All along the border: Kid frost and the performance of brown masculinity

Abstract

The cultural performance of identity takes on particular characteristics in each community. This examination of Chicano rapper Kid Frost centers on the symbolic and material conditions on the U.S.‐Mexico borderlands and how these frame the articulation of brown masculinity. Brown masculinity is understood as a denigrated identity in need of rearticulation. The essay argues that Kid Frost's persona and lyrics engage that identity and generate alternative ways of understanding brown masculinity. In order to accomplish this Kid Frost recovers Chicano cultural memory and repudiates the construction of Chicanos by mainstream society.