Reppin a Badger shirt, a Chilean-French rapper graced the Majestic Theater stage with Rebel Diaz on a festive April 20, Monday night.
Performing songs from her new album, “Vengo,” which translates into “I come,” Ana Tijoux followed through in her promise, coming through to Majestic with movement-inducing jams those Latina hips in the front row could not resist.
Coming from Santiago, Chile, it was clear from the vibrant, involved audience that her music crosses borders. Waving a Chilean flag, the crowd’s screams of ‘Viva Chile!’ could be heard throughout the venue.
After Chicago-native opener Rebel Diaz pumped up the audience, Tijoux raised the energy even further.
In an activist city like Madison, Tijoux’s politically charged music and performance fit right in.
She made her connection to student protesters as she addressed the audience about the importance of education.
“I know in this country it can be very hard to be a teacher,” Tijoux said. “[but] the kids are not the future, they are the present.”
Before breaking into ‘Sacar la voz,’ or ‘to speak out,’ Tijoux told the audience about a moment she had in which young students from Madison asked her what it means to be a musician.
“I was trying to explain to a very young school in Madison,” Tijoux said. “It’s understanding that sometimes songs travel through time and through countries and arrive to people that you never thought it was going to arrive.”
Tijoux’s drummer and producer, Andres Celis, also from Chile, agreed with Tijoux’s drive to connect to an international audience through music.
“[Music] is something that touches everybody,” he said.
In connection with Madison’s own hip-hop youth culture, Celis said Tijoux’s music comes from that same socially-driven motivation.
“Hip-hop comes from there, comes from a social movement. We try to keep that style alive,” Celis said. “We connect with the social movements.”
Tijoux’s performance entranced the audience, from Santiago, Chile to Madison, Wisconsin, there was no translation necessary for the Latin beats and Andean flutes.
At the end of her set, Tijoux brought back Rebel Diaz in a joint performance. With attire that read “No Human Being is Illegal,” the political commentary continued in the vibrant musical performance, ski masks included.
In Tijoux’s solidarity with ‘la puebla’ or ‘the people’ which comes out through the Andean influence in her music and her socially-driven lyrics, she described her fascination with cartography.
She described a map tradition in which the hemispheres are flipped, in an interview after the show.
“It is a way of saying ‘who decided what is the north and what is the south?'” Tijoux said. “In the north, the wealthy countries, in the south, Africa and Latinoamerica. Why?”
In her performance of, “Somos Sur,” or “We are the South,” Tijoux raps “Somos Africanos, Latinoamericanos, somos este sur y juntamos nuestras manos” which translates into “We are Africans, Latin Americans, we are the south and we join our hands together.”
Ana Tijoux’s performance was one of the most chill, entrancing shows Majestic could have hosted April 20.
