“Thinking of the future and looking back at this time — what did you do? Did you take your hacha y machete and go to work or did you sleep it all off?” – Xenia Rubinos
Exciting! Xenia Rubinos just released her new video for “Who Shot Ya?” and, well, it’s incredible. Xenia experiments with sounds in fearless form resulting in powerful short film narratives. “Who Shot Ya?” questions power and calls for a reflection of our legados. She guides the listener with the encouraging words of Jose Martí and wonderfully dips into Hector Lavoe’s “Hacha y Machete.” Escucha y mira…
Xenia posted a statement about “Who Shot Ya” on Instagram…
“I started making bits and pieces of sounds at the beginning of this year just letting myself be curious without attachments. The main beat came out on one of those nights in the studio when nothing seemed to be happening. When I eventually came back to the beat in August, I started freestyling and quickly turned into this character screaming “bishy-bish-bish keep my name out yo mouth” and it was a hoops off, rings on, end of the night fight moment.⠀
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I quoted Cuban poet Jose Martí’s Versos Sencillos, “I am from all places and to all places I go,” and also reference classic salsero Hector Lavoe’s “Hacha y Machete”. Thinking of the future and looking back at this time — what did you do? Did you take your hacha y machete and go to work or did you sleep it all off? I’m cheering on my fam to go and get it, whether that be get their rest, get their peace, get their money, get their justice — to get up and get it. It’s rage and power.⠀
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How many more times am I going to hear another man in power talk about what is best for the people only to turn around and put children in cages and murder innocent people in their sleep? This perceived power is no action at all when their interests aren’t being served. The system is working as it was designed to, I’m trying to amplify some of that in my work.”
