[music]

Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart, who's out on medical leave. As always, our March Get Lit event ended with some music. It's great. Since the novel Anita de Monte Laughs Last is about the power of art and finding your own voice, we were really thrilled to be joined by someone who's made a career in music and spoken word poetry. Caridad de la Luz is a poet, a singer, a rapper, and the executive director of the famed Nuyorican Poets Café. She actually joined us for the event on the same day that the Nuyorican Poets Café broke new ground on their $24 million renovation project on the Lower East Side.

It was a really great moment for us to be gathering together. In just a bit, you're going to hear Caridad's conversation with Get Lit music producer Simon Close. First, here's Caridad performing as La Bruja with a special live rendition of her song, Every Oyster.

[MUSIC - Caridad de la Luz: Every Oyster]

[applause]

Caridad De La Luz: [laughs] Thank you.

[applause]

Kousha Navidar: I guess I want to jump in by-- before that song you talked about spoken word and hip hop and in Anita de Monte Laughs Last, Raquel is a big hip hop fan. I think the quote is, "She loved art history, but she was obsessed with music, hip hop most of all." I'm interested in your experience. Did you get into hip hop through spoken word and poetry? Was it the reverse? Are they not really separate in your mind?

Caridad De La Luz: Well, I'm born in the Bronx, still living there. I was born in 1973, the same year that hip hop started. We were doing hip hop before we were told it was even hip hop. Admittedly, inside the house, it was Salsa, Merengue, Cha Cha all the Latin dances and music. When I started trying to do rhymes, I was like 14. I had started my own little girl group, it was called Vogue. Before all of that, I was--

[laughter]

I knew. [laughs] My first hip-hop song was when I was 14 and it was called Square Pegs. I think it's always been connected to me, but when I went to the Nuyorican Poets Café was when I realized I was not an MC. I went with my poetry and got on the open mic, and then outside there would be these ciphers, male-dominated of course, and I remember somebody was like, "You're just a poet, you're not an MC." I was like, "I'll be back."

[laughter]

I came back the next month with some bars and then just started going in and rat-a-ta-ta, rat-a-ta.

[laughter]

Here we are. [laughs] I had a record deal at one point, but it's also male-dominated, and I thought I would be escaping it by getting out of hip hop music, not really focusing my career on hip-hop, because there was sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual-- just all kind of-- always want-- they were like, "Don't be political, be sexy, do this." I even had a reggaeton song called Mi Gatita Negra, and that was a feminist approach because I had a milkman, but I never showed his face, just his body. I've tried to do something different, but it's been a challenge. The poetry was always my saving grace. The writing and the poetry, no matter what was going on, that was the thing that always gave me a safe passage.

Kousha Navidar: In that last song you wrote in both English and Spanish. Were both languages always in the poetry and verses that you wrote?

Caridad De La Luz: Yes. That was one of the things too, that at the time, nobody was really doing that other than my friend in heaven now, Hurricane G. She was the first Boricua that I heard in hip hop that I was like, "Oh, we doing it, we doing it." She was a Santera and she brought in the la religión and her beliefs into it. She was an inspiration to me. I always was bilingual and that was one of the things that people were like, "Choose, you can't do both." At the time, it just didn't seem-- it wasn't commercial enough.

Kousha Navidar: Do you find there are some things that you can express in one language better than the other in your verse?

Caridad De La Luz: Oh, God, yes. There's things in Spanish-- and Spanglish is fantastic too. We make up some words that are so delicious.

[laughter]

If you're acting, [foreign language] Don't park there. You'll get a ticket. If it's cold, [foreign language]. When it's cold, you put on a coat. It's an ever-evolving language too. I love playing with both languages, and I learned from the best Pedro Pietri, Tato Laviera, Miguel Algarin. Those were mentors to me and inspired me immensely.

Kousha Navidar: Your performer name is a Spanish word, La Bruja.

Caridad De La Luz: Yes.

Kousha Navidar: What's valuable to you? I guess, well, it translates to 'witch', right?

Caridad De La Luz: It is the witch.

Kousha Navidar: How is an alias valuable to you as a performer?

Caridad De La Luz: How is it valuable? [laughs] I mean, choose-- It was a feminist choice. It was a spiritual choice. It was a political choice, cultural choice to call myself La Bruja. I wasn't trying to win any popularity contest by calling myself La Bruja. I also I'm named after la Caridad del Cobre. We had an altar at home and I just didn't understand why it was a secret. There was a botanica on every corner. I was like, why is this a secret? It was something that gave me so much strength.

I was also inspired by a woman named Celina González, who was from Cuba. She was the first music that I heard. It was Espiritismo and Santeria, and she celebrated the Orishas. That was the only time I really heard my name in any music, La Caridad. She had this one song, and in it she's like, "[foreign language]." "Help me, bruja. Open up my journey." I was like, wow, could I be a bruja? That would be great.

Also, my parents got married on Halloween.

[laughter]

Caridad de la Luz: When we write, we spell. We are spelling. I believe in the power of word, the magic that it has. La Bruja, carrying that, it's been a badge of honor, but it hasn't been easy. People always take a second look like, "What kind of bruja are you?" My name is Caridad de la Luz, which means Charity of the Light. I've dedicated my life to being a witch of the light and using word and arts to help illuminate truth and love.

Also, the kind of bruja that I am, not that I'm doing any negative spells because I do believe that when you do that, it comes back to you triple fold, so you're doing a disservice to yourself. I've had people, because I'm called La Bruja, be like, "Can you make my man come back to me?"

[laughter]

Caridad de la Luz: I'm like, if he left, let him go.

[laughter]

Caridad de la Luz: Of course, being La Bruja, I've had to be fierce and defend myself and defend others, especially children and nature. I've been quicker to defend children than I've been to defend myself. The kind of bruja I am depends on you.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: Today was a pretty exciting day. You just broke ground on the renovations which are planned to last over the next few years, I think.

Caridad de la Luz: Yes. The Nuyorican Poets Cafe has been-- it's a 100-year-old building. When I became the executive director, I resurrected it from the pandemic. It was shut down for those years and that was crazy. I've never been the executive director and so they were just like, "Let Bruja do it." They believed in me. The board believed in me. I didn't even believe in me. I was like, "Oh my God," but when they asked me, I just I said, "Okay, well, I may not know how to do it. I just know that I will." I learned as I went along and still was able to conduct shows in this space that if you plugged in two heaters at one time, it would blow up the house.

[laughter]

Caridad de la Luz: We were able to survive the two years and do wonderful performances. Now, this has been ten years in the making, this Nuyorican-struction [laughter]. We've closed our physical doors and we thought it was only going to be three years. We were told today that it's going to be two years.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, great.

Caridad de la Luz: A lot of people think we've closed our doors and we're done. We've been like the Big Bang theory. We closed the doors and we're now doing performances and programming everywhere. Go to nuyorican.org and see and join us and get on an open mic. That's how I started my career, on an open mic at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Look what's happened.

Kousha Navidar: Well, I'm going to let you take the mic back and get off the stage.

Caridad de la Luz: Thank you.

Kousha Navidar: Caridad de la Luz, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

[applause]

Caridad de la Luz: Thank you. We're going to get a little political with acronyms. This song, I remember, it was controversial because somebody told me that this word didn't exist anymore. Then when I looked in the dictionary, there it was. I was like, "Oh, well, we're going to write about this."

[MUSIC - Caridad de la Luz: S. P. I. C.]

My people. Let's let them know. La Bruja. Let's go.

1. P. I. C. ,S. P. I. C. – it doesn’t mean the same thing to me
2. P. I. C. ,S. P. I. C. – I define my dictionary
3. P. I. C. ,S. P. I. C. Ten cuidao como llamarme ami
4. P. I. C. ,S. P. I. C. – con mi e.s.p. I see what I see

Spanish People In Crisis

Speak Politely I’m Crazy

Spain Probably Isn’t Caring

Statehood Probably Isn’t Coming

Separated People Inevitably Crumble

Start Participating In Culture

Strong Pro-Independence Community

Society prefers indifference collectively

Speaking Powerfully Involves Commitment

Similar Patterns In Chimps

Slander Purposely Impairs Confidence

Surviving Peoples Insensitive Comments

Socio Political Insanity Continues

Speaking Purposefully Is Constitutional

1. P. I. C. ,S. P. I. C. – it doesn’t mean the same thing to me
2. P. I. C. ,S. P. I. C. – I define my dictionary
3. P. I. C. ,S. P. I. C. Ten cuidao como llamarme ami
4. P. I. C. ,S. P. I. C. – con mi e.s.p. I see what I see

Still Placed In Cadenas

Seize Puerto Ricans In Chancletas

Spiritualists Praying Ignite Candles

Some Propaganda Is Comedy

Stop Praising Ignorant Celebrities

Kousha Navidar: That was Caridad de la Luz with a special live performance from the March Get Lit With All Of It book club event with author Xochitl Gonzalez. Hey, that's all of it for today. I'm Kousha Navidar. Thank you so much for listening and we're going to meet you back here tomorrow. See you then.

[MUSIC - Caridad de la Luz: S. P. I. C.]

Shoe Points Impale Cockroaches

Stop Parades Including Columbus

Soy Perfecta Inventando Caridades

Seeking Past Inner Conquistador

Speak Properly In Code

Some Poetry Is Censored

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