Whether you know of Maria Isa through her music, her community work, or her position as a Minnesota State Representative, her focus is clear. She wants to fight for human rights, and make sure that communities left out of the picture are getting the recognition they deserve. Her work teaching children music and art, and the history of what they’re learning, is just one of the many examples of her outreach to educate the community. With everything I learned about Maria Isa, I found this all came naturally to her. Her family was a beacon of community as a child, and it's almost embedded into her DNA to help others grow and learn. Now as an elected State Representative, she fights even more to ensure these communities are recognized.

Born in Minnesota to NuyoRican parents, Maria Isa was surrounded by a sense of activism and outreach. Music and art was something that connected her to her culture, and her household was unified in that. The Puerto Rican culture has always produced a sound of resistance, from boomba to the Young Lords and Nuyorican salseros to modern hip hop. Her mother spent her life fighting for human rights and social justice. She helped found the Minnesota Spanish Speaking Affairs Council, and created non profits and community centers for kids to learn things that weren’t being taught in school. Her mothers work in building up a safe space where kids could learn the music, art and history of their own culture helped create a strong community for these children in an area where this hadn’t existed yet. These interactions and communities built Maria Isa into the artist and person she is today. Now as a State Representative, she has a contract with a local organization to teach boomba drum classes and other music to kids, while teaching them the history and culture behind it.

The things that inspired Maria Isa to make music are the same things that inspire her outreach to the community in Minnesota. When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2018, she worked with the St. Paul Foundation to raise over $270,000 in relief funding and travel to provide aid in recovery. She helped organize Minnesota’s Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act. She led efforts to pass the "Driver's Licenses For All" legislation. All of her actions are directed towards taking care of communities that could be brushed aside, and representing her culture. Her music is no different, and shows you exactly who Maria Isa really is. Through her SotaRica record label, she releases honest and passionate upbeat bilingual rapping and singing. Some would think that being the first hip hop artist to be elected as a Minnesota State Representative would make her worry about her music or change her ways. In reality, the opposite has happened, with her last two albums Capitolio and Unlock the Chamber having nods to her electoral status but still representing her previously known upbeat and fun style.

“I was an artist before I became an elected official. My job as a politician, an elected official, is to see how people are taking action. It’s my job to care about what’s best for our people. If they don’t like the music I make or the art I make, that’s not my job to make them feel comfortable. It’s my job to make sure that they recognize who’s been left out of the picture, and how it's been traumatizing. My job as an artist is to create the content that I am inspired by, and what inspires me is the reason that I ran for office, and why people elected me to be in office. They elected me being a hip hop artist, as an artist, being a teacher, being a mom, being type one diabetic, all the things that have influenced my art since I was a child, I’m not going to do stop doing that when I’m thirty six years old because some conservative republican gets pissed off by my hip hop.”

When you look at the album artwork for her album Capitolio, which released the day she was sworn in to her position as Minnesota State Representative (and features an intro of Bernie Sanders telling Maria Isa in regards to her rapping “if somebody says something to you, tell ‘em to go fuck themselves,”) you will notice a few things that represent who Maria Isa is and what she stands for. The solar panels, representing a clean energy pact that she has strongly backed, the cannabis plants that she fought to legalize, a tribute to her murdered friend George Floyd, a symbol for women rights, a drivers license, and countless other symbols all make up the person that Maria Isa is and what she has become. She wants people to recognize that anyone can make a difference, and they don’t have to hide parts of who they are or be scared to get involved or speak up to people in power. She’s letting people know that they can stand up for what they believe in, and make a difference. Her position as a latina female hip hop artist elected into office serves as a light of inspiration for kids from underrepresented communities. As the image of what a ‘politician’ should be is changing, smaller voices are being heard and represented.

“I come from a lineage of generational trauma. I can do work here at a state level that is influenced by how we all have dealt with that generational trauma, and by connecting our traumas to build bridges of healing. There’s some hope when you have colleagues coming in for the first time, that represent our communities, black, brown, indigenous, people of color, who are at the largest number as elected officials that this states history’s ever seen, there’s a reason why things are moving forward. What we have to focus on now, is making sure that this change stays in place, and that there’s more opportunities that are going to spring off of what we have been able to pass.”

Known as ‘The Rep Who Raps’ Maria Isa is not your typical politician, but instead she serves as a reminder of how anyone can make a difference. Her life’s work is devoted towards making a change in the community, and bettering the lives of people around her. She fights to make sure children can learn and be proud of who they are, and the culture they represent, through music and art. Her own music expresses the fun honest life she lives, and just adds to the list of things that make Maria Isa so interesting. Her newest album, Unlock the Chamber just released last week, and is available everywhere now.

I asked Maria Isa to recommend some movies for the Club TEKAC audience:

She recommended watching all of the Spike Lee movies, most importantly Do The Right Thing, 1989.