50's melodramas

Englewood

Tarantino

1964 Stanley Kubrick fantasy

Peloponnesian War

America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

South Side of Chicago

0 Frank Contreras Price for fame, should never cost a friendship.

David Arellano Zamora For so long doing the Spanish FLY and then all the issues and with Rich Roc and then prophecy, you know, the drama with, you know, not him, not want to Frank to be a part of it no where I just kind of like, you know, I need a chance to kind of make music on my own.

nd uh… I'm not going to lie, it hurt. It hurt because I really felt we had a bond

B, C, D, E, that was 1986. It was like accuse ahead of his time, you know. But, yeah, I got to hea

Frank Contreras So uh… Chicano rap is a reference to do with urban, Latino, Cholo, Vadio, culture. Uh… Hip… hip-hop, hip…. hip-Hop. Then you have Chicano rap or Latin music than Chicano rap, and Chicano rap is basically the voice of a Chicano Vadio Cholo Urban youth people. So Spanish Fly was birthed out of the first element of hip hop which was a DJ and what we would do is we would take a record like, you know, war, being a war was from Harbor City and we were from, from actually the Harbor area. It was kind of like something that I thought would be good. And I'll take the drum beat which is actually called Impeach the President. You know, this piece here, that we would take the war again Rosa ghetto and mix them together. And uh… just create like another album in hip hop. You know, wasn't, it was an Ice Cube, you know, "Boys in the hood. It wasn't…" uh… "ice tea six in the morning" but it was our interpretation of what, what hip hop sounded like from the Harbor area.

Vitsla I think that that's when, one of things that makes our LA music unique, right, umm… it's open to many, uh… styles but it's also self referential and really, uh… appreciates its own artists. Umm… rap music is really a space where it can all be express, blended to produce something new and, and for us real. Uh… and then on top of the music, the musical plans you have the lyrical be about your life, and your experience here in LA. So I think that, that's what makes LA, uh… rap music unique. And I think you can hear that in Spanish FLY's work.

David Arellano Zamora Just imagine that but every letter A, B, C, D, E, that was 1986. It was like accuse ahead of his time, you know. But, yeah, I got to hear it again because…

07:45 Frank Contreras I remember when I first got the, the beat and I kept looping it over and over and I did a little rap to it and I showed my friend Richard and he kind of took it to the next level. Mine was like, "this is the life of a Mexican with noble cause (inaudible ) pants some penalties. I was rapping kind like that and then, he's like "I got it! I got it!" And then he went home and a couple days later, I went to his house and he, I remember, he just busted open the screen door and came out like, (inaudible ). I was like, "Wow! All right, let's go to my house and record it." We, we went to my house to recorded it.

Mix Session 05:55 [music]

Jaime Olhoa Rich Roc, to me, umm… how I painted his face. The, that the lyrics and the sound was a little bit more of a thuggish look. And to me it was basically, umm… a big surprise when I saw that he was, you know, a very wholesome looking kid and a big smile, constantly smiling. He was fun to be around.

Vitsla There was a lot of Mexican immigrant families, but there's also, uh… mixed families of Mexicans who had multiple generations, uh… within them. So that the culture of Mexico was replenishing the culture of Chicanos here in LA and I think that this kind of influenced the, the musical culture of this, of these, umm… Mexican American communities in LA.

[music]

Frank Contreras We started rap in our school. We went to Carnegie Junior High School, we started rapping there, a talent show and then, uh… we started incorporating other people on our little group we had. When we started DJ and parties, rapping at parties, people make fun of us because, you know, we're Mexicans doing this stuff and it was a really too popular for seeing Mexican kids doing this. But it made us striving harder to be better. Richard was seven, umm… seventh grade and he was going to these, these places that we can't even get in and trying to get on the mike and rap.

UNKNOWN Spanish… Spanish FLY. The FLY stands for Foolish Loco Youngsters, whose (inaudible ) which was (inaudible ) Foolish Little Youths. Come on, Spanish Fly was Tricks … Tricks which is me, I said, I said Rich Roc, Ese Daz Uh… then we had our surrounding, uh… people, uh… which was, uh… my friend Smoky(ph), David, uh… Ruben, Toker and Danny McCarthy recipes. It kind of, we're trickled down, it would come and go, it was me Rich Roc for a while, then it was, uh… me and Daz for a while, but I think the heart of Spanish FLY would be in me, Rich Roc and Daz.