Unfortunately Zahira Kelly won’t stop lying and/or shut up. so i’ve taken Precious time out of my day in order to address the manic rantings of This Rotten, neurotic, Elderly Lady I made the mistake of allowing proximity to me years ago–and have had blocked since October 7, 2022- but we are here.
Lock in, grab a drink Babes, its a long scroll.
So first and foremost, I’m La Gata, I am The Pioneering Historian, and Reggaeton Storyteller. I’ve been studying Reggaeton Formally since 2017. I’m educated in my own right, and, I unlike many People Believe that education is an ecosystem–With community From institutions sure and those from the culture. because culture doesn’t start in school*imo.
I’ve created the framework for Reggaeton storytelling in popular media, because prior to my platform Which started on twitter, there was a lack of nuance in reggaeton storytelling.
popular narratives:
• “Reggaeton is dying”
• “Reggaeton is a phase”
• “Reggaeton is degradable towards women”(with no context and an anti-blackness that conveniently allowed people to point fingers at Reggaeton and not analyze the reasons why)
• etc
With all of that said.
2018
I’m fresh out of college, experiencing the internet as a new grad, on twitter, and noting a ton of the inconsistencies in The Reggaeton Origin Wars. I made some posts, and much to my current annoyance, zahira kelly @bad_dominicana DMs me, and compliments my work.
Now acquainted, We Converse in DMs on how to tackled this and she comes up with the Idea “make a video, i’ll repost it, and watch its going to blow up porque si” im working a 9-5 at a retail store thinking nothing of it, I make the video i post it, she reposts, it blows up, i get a ton of followers.
It got Like 1,000,000 views on Twitter
I taught millions of people the History of Reggaeton, including Zahira Kelly, for context. We’d have conversations in whatsapp, and she’d often clarify certain points of Reggaeton History before tweeting.
Overwhelmed by the positive outreach I thought “oh wow, thank you i’m so grateful, and from that point forward until 2022 was looking to build a friendship with her.”
and i would learn overtime, I, a bubbly Black girl, who is looking to build her career–understanding the racism in latin music have boundaries on what i tolerate personally as i build my platform.
some of my core values are
• The progressiveness of Black women
• Equity
• To uphold to the best of my ability the dignity of disenfranchised folks.
zahira kelly would soon demonstrate to me by bullying others online, and a miserable demeanor to me in personal conversations– that I am not safe around her leading me to block her in october 2022.
2019
Zahira Kelly, as you see online has done great work with the hashtag #maybehedoesnthityou which kicked off a movement
and
she’s one of the most profound bullies i’ve ever seen.
My only regret is falling under the false belief that I was safe while in proximity of her. But i won’t shame myself for operating in good faith.
When we were good, she did the following:
• bought me a camera
• Amplified my work
• Came up With The Name “Negratón” - More on this coming
• Coached me on how to market myself in academia
And when we were good, I did the following:
• Added a slide at the end of my lectures for people to book her and other individuals. All AfroLatinas.
• Created and marketed an initiative to try to bridge the gap between
• she often spoke on how people would take one tweet of hers, write an article and not tag her, quote her or anything and so I attempted to facilitate a distro deal so her work can be protected via audioformat.
• Consulted her when Rene(Residente) was being anti-black online towards her, which for context:
•she responded to one of his tweets
• he dm’ed her a bunch of anti-black messages poking fun at her hair .. weird
• they went back and forth until they actually came to a place of resolution?
• Then during Residente’s Random beef with J Balvin, a huge part of Residente’s tiraera actually came from a consult he had with her, unpaid labor. Pissed off that he siphoned work from a black woman i tried to help get paid by invoicing his team, to no success.
NEGRATÓN
So As A Dark-Skinned Black woman who created this platform from the strength of my research paper where I learned how difficult it would be for Black women in Latin Music, my brand regularly and naturally supports Black women.
So in one of our many, conversations on “what to do with Black women” in a social media sense, i came up with the imagery of Black Women to promote.
