Ana Tijoux is the Chilean hip-hop protester. Her cover letter could well be what media outlets like  The Rolling Stones who chose her as the best rapper in Spanish, The New York Times who points to  her as the Latin American response to Lauryn Hill, or magazines like Newsweek who ranks her as  the most important Latin American rapper on the international scene. Ana Tijoux was born in Lille  in 1977. Her parents went into exile during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in Chile, which has  left a mark on her career, marked by a special sensitivity to political and social issues. Her music  dialogues to the sound of hip hop, fused. A feminist and activist in her lyrics, she denounces social  and cultural deficiencies. In favor of women’s rights and against gender violence, in 2014 she  highlighted in her album “Vengo” the song “Antipatriarch”. They frequently participate in  campaigns against inequality and oppression in the world. Tijoux is committed to defending  women’s rights and has denounced gender violence and inequality. Also the inequality faced by  artists in the world of cinema, or singers.

“We realize that in every place we visit, in every news item we see, violence against women is  reiterated, multiplied and totally normalized (…) deep down you are being asked with whom you  abandon your children when you go on tour, and many times it is women journalists who ask you  that, so I wonder: when are the daddy men who leave their children when they go on tour going  to ask this question?

“We have to be young, we have to be attractive, we have to be intelligent, but they hope we don’t talk too much, and sing very beautifully and hopefully see ourselves very sexy above the stage (…) one as music questions oneself and says: ‘chucha, what is my capacity for movement here’, because finally if one says that one has critical thinking, one is still confronted daily with this, from advertising, from atrophied bodies”.

Ana is a global artist. About to publish her first book of poetry and her fifth studio album, she dares to go through all the creative processes: she composes, writes and arranges both her own themes and those she develops for different audiovisual projects, from films to documentaries. She has also put herself in front of the camera in films such as La Isla de los Pingüinos or a Chilean series of upcoming premieres and feminist theme called La Jauría.

CAREER

Her recognition in Latin America began in the late 90’s as a femcee of the hip-hop group Makiza,  consolidating her worth and success with her second solo album “1977”.

His first solo album, titled Kaos, produced by Nicolás Carrasco (Foex) of the Potoco Discos label,  together with guitarist and producer Cristóbal Pérez (Pera Prezz), would be released in 2007 under  the Oveja Negra label, founded by the SCD, with his first single “Despabílate! In this album she  fuses funk, soul and other black rhythms, giving himself the freedom to compose sad, cheerful,  dynamic and melodic songs with the desire to show a whole range of emotions.

With her 1977 album (2009), Ana Tijoux showed her skills through sophisticated rhythms and  lyrics, wrapped in a voice with a touch of jazz. The album, named for being her year of birth, paints  a picture of her childhood in France and pays tribute to the Chilean hip hop that inspired her in  the early ’90s. That same year Radiohead leader Thom Yorke recommended his followers listen to  the artist’s 1977 song, which raised Tijoux’s popularity in Europe.

In March 2014 she released her fourth solo album, Vengo, musically produced by Andrés Celis,  mixing different rhythms and cultures. The artist releases a set of 17 songs, ranging from tinku to  the most contentious hip hop, with instrumental nuances full of political manifestos, contingency  themes, social and cultural deficiencies. The initial track “Vengo”, which gives the plaque its name;  continues with the aforementioned “Somos Sur”, together with the Palestinian femcee Shadia  Mansour; “Antipatriarca”, produced by Cristóbal Pérez (Pera Prezz), dedicated to women’s  liberation, women’s autonomy and the vindication of their rights and the denunciation against  violence against women; and “Somos Todos Erroristas” which, following the line of collaborations,  has the contribution of Hordatoj. In the song “Creo en Ti”, also produced by guitarist Cristobal  Perez, has the company of Juanito Ayala, with a cheerful lyrics, positive, full of awareness and  hope, nuanced with sounds of charangos, quenas and redobles nortinos, demonstrating the  versatility of styles combined in the work, Tijoux manages to impress a new local musical  environment, as well as opening the door to new exponents in search of consecration. It is with  this album that he manages to captivate the ears of great international exponents such as Iggy  Pop, who incorporated in the playlist of his BBC radio program the song “Somos Sur”, appealing to  “this girl if she has balls”, or as the Japanese composer and activist Ryuichi Sakamoto who shared  on his Facebook wall the song “Antipatriarch” and “No TPP” (2013), pointing out that there are no  borders for music.

PRIZES 

She has dozens of nominations for various awards such as the MTV, 40 Principales, Indie Music Awards and has eight Grammy nominations (both Latin and Anglo), making her the Chilean woman with the most nominations for these awards.

Winner of the 2012 Altazor Awards, with “Sacar la voz” feat. Jorge Drexler in the “Best Urban Song” category, in 2015 she won first place in the categories of Best Artist of the Year, Best Album of the Year (Vengo), Best Song of the Year (Vengo), and Best Urban Music Artist of the Pulsar Awards, with her fourth solo album “Vengo”.

In 2011, she was nominated for the Grammy Awards with “1977” in the category “Best Latin/urban/alternative rock album”, which would be repeated in 2013 for “La Bala” and in 2015 with  “Vengo” in the category “Best Latin/urban/alternative rock album”. Likewise, in the Latin Grammy Awards, she has been nominated with “La Bala” for “Best Urban Music Album” (2012) and with “Sacar la voz” (2013).

In 2014, she won a Latin Grammy with “Universos Paralelos” with Jorge Drexler in the “Song of the Year” category and, in 2014, she was nominated with “Vengo” in the “Best Urban Song” category.

Considered one of the top MCs in Latin America, Ana Tijoux has been nominated to the MTV Video Music Awards Latin America as “Best New Artist”, and “Best Urban Artist”.

JSWISS is a global artist who just might be the most versatile emcee on the scene today, operating at the intersection of hip-hop, jazz and soul. He has both recorded and performed with the likes of Elvis Costello, Keyon Harrold and Nicholas Payton, graced the legendary stages of The Apollo Theater and Blue Note Jazz Club multiple times, and received the coveted hip-hop stamp of approval of having his music videos played on Video Music Box. JSWISS’ brand is ‘Awthentic’, a term coined by him that means leaving people in awe of how true to yourself you are.

Since releasing his first mixtape in 2009, JSWISS has released more than a dozen projects, and received praise from notable music authorities such as The Source, Complex Magazine, NPR Music, Okayplayer, Hip Hop DX and BBC 6 Radio. JSWISS is also a favorite collaborator of some of the most sought after instrumentalists in the world like Maurice “Mobetta” Brown, Marcus Machado, Ben Williams, Marcus Strickland, Nate Smith, and more who have pegged JSWISS a lyricist who can effortlessly fall in where most MCs can’t.

Two of JSWISS’ most notable recent collaborations are his “Bona Fide” album with trumpeter/producer Michael Leonhart, and “Somebody’s Gotta Do It” EP with saxophonist/producer Sly5thAve. Both projects see Leonhart and Sly5thAve pivoting from their work as notable orchestra composers and arrangers to produce truly unique, dynamic hip-hop projects with JSWISS leading the charge on the mic.