North Carolina Rapper Among 15 Hip-Hop Artists Jailed under State of Exception

EL SALVADOR / VIOLENCE



Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Efren Lemus
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In March 2022, Nelson Vladimir Hernández Tobar, a hip-hop artist called N-Real, uploaded a two-minute music video to YouTube. The rapper, a 28-year-old U.S. citizen, is originally from El Salvador but has lived in Raleigh, North Carolina for years. In the video, recorded from the U.S., N-Real dedicates a few lines to his place of birth in the department of Izalco:

“Nahuizalco en las venas y en el corazón, Barrio El Calvario es where I’m from, caminando con piquete cabrón” (“Nahuizalco in my veins and heart, Barrio Calvario is where I’m from, bouncin’ with a shot of rum”). In the video, which has since been viewed around 5,300 times, Hernández challenges “fake little rappers,” saying he will leave them “lying on the pavement.” He makes no reference to any gang.

During a visit to El Salvador in January, he was detained under the state of exception. He has remained in prison for five months despite having no criminal record of any kind. Amid a government crackdown has led to mass arbitrary arrests, police used the song to accuse him of promoting violence as an active gang member because the neighborhood he mentions in the video, like hundreds of other communities in the country, was once controlled by gangs.

The police report included in Hernández’s indictment for “illicit associations” in a Sonsonate court reads: “He has appeared on social media sites such as YouTube and has composed several songs that incite and promote gang violence, and he mentions colonias with a presence of the 18[th Street] gang, which is active in Nahuizalco.”

More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202306/el_salvador/26878/north-carolina-rapper-among-15-hip-hop-artists-jailed-under-state-of-exception