Anchorage Assembly Member George Martinez was raised in Brooklyn, NY, as part of the hip hop community and made a name for himself as a rapper and lyricist at an early age. Growing up in the 80s,he was politicized by the anti-welfare rhetoric of President Reagan’s administration. That experience eventually led him to run for political office, and he was elected as the district leader in the 51st Assembly District in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, in 2002 making him the first hip-hop artist elected to political office in New York. He is a former adjunct professor at Pace University where he taught American politics and his own self-developed course, “The politics of hip hop.” In 2007, he served as cultural ambassador for the US state department in the Western Hemisphere under secretary of state at the time Colin Powell. We talk about how he and his family got to Anchorage, his 4 years serving in Ethan Berkowitz’s Mayoral administration, and his experience now on the Anchorage Assembly after being elected for the first time this past spring.
