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“What comes first, music or the protest?” was the journalist’s question.

- “The protest” was the flat answer of Ricardo, the musician.

They are three:  Jota, Chaolín and Ricardo and when they sing together the ask you to call them Zona Marginal.

They met in the clubs where they used to go to listen to hip hop and their common interests got them together as a group, first as friends, or as they say, as mates. Originally from Aguas Blancas, one of the neediest neighbourhoods   in the city of Cali in Colombia, these three musicians share a passion for rap and a sentiment of social conscience worthy of admiration. It was maybe this sentiment and having experienced in the flesh the poverty and injustice in a country where human rights' abuses are almost legendary that moved them to act, to say what they think and to help.

What are your musical influences?

“Pablo Milanes, a lot of the social songs of Mercedes Sosa, the American Enemy Public whom have also socially protested through their music. We listen to all types of music, but we always highlight their lyrics, the content of the songs and the alternative proposal, which is different from what is available in the market. This has influenced us a lot in our own proposal. Also, to enhance our tracks and our songs musically, right? Because we want to bring the autochthonous, the cultural identity, as the Pacific is, as the Andean is. We believe in emphasising the ethnic values of identity that we see so few times in the habitual space and we are rescuing them” replies again Ricardo with the support in Chaolín’s expression.

“We believe that it is important to tell the truth because if we remain silent there will never be a change” interrupts Jota and tells us about the workshops organised in Aguas Blancas, amongst them a radio station, to help the youth of that place develop beyond the scarce opportunities that society offers them.

Jota is passionate about this and tells us more: “There are many bands doing this type of work and I take this chance to denounce the arbitrary detention of an alternative music group called Pasajeros, who are from the city of Medellín, and have been detained by the police, with no proof whatsoever, accused of subversion, and it’s been already 5 months since their detention. This is thanks to the policies of democratic security implemented by the national government where they pay anyone to give information about the guerrilla and where they point in any direction without having any proof and detain people. The media in Colombia has not shown this at all. There are associations for human rights and activists looking after these incidents. This could happen to us tomorrow as well.”

And it is true. It can happen to Zona Marginal and they know it but this does not stop them. Adds Ricardo: “For the money the dog dances so you never know. Many guys are marching to the paramilitary and these are guys that have even taken part in the programmes that we implement. We, as a community organisation, do not have all the infrastructure to tell a guy not to commit a crime, not to do something, because we do not have the means to give him money so he can subsist. So this guy goes and gives out information and all that and in a way that constitutes a problem for us, because these are people that know what we do. For the paramilitary, all community associations that you could find within any area are to be taken as a military target and they are accused of being sponsors of the guerrilla. That’s where this becomes a problem for us.”

However, with a lot of effort and no hesitation against the waves, the band is working on their second album. This is a fact to be noted since, by nature, Zona Marginal’s lyrics are relegated to the underground where they are very much respected but where the record labels do not dare to invest. There is the unavoidable question of why they don't leave it given the danger that it all means, and Ricardo replies: “It happened to Pasajeros and it can happen to Zona Marginal. We take our precautions but we keep going forward and we try, despite all the danger, to get up with the mentality that we are going to die but we have to continue doing things because if we do not do them no one will do it for us. And it is in the alternative media, in music, art and wherever we get the opportunity to present ourselves, on any stage, where we are going to be denouncing and we are going to bring to light the social problems that affect Colombia. Usually, our administrative officials and the media have not informed the international community of the social problems that we have in Colombia, which is not only the paramilitaries, it is not only the guerrilla, which is not the only internal conflict there, that there are other aspects that are not being cared for, such as fundamental constitutional rights and human rights. There is a question to our president, our beloved Uribe, who used to say that the guerrilla is to blame for the time lag in Colombia: What happened in Argentina where there has not been a guerrilla movement? Eh? Here I leave this interview and pleased to meet you and I hope this is useful.”

And with the same amiability with which they accepted the interview the three rappers say goodbye, to do the show, to share their song, their rap, with an audience that welcomed them with open arms, with the sign of Amnesty International projected at the back of the stage. Meanwhile, the question is floating in the mind of the journalist and in the cold air of a London that becomes witness to the testimony and the courage of these three men.