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Music: Hip Hop Hoodios do it up for due process at Guantanamo

The politically soaked title track from \"Viva la Guantanamera,\" a five-song EP by the Hip Hop Hoodios, is more than a hollow attempt at activism by a crew best known for celebratory Jew-tunes such as \"Havana Nagila\" and \"Ocho Kandelikas.\"
[additional-authors]
September 8, 2007

C’mon Mr. President, is this really us?
Home of the brave and the land of the unjust?
We the people, you’re the government we can’t trust
So I strangle the microphone and kick dust
Now you label us by another name
And attempt to indefinitely detain
With no trial at all, your little war game
It’s un-American not to let us clear a name

The politically soaked title track from “” target = “_blank”>digital-only album on Aug. 7. And the duo are putting their money where their mouths are by donating 18 percent of the net profits from the sale of “Viva la Guantanamera,” to Amnesty International’s efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and restore due process.

It’s not the first time Norek, 32, and Velez, 31, have made a political or social statement with a hip-hop beat and a latin jazz groove. Their 2005 album “Agua Pa’ la Gente” included “

“>
I don’t care about her color or creed
It’s her big, plump, juicy kosher brain that I need
College educated, or natural genius
We’ll run naked through the house
With the sheet between us.

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