracted to translations and the shifts they present, so the HH had me feeling right.
When did you first fall in love with Hip Hop?
In 1995 or 96…it was when we lived back in Mexico City. At that moment, the country was under the PRI political party (which is in power again ughh).
Mexico was in an economic crisis and had just signed NAFTA, which eventually pushed my family and many others to migrate. During that time, Hip Hop was strong, one of the songs that made history was Molotov’s,“Gimme Power,” the Mexican Hip Hop anthem of dissatisfied folks that openly took down the corrupted system and asked for restitution…we are still working towards that restitution, but its hard when your country is tied at the hip to the US war machine.
I should add that when I briefly lived in Trujillo, Peru in 2011, I saw Hip Hop in all its forms actively blossoming in the streets together. It made me imagine NY back in the 70s-80s. Trujillo was where I first free-styled, where I fell in love with that freedom. I will always have love for my people there!
What’s your favorite part about being a woman in Hip Hop? On the flip side, what’s one thing you wish would change for women in the game?
I remember, at first, my dad didn’t think much of my craft, especially because my work is openly critical to both of my homelands. I think he suffers from the fear that was placed on his generation because of the Tlatelolco Student Massacre and migrant rancho shock. But he’s gotten accustomed to it and now gives my work the respect it deserves.
My sister, womyn cousins and aunties on the other hand, hella backed me up from the beginning! My auntie, to this day, still loves my early, early rap “Oye Mi Mujer,” which cuts up machismo.
I believe in the responsibility of the work we do. Being a Queer, Womyn, Migrant mujer in Hip Hop allows me to expand my platform. Hip Hop allows me to extend my mind into words: to verbalize my preoccupations, my questions and present them as freestyles to my peoples. Thus, I love being an MC because of that power! I never forget that that power carries a burden, a task as a folk-poet: we must honor the word and respect our core truths, whatever they may be. We must constantly put ourselves into question and critique. I try to dismantle what bell hooks calls the “white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative, capitalist, imperialist” system within my head and around me.
In that process, some people become uncomfortable because we can start to destroy the walls that surround our ideas of what can be. Hip Hop allows me to imagine. Overall, Hip Hop has allowed me connect to many barrios from Trujillo, to Guanajuato to Oakland through the language and lifestyle I’ve been passionate about since I started back in 2007.
I definitely see a change. Back when I first started, I felt more isolation, but I find that now there’s so many of us keeping it fabulous that we can no longer be ignored or just kept at the one at a time media tactic. We have so many flavors, perspectives, styles that it thrills me to connect with other womyn MCs.
Shout out to my sisters Alas, Mare Advertencia Lirika, Almen Amen and Cihuatl Ce!
You are a highly educated woman. Can you tell us a bit about your studies? What motivated you to attain an advanced degree?
Let me first say this, I was able to enter this country because of my parent’s educational opportunities. So from an early age, I understood the potential higher education can provide. At the same time, I don’t get it twisted, degrees are just papers, its really about what we do with our drive and our skills. Learning is a lifestyle, it’s not an institution; and with that being said I’ve always been a nerd. I survived the system twice, (the second time thanks to the elder CK Ladzekpo).
I have a BFA in Visual arts from Virginia Commonwealth University and a MFA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley. The process is intense but I see my people making it through and shining in those spaces and getting those papers. Being in those institutions can be a bit uncomfortable. For example, in both of the public universities I went to there weren’t many Latina students or teachers in my programs or in general, but there were a lot of assumptions and racist comments.
But again, we find that anywhere, so at the end of the day you gotta just do your damn thing and connect with the souls that are down witchu while taking advantage of the resources and opportunities for one’s path.
What’s one of your favorite songs that you’ve ever written and why is it your fav?
Damn that’s hard, it’s like picking your favorite child. Each song reflects a different part of me that is why it breathes in and out of genres. But to be honest, I am so in love with my new project, the entire album is making me flutter inside, so I would say AGUA CORRE got me sprung.
But out of my older songs, lyrically, “La Pipol” was important to me because it allowed me to process 32 bars again and again throughout the Nujabes beat. I needed to make La Pipol cause I needed to speak about my migration back into the U.S. after a 2 year self removal. It was a turning point in my work, born in freestyle, after reading Anzaldua for the first time.
I also love “De Mujer A Mujer,” because I produced the beat and because its slow and smooth like chocolate caliente.
Where can folks find your music?
Ya’ll can find my sounds on different interweb spaces by my name Chhoti Maa, but the majority of my music lives on soundcloud.com/chhotimaa.
++ March 7th - Empowering Womyn of Color Conference, UCB
OH LOOK! Coco Peila is performing too! Peep her Interview with a Muse
Can you tell us about any new projects in the works?
Yes, a big project with the help of two dear friends Beto Guapoflaco and Keith Hernandez! It expands through genres, spaces and emotions. The project has been slowly cooking for more than a year and it is title “AGUA CORRE” (water runs).
I do plan to release it sometime this summer!
Lastly, what’s one piece of advice that you have for young artists?
Stay up, stay grounded but don’t be afraid to let go of comfort, of bad habits, of ignorance. Always question yourself and your environment. Keep your life in free-style. Keep your life fresh and fabulous.
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