Alwa, the Bolivian cholita rapper who breaks barriers with the power of her voice

Yolanda Salazar La Paz, 25 Mar Bolivian Aymara Alwa found in rhymes a way to express the pride of her identity and her love for her country by rapping with the typical skirts and long braids in her hair that characterize Bolivian cholitas. Alwa, which in Aymara means “dawn”, started composing his lyrics six years ago, but in the midst of the covid-19 quarantine he decided to dedicate himself more seriously to rap and bet on the power of his voice. She began performing in more spaces and thus met Bolivian producer José Gabriel Mamani who offered to make a video clip of one of his songs. At first she thought it was going to be a video that would help her spread her music on her social networks and that it would serve as a “test” to see if people liked her work. “It was like asking the audience for permission to give me a space and what better than talking about our country and how proud I am to be a part,” the 26-year-old woman told Efe. What happened next was a “surprise”, his first video clip of the song “Principio sin fin” went viral on social networks and caught the attention of locals and strangers as they saw their typical skirts, their long braids and the power of their rhymes that blend with the landscapes shown by the cities of La Paz and El Alto. “Today I present myself, I am the Alwa, a proud Aymara woman, proud to be Bolivian, today I am not going to stop, I am not going to rest, until my dreams achieve, today I have to sigh,” says part of the lyrics of her first song. After the success of her first music video, Alwa is working on recording five other songs and managing to release her first album in the middle of this year, she said. THERE IS NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE For Alwa, being a woman, Aymara and a rapper has not meant an impediment or an obstacle to achieving her goals and achieving her dreams. The young woman has tattooed on her right wrist the word “dream”, to dream in English, one of the 17 tattoos she has on her skin when she considers herself a dreamer. In his opinion, nothing is impossible, we just have to work and believe in one's abilities to succeed and stop doubting what one believes. “I am too confident and I trust what I am doing,” the young Bolivian woman confessed. She recalled that at first her parents and siblings didn't support her, “nobody listened to rap” but they realized Alwa's passion for this genre that has also led her to organize some hip hop events. “I understand that it is not to their liking, but my parents have realized that I want to do this in my life, I want it to be part of my life and they respect that a lot,” he said. That is why, with that confidence, she raps addressing issues that are important to her, such as showing injustices of all kinds and demonstrating through her lyrics her pride in being Bolivian. The rapper commented that “she was not born with her skirt on” that it was her decision to wear this dress with “respect”. “I have made that decision, to stay that way, to stay that way and to die like that, wearing a skirt,” he said. Alwa, a native of the city of El Alto, also wants to make visible the work of other rappers and graffiti artists in that city to make it clear that “the urban movement” is remarkable and that there is “Bolivian talent”. The young woman is currently studying Advertising and Marketing at a university in La Paz and at the same time she works on her music to improve and demonstrate the power of her rhymes. “All this makes me very happy, but at the same time it gives me a responsibility to represent this genre very well,” he emphasized. CHIEF ysm/lnm/rrt (photo) (video)