Radical. Revolutionary. Unapologetically Puerto Rican. These are the words that Chicago-based MC Pinqy Ring uses to describe herself. Pinqy Ring embodies the true spirit of hip-hop as an artist, educator, and cultural ambassador. Her song “Victory”, featured on Sofar’s Hispanic + Latine Voices playlist, pays homage to the legacy of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican street gang turned human rights organization in a response to police brutality and gentrification. Outside of making music, Pinqy works as a teacher and hip-hop ambassador for the United States, traveling the world to help share the knowledge and history of hip-hop culture.
Sofar had the chance to speak with her about the work she does, being a Latina in hip-hop, and how to celebrate Latinidad beyond the limitations of a month.
For the readers who might not be in the know already, who is Pinqy Ring?
Pinqy Ring is a radical, revolutionary, Puerto Rican rapper based in Chicago, but representing Puerto Rico and hip-hop at its core in the ways that it can transform and heal the world. I’m just someone who’s trying to decolonize a lot of things including education, what it means to be a woman, femininity, what it means to be a hip-hop artist, and even Puerto Rican-ness. I consider myself to be someone who studied [hip-hop] and learned from it, and then figured out a way to make both the genre and the education around it more inclusive so that people can see me and say, “If she did it, I could do it too.”
You just spoke about your background as an educator. For you, what was it that made you discover that overlap between education and hip-hop?
It’s funny because that overlap wasn’t intentional, but it sort of happened naturally, as the course of my life progressed. I’m very privileged and fortunate to have had a college education, but I was a rapper first. I became a rapper in high school, and just saw all the ways that hip-hop affirmed me. My first song that I wrote was about 9/11 In high school, and my very elderly very white English teacher heard that song and literally let me coast the rest of the year after that. She was like, “this is powerful.” It was my first experience with someone affirming my own voice and my story, which meant a lot, especially being affirmed by an educator. Then my freshman year at UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago), We went around the room saying who we are and what we do. I said I was a rapper, [the professor’s] like, “okay rap.” I didn’t think she was gonna give me that platform, and when I finished, she was like, “See me after class” and I thought I was in trouble. She asked me what my major was and I said biology, because I wanted to be a marine biologist, and she said “absolutely not, you need to change your major to English.” So that was another example of someone in the educational system affirming me in my art.
When I graduated from college, I got my first job teaching in Humboldt Park (Chicago’s predominantly Puerto Rican neighborhood) at Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School, which is an alternative high school. When I was coming up [with] the curriculum I was like “I want to teach hip-hop) and [the administration] was like “cool,” so once again, being affirmed by people who were educators. There’s that quote that says “when it’s your calling, it’s gonna keep calling.” Both of those things always kept calling me and I just found a way for them to work hand in hand. So along with being a hip-hop artist, I’m also a hip-hop educator, and I say hip-hop educator specifically because the pedagogy around hip-hop and the way that I teach different concepts with hip-hop is extremely important. It’s so culturally relevant to young people who love this art form.
How would you describe your role as an official hip-hop ambassador?
When I first heard about this program sponsored through the State Department, the Bureau of Cultural Affairs and Education, as well as Meridian International and the University of North Carolina, I was like, “there’s no way you’re gonna send me overseas to do hip-hop diplomacy, and pay me to do it.” What they do essentially is send one person to represent each element of hip- hop overseas to do hip-hop programming.
For folks that might not know, hip-hop has five elements; we have emceeing—the master of ceremony or the rapper; DJing—so Djs, beatboxers and producing; breaking—B-boys B-girls, B-people; and we [have] aerosol artists as well. These people who are incredible educators and legendary human beings get sent as like a supergroup. You go, you teach your respective elements—so if I would be with the MCs, we would be learning about emceeing, whether it’s the history of hip-hop or how to write raps. We experience hip-hop here in the US where hip-hop was [born], but when you’re able to share that internationally and see how much these people appreciate the art form, it shows you that you can be a representative on a global stage.
And how has that experience of traveling the globe shaped your worldview, especially on hip-hop and the Latin diaspora?
My first trip overseas ever was to Ghana and it was after a really, really traumatic car accident that left me in a coma. As I look back on Baby Pinqy, teenage Pinqy, she was filled with unresolved trauma. And so that led me to bad decisions and hanging with people that maybe weren’t edifying me as much. That accident was really the turning point in my life where, literally, I saw my life flash before my eyes and I said, “if I keep living this way, I’m going to become another statistic from Chicago.” So my first trip overseas to Ghana, West Africa. That changed my life, to see how people are so rich in so many regards. And when I say rich, I mean in spirit, in laughter.
Then just being in the Latina diaspora has been really interesting. Because we always have to remember that [hip-hop] is a Black cultural art form, right? It comes from Black people so it is Black music. Sometimes we’re missing that educational piece of coming in and saying, “we see that you love this and that you appreciate it, but we have to make sure that we’re acknowledging the forepeople who really started this.” I think what people forget is that Caribbean people [and] Black people in New York were really working together and making this thing happen. I think that sometimes we have forgotten about that Caribbean influence, specifically the Puerto Rican influence on hip-hop music. That’s not to say that we created it, but we had a hand. It’s reminding people in the hip-hop diaspora that this is a Black art form, but also educating them on the role that Caribbean people played in the formation of hip-hop, and finding a way to both honor that and respect that but also tell your story.
In your song “Victory” you referenced the Young Lords and Cha-Cha Jimenez, who are not recognized by the mainstream enough. So how do you see yourself continuing their legacy?
This song was probably about a 48-hour process in which I got the beat, wrote the lyrics, went to the studio, recorded it, memorized it, and shot the music video. [It] was a collaboration with the National Public Housing Museum here in Chicago, which does a lot of work around housing justice, and also the history of public housing in Chicago. And it’s also a collaboration with a Blue Rhythm Collective. People think the Young Lords were some menacing street gang, but the Young Lords were a response to gentrification and the violence that they were facing from the European communities. A lot of people don’t know [The Young Lords] were part of the rainbow coalition with the Black Panther Party, so they were fighting for the liberation of all people, and the liberation of the island of Puerto Rico as a colony of the United States—let’s call it what it is. I learned a lot about the Young Lords in writing and releasing the song. And I have been able to through this release, connect with the New Era Young Lords, who is this generation’s faction of the Young Lords, and I was lucky enough to meet Cha-Cha Jimenez.
How do we celebrate Latinx culture outside of this one month?
That’s really it, right? Listen, they are starting to flood my inboxes with the Latinx heritage month request and it’s like g, I live 365 days of the year, I’m available all year round. Let’s take time to honor the contributions on Latinx people, but let’s not just pigeonhole it to this one month. The same goes for Black History and LGBTQ people. How do you that work year-round? Because that’s really doing the work. A lot of what people are doing is extracting from the community, but they are not even taking one second to think, “how can we pour back in?” It’s just highlighting us—and when I say us, I mean all marginalized people. How are you, outside of this month sharing my music, or this Black revolutionary’s music, or this trans musician’s music? It’s about doing your best to learn and understand and if you don’t know something, ask questions because there’s no such thing as a dumb question. Then once you have the knowledge, how do you then spread that to your community? We just want to live. We just want to live doing this thing that we love that is revolutionary and there’s a lot of ways to support that, but it doesn’t have to just be for one month.
Any final words?
Keep going. Whoever is reading this, keep going, DO your work. It can be doing your work as an artist, it can be your spiritual work, or physical work. You’re good enough. You’re so worthy. There’s a world of abundance out there, don’t get stuck on this mindset of not enough money or not enough record deals or not enough boyfriends. I’m here to tell you there’s all the boyfriends in the world, don’t worry. When you do that internal, self-care work, all the things you want are gonna come to you. But if you aren’t doing your work you have no one to blame but yourself.
Interview by Alejandro Hernandez
Photo credit: Pinqy Ring, photo by Autumn B
