Chicano rap is a subgenre of hip hop that embodies aspects of the Mexican American or Chicano culture.
Frank V. of Proper Dos & Conejo & Serio in 2012
Chicano or Chicana is an ethnic identity for Mexican Americans who have a non-Anglo self-image, embracing their Mexican Native ancestry. Chicano was originally a classist and racist slur used toward low-income Mexicans that was reclaimed in the 1940s among youth who belonged to the Pachuco and Pachuca subculture. In the 1960s, Chicano was widely reclaimed in the building of a movement toward political empowerment, ethnic solidarity, and pride in being of indigenous descent. Chicano developed its own meaning separate from Mexican American identity. Youth in barrios rejected cultural assimilation into the mainstream American culture and embraced their own identity and worldview as a form of empowerment and resistance. The community forged an independent political and cultural movement, sometimes working alongside the Black power movement.
A "Chicano Power!" by M.E.Ch.A. CSULA is held up in a crowd (2006).
El Paso's Second Ward, a Chicano neighborhood (1972)
"Chicana by luck, proud by choice" at 2019 Women's March, Los Angeles
Chicano may derive from the Mexica people, originally pronounced Meh-Shee-Ka.