julieturkewitzVerified account

What drew me to Renata was her backstory and her family's backstory. This is not just a piece about her music, about her mashup of transgressive and traditional, but about the way art allows us to understand history and changing identities.

Regardless of whether you like Renata's music, you should read her story.

Why? Renata raps in Quechua, a language spoken by 8 million people across South America. But even as millions of speakers have moved to cities in recent years, transforming Latin America into the most urbanized place in the world, the language has remained shrouded in shame.

There are few places in media — television, news programs, pop music — in which the language is used to convey contemporary ideas. The message to speakers is that they are part of the past.