Third World Power : Rice and Beans |Spring/Summer 2006|

Rice and Beans T-shirts were started in early 1996 by Beta Bodega Coalition members, La Mano Fria and Lord SP. Lord SP was the DJ of the Rice and Beans crew, while La Mano Fria worked on designs. Together they built a series of ideas and designs that mixed urban and latin street culture with social awareness messages. The phrase, "Third World Power," was born. Lord SP had more of a vision of catchy images and icons that the urban latin youth could identify with, whereas La Mano Fria's ideas of Third World Power were a lot more militant. The first shirt, "Goya: Si es Latino tiene que ser bueno!" was the idea of Lord SP. A simple and effective way to flip a famous latin food brand name into a symbol of Latin pride, the side print was a list of ingredients which listed Latin American countries. However, La Mano Fria felt something was missing, which was a deeper message. So on the hang tag he added information concerning Goya's long record of exploiting its workers and smashing labor unions as many corporations do. The next design was more in the direction of La Mano Fria. "Breakfast of Champions" took the well known slogan of the Wheaties cereal and applied it to rice and beans which is the foundation of every meal in Latin America. Rather than overpaid athletes, images of indigenous freedom fighters in Guatemala were selected as the real champions. These native people still are oppressed and murdered hundred of years after the European invasion of Columbus. The design also was to combat the "His"tory we're fed growing up in the US, which is: when it's a bunch of white colonists called "Minutemen" or "Sons of Liberty" toting a rifle, they are heroes, but when it's brown skinned natives called "Sandinistas" or "Zapatistas" carrying rifles they are criminals and terrorists. Though Rice and Beans T-shirts were short lived, lasting only about a year, it laid the groundwork for what was later to become the Beta Bodega label, the fusion of music, design and a message. The following designs after "Goya" and "Breakfast of Champions" have remained a mystery, and were never released.

Major underground figures in the urban Hispanic American scene know and have worn Rice and Beans T-shirts with pride. From Nicaraguan born, 3 time DMC world champion DJ Craze to Boricua legend, Bobbito "DJ Cucumberslice" Garcia. It was Bobbito that ran the historic Bobbito's Footwork record/clothing/sneaker store from 1996-2000. After being given a promotional shirt, he liked it so much that he wore it during the famous annual Puerto Rican Day parade in NYC. It was in the fall of 1996 that Rice and Beans debuted at Footwork, where the 2 known designs were sold exclusively. Rice and Beans T-shirts ended in 1997.

After the founding of the Beta Bodega label, Rice and Beans was once again activated but this time to serve as a record label. The sound was grimy but yet electronic and the message was always clear. Third world power! The label, though very underground, had various achievements such as releasing (in our opinion) the best record by El Santo (aka Otto von Schirach) and Spike (aka Phonem), and debuting the first track by the then unknown Prefuse 73. It also debuted the hip hop group CYNE, and it paved the way for the label Botanica del Jibaro. Now, completing its mission and serving the Coalition well, it's time for it to end but not die. It's now been called upon to finish what it started almost 10 years ago, and that's to carry a message through T-shirt designs. Though many try to imitate and fall short, Rice and Beans' pioneering essence still lives after all these years and will continue to do so in 2005. For the moment, our base of operations will be from our BBC chapter headquarters in Tokyo, which is where they are manufactured. We will officially launch Rice and Beans T-shirts in early June throughout shops in Japan. Shop buyers and distributors can contact us for more information.