Adri (Casa Kolacho): How Hip Hop is healing and transforming Medellin’s Comuna 13
In Escobar-era Medellin, Comuna 13 was one of the most violent neighbourhoods in the world. Today, it’s fast becoming the Colombian capital for Hip Hop. In this powerful testimony, 23 year old rapper, tour guide and restaurant co-owner Adri shares why thousands of locals like him have been empowered by grassroots cultural house ‘Casa Kolacho’ with an alternative to gang life or even typical 9-5 jobs. Now, they are becoming successful Hip Hop artists and entrepreneurs. This is Medellin’s Comuna 13: the ‘Brooklyn of tomorrow’.
In the 80s and 90s, Comuna 13 was a battleground for Pablo Escobar’s Narco traffickers, gangs, paramilitary and guerrilla groups
I met Adri on an eye opening trip to Colombia back in March 2022. He was our guide and a local rapper from Casa Kolacho: a free Hip Hop school in Medellin’s once-notorious Comuna 13. The Hip Hop lessons and resources for locals are funded entirely by tourism, and the movement has been healing and transforming the barrio ever since. Adri’s energy and talent moved me so deeply that I asked him if we could set up an interview to share his story.
“Comuna 13 has been violent most of my life”, was how Adri began our call.
“My parents were always really scared of me getting into the gangs and the narco traffic”.
The barrio, which clings to mountain-edges overlooking the city, started out as an illegal settlement in the 1960s. It was where families like Adri’s in the Antioquia region had settled after being displaced by conflict and raids.
Thanks to its location, in the 80s and 90s Comuna 13 was the ideal transit point for weapons and drugs to leave and enter the city. It was where Pablo Escobar’s narco traffickers, guerrillas, paramilitary groups and gangs used brutal methods of homicide to fight for control over the commune. Unthinkable violence played out in front of the locals’ eyes on a daily basis, while they tried desperately to live their lives in peace.
In Comuna 13, the wounds are still fresh for everyone
The trauma is particularly raw for Boomers and Millennials who lived through the peak of the Escobar-era. But Gen Zs like Adri inherited much of it too. “I always feared walking through the Comuna”, said Adri as he recalled his early teenage years in the 00s.
“If you crossed a border at the wrong moment, you could be murdered by gangs”.
“We’d be hanging out playing soccer, then hear the news that one of our friends got murdered. It was always like that”.
^ Translated YouTube description from Comuna 13 rapper, Kabe AKA Alfa: ‘This song was born within the framework of the 2019 protests. However, any image of Colombia from the last 50 years would fit in it.’
Adri himself was approached to join a gang at the age of 12. “They told me I’d earn good money. That I’d get respect in the Comuna by helping the troubles of the community. Friends. A second family. A place to belong”.
The only way for Adri to avoid the proposition was by temporarily moving to Bogota with his family - only returning to discover that “the same gang who tried to hire me got murdered by another gang in a different neighbourhood”. It was at that point Adri decided: “I wanted to be a part of the solution, not the problem”.
^ Translated description from Comuna 13 rapper Flako RL: "During the year 2002, the 13th commune of the city of Medellin lived through more than a dozen military operations. 20 years have already passed and the truth has not been told about this, but we have seen the commune reborn”.
After finishing school, Adri made an honest living: working in a call centre, joining the army, delivering food, selling insurance. He learnt English by listening to Hip Hop religiously. His dream was always to study music but thanks to a corrupt system (even the commute to the school could have been lethal) that was something that felt impossible to obtain. “I was lost”.
Until COVID happened, and suddenly, everything changed for Adri. One day in lockdown, he walked across his neighbourhood, which “for the first time wasn't dangerous anymore”. And he stumbled across Casa Kolacho!
casa kolacho
Casa Kolacho’s school of hip hop is the key driver of social transformation in Comuna 13
90s Hip Hop culture dominated Medellin throughout the Escobar-era, and still does to this day.
In Comuna 13, maintaining old school Hip Hop is a way of paying homage to those who survived the violence.
Adri explained this is why a lot of locals strongly believe old school Hip Hop must be respected.
Within this context, Casa Kolacho is a cultural house that was founded 13 years ago.
casa kolacho teaches rap, graffiti, breakdancing, DJing & English for free to local kids in comuna 13
“Kolacho was a rapper,” said Adri. “He used to teach locals how to rap in the streets. Sadly he got murdered by the gangs”. So this cultural house, founded thirteen years ago, was dedicated to Kolacho, and since then, many others have opened up.
The cultural houses are all funded by tours of the Comuna. They’re for tourists like me (privileged enough to visit); guided by local rappers just like Adri. It’s how we met!
^ Local rappers KML Golem & MAKZ ONE
This responsible tourism is being poured back into the arts, funding the Communa’s legacy
“Our lives have been improving with the tourism which Casa Kolacho started”. Adri said. “It’s a win-win because I’m doing these tours and part of it goes to me.
“I've opened a restaurant with friends. I’m able to live with my girlfriend, save some money. I'm studying musical production at University. It’s all because of Casa Kolacho”.
My photo of Adri in action, while he gave us his incredible tour of Comuna 13
“They’re changing peoples’ lives”. Today, colour-splashed murals cover the wall’s bullet holes.
Comuna 13 has now become one of the most ‘Instagrammable’ tourist destinations in Colombia.
Chota 13 (right) is a graffiti pioneer who survived the violence and now has a gallery and coffee shop in Comuna 13, and paints beautiful, positive murals all over Medellin
“When quarantine was over, I started going to rap lessons at Casa Kolacho every week. I saw them as our heroes, doing all this for free. So I started getting really into rap, and they told me I can be a big artist if I work on it”. Because Adri spoke English, Casa Kolacho gave him the opportunity to become a guide to maintain his artistic career.
Adri on the mic, captured by Santiago Molina
If that wasn’t enough, now Adri is teaching English in Casa Kolacho! “I feel proud - because more than teaching I’m making people see it's not that difficult, because you can learn it by yourself. I’m inspiring them. There's little kids in the Comuna who get inspired by us and our music, our colours, our breakdance”.
“Today many of the kids in comuna 13 would rather hold a mic or a spray can than a gun or a bag of drugs.”
“A lot of kids, little kids want to be Hip Hoppers”. It gives a real sense of hope and excitement for the future of Comuna 13!
But Adri stressed that while tourism is helping to fund the economy, the most important part of Casa Kolacho is the fact “they teach people how to be artists, and that leaves a legacy behind them”.
^ La Fiera Hip Hop is a non-binary rapper from Medellín. “Her fight is to make visible the elimination of gender violence”.
HIP HOP CULTURE IN COMUNA 13 - THE BROOKLYN OF TOMORROW
“Now it’s growing a lot - really a lot”, he said with enthusiasm. “More than 5000 kids have been in Casa Kolacho studying Hip Hop. There's more than 1000 rappers, 1000 graffiti artists, more than 1000 breakdancers in Comuna 13.
We have 3 rap battles in Comuna13 every week, with more than 200 rappers attending. they’re growing every time.
There's a lot of talent - like these 11 year old break dancers or 9 year old freestylers who go to rap battles”.
The same applies to graffiti culture. “In the past graffiti used to be seen as something bad, something illegal. Now even the old people see it as an opportunity to make the Comuna beautiful with positive messages on the walls”.
“In 10 or 20 years I imagine Comuna 13 to be what Brooklyn is today”.
“Brooklyn used to be super violent as well, but since Hip Hop exported, now it's one of the best places to listen to it in New York. We still need to work a lot but it's getting better and better, every single day”.
Local rappers LA ARANA GRN, captured by @pinoelbardo
ADRI’S DREAMs
“My dream right now is to help my community, to impact my community with music. To teach children and their parents that art can be a really good opportunity. For the future, I want to start my own cultural house and give the opportunity to learn the things I’m learning right now related to Hip Hop culture. I would travel but only to get more education and opportunities, because my dreams are here in Comuna 13 - I want to live my whole life here. Education is the key word. Giving back what you get from your community. And to leave a legacy on it”.