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By David Castellon
dcastell@visalia.gannett.com
http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com
The room behind the Wittman Village Community Center doesn't look anything like a recording studio — big and mostly empty with a couple of acoustic foam pads taped to a wall and a wooden podium in the corner.
There's not even a microphone.
Little by little, though, Josh Huerta plans to transform this room by seeking funds to build a sound booth and trying to get recording and sound mixing equipment donated.
Whether the music the youths at the center produce is rap, hip-hop or any other style doesn't matter much to Huerta.
What he does care about it that the music is positive, not laced with messages of violence, gang loyalty and threats that permeates much of the music teenagers listen to these days.
Some of those messages are real, coming from people who have lived gang lives and survived the violence that comes with it, while other music comes from people who dress and talk like gangsters but never lived the lives, said Huerta.
"They write what they want to talk about. Some could make up stories that are make-believe," said Huerta, a former gang member who now works as a gang counselor at the Wittman center.
But regardless of how real the music is, Huerta said there are plenty of youths who listen to it and are inspired to live gangster lives. Some succeed so well that they end up in prison or dead.
Huerta cited one youth who he said is so engrossed in the gang mentality that he won't accept it when Huerta tries to talk to him about the negative aspects of that lifestyle.
"He's totally brainwashed — by no coincidence — by rappers," Huerta said.
And there's plenty of that influence out there, from gangster rap being produced by big and small record companies and sold in swap meets, convenience stores and malls, to songs and albums individual gangs create themselves.
"Last year at the [Visalia] flea market, they kicked out a kid trying to sell a bag full of his CDs. He was a Visalia Northerner" gang member, said Tulare County Sheriff's Detective Joe Aguilar.
For a few hundred dollars, gangs can produce hundreds of CDs, often selling them out of the trunks of cars, at concerts attended by members of affiliated gangs and even over the Internet.
In addition, gangs are uploading music to the Internet and producing their own videos.
Regardless if youths are buying this music or sampling it online, it can have tremendous effects on them, Huerta said.
"It's very influential. It can keep you believing what [the rappers] are talking about," he said.
"Gangster music turned me into a gangster," Huerta said, explaining that he grew up in a family of hard-core gang members and drug addicts.
Back in the mid-1990s, when he was a hard-core gang member in his own right, Huerta rapped to glorify his gang.
These days, he still raps —under the stage name "Joshua 1:19" — and even produces his own albums with a home computer. But while the style of music is the same, Huerta now raps to glorify God and a life outside of gangs.
He knows trying to get that positive message out and getting it to stick is an uphill battle.
Easy to find
Gangster rap and gang-influenced hip-hop — as well as, to a lesser degree, gang-influenced Reggaeton, a mix of Latin, hip-hop, reggae and rap music elements — have spread across the country, and if hard-core fans can't find it in stores, it's easy to find online.
So while performers that include Mr. Violence, Mr. Capone-E, Young Trigger, Greedy Loco, California Thugs and Los Gangeros are far from household names, the music they and others put out has youths around the county listening and wanting to live like gangsters.
It's not just in this country, said Jessica Ochoa, 16, whose family sells licensed music CDs at the Visalia Swap Meet.
"These guys have tours," she said, all the way to Japan. "They're known there," she added. "... And there are DVDs that come out about the tours."
Most of the professionally produced CDs available here come from Southern California, often from small record companies.
Then there are the CDs that the gangs themselves produce.
Huerta said most of the Latino gangs in this area have their own rappers and singers and produce CDs.
How they do it isn't complicated.
All a person needs is a microphone and some off-the-shelf computer hardware and software that allows them to digitally record and engineer music tracks on their computers rather than needing mixing boards and other professional equipment, Huerta said.
From there, they can burn their CDs, create DVDs and even print labels. If they plan to sell a lot, there are businesses that will produce CDs in bulk for about $1 apiece, Huerta said.
They can even hire graphic artists or friends with computer graphic skills to create and print thousands of CD covers for a few hundred dollars, he added.
If they are willing to splurge, Ochoa said some people spend $2,000-$3,000 to rent time at recording studios in Fresno and produce higher-quality CD masters and copies.
Ochoa added that she and her family don't sell those, just the licensed CDs that come mostly from Southern California.
"The new kind of CDs that are coming out, they don't represent the gangs no more, they just rap," Ochoa said.
Still, many of the albums have covers showing people flashing gang signs and have titles that seem to promote violence and gang life, including "Sickminded for Life," "To Live and Die in S.A.," "Keepin it Gangsta," " 'Till We Fall," "Affiliated for Life" and "Gangsta Chronicles."
And gang affiliation seems to spur some album sales.
Ochoa said as there are CDs that people with particular gang ties will buy and others they will not buy — at least not openly.
"There are some [Norteños] that do buy Sureño [CDs], but they don't let their friends know," she said.
But if the mainstream gangster rap is getting a bit less gangster, Huerta and law enforcement here say the music produced here by gangs and others is abundant with gang messages, threats and expletives.
Why music?
Authorities say gangs put out music for many reasons: the desire to be famous and as a way to promote their gangs and recruit new members.
"We have local Norteños and [Sureños] that have albums here. ... They go in under the ruse of a musical group and advertise they will play at particular bars or other locations," Sheriff's Lt. Mike Boudreaux said. "Two hundred people show up, and you see them all in red and flashing gang signs.
"They're just gang members idolizing the gangs, themselves. And any money gotten from those albums is used to benefit the gangs."
Sometimes, that money goes to the larger gang organizations; in other cases, it may remain among the local gang members, Huerta added.
"Some music will relay information to other gang members to what they want done — a green light hit or open war notice against other gang members," Boudreaux said.
"They can send out a cease-fire notice .... all under the ruse [that] this is art."
Parents should get this gang-oriented music out their homes and erase it from their children's portable music players, authorities said.
In fact, Huerta added, parents should be the only ones buying their children's CDs and music downloads so they know at least some of what their children are hearing.
"But a lot of parents don't see it that way," Aguilar said. "Anything that keeps [their children] in the house occupied, it's a good thing. What they don't understand is eventually he will go out and start living out these fantasies."
Added Huerta, "It's not a good message at all. It's a message that's going to lead you to a dead-end street.
"The videos are even more effective because kids believe what they see."
For his part, Huerta wants to give local youths an alternative. That's why he's so passionate about building his music studio at the Wittman center.
"We're going to be focusing on positive music and counseling these kids to express issues in their lives," he said.
Huerta knows he is David against a Goliath. Christian rap is a small industry compared to hard-core music.
"The negative is always going to draw more," Huerta said. "They're looking for quick answers. Nobody wants to earn a living. Everybody wants it [snapping his fingers]. Speed it up.
"But [who] we do capture can live and be an example to reproduce what we do now."
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