El Parche Hip HopEl Parche Hip Hop

El Parche Hip Hop works out of Bogotá as an independent outlet covering hip-hop across Colombia and Latin America, and treats all four elements as its beat rather than only the records. It reports the scene it belongs to — the DJ auditions for Hip Hop al Parque, the Festival Hip Hop Engativá, a New York underground name passing through town — and sets out to build a memory of it, on the grounds that nobody else is keeping one. It calls Bogotá the rap capital of South America, and the radio runs alongside the writing.

What it pushes is Colombian rap with the argument left in: Nazareno writing for those who fell fighting for social justice, MC Ari and RedCode on rap consciente, El Arkeólogo, one of the scene's most important producers, turning in a new album, Javier Alerta handling the softer end. The beats lean boom bap and the lyrics lean political, which is the whole point of the place.