pointed references to Victoriano Huerta (1850–1916) and Venustiano Carranza
(1859–1920), opposing leaders of the revolution. Recent examples of politically
themed corridos include the narcorrido, which are ballads relating to drug traf-
ficking. These songs, exemplified in the works of artists such as Chalino Sanchez
and Los Tigres del Norte, speak approvingly about the Robin Hood-like deeds
of famous drug traffickers, which also carry an antiimperialist or anti-U.S. senti-
ment with them. A recent song by Los Tigres del Norte entitled “Las Mujeres de
Juarez” laments with shame the violence toward women that exists in the border
town Juarez, Chihuahua.
There were several protest song movements from the 1960s that had lasting
impact on the protest in Latin America. Besides having an inclination toward
providing narrative commentary on political themes, these new song movements
sought to distance themselves from American-influenced popular music of the
1960s by embracing, studying, and performing regional folk music styles. Much
of the groundwork for these movements was laid by Atahualpa Yupanqui, from
a generation earlier, who had devoted his life to the collection of regional poetry
and music by travelling all over the southern cone in an effort to preserve much of
the region’s music and folklore. Yupanqui also wrote many poems and songs with
themes of the regions nature, people, and social customs.
Inspired by the work of Yupanqui, a younger generation of Argentine musicians
met in Mendoza Argentine in 1963 to create the Manifiesto de fundación del Mov-
imiento del Nuevo Cancionero (Manifesto on the Establishment of the New Song
Movement). The group, which included poet Armando Tejada Gómez and singer
Mercedes Sosa, sought to create a national song movement that was based on the
regional and popular music and which would make the native folk music of Argen-
tina an essential ingredient in this new song style. This appropriation of indigenous
music would include instruments and forms borrowed from folkloric traditions, a
practice that Yupanqui had started a generation earlier. By honoring the musical
and artistic contributions of the Indian and the mestizo, the new song movements
were aligning themselves with an historically oppressed and disenfranchised por-
tion of the population. This sort of populist orientation would feed into the practi-
tioners of the nueva canción movement in Chile.
The nueva canción chilena (new Chilean song) song movement of the 1960s and
early 1970s produced socially committed singers and performers who used folk-
loric instruments and styles that would appeal to middle-class audiences, especially
312 | Protest Song in Latin America
students. Like the Argentine song movement, by using music from rural traditions,
the artists were honoring the mestizo traditions of their culture’s past. Artists such
as Violeta Parra and Victor Jara would make frequent use of rural dance rhythms
such as cueca , zamba , and chacarera to infuse their music with a native sound, which had been previously looked down upon by elite social groups, who generally
turned to European models of musical styles in their listening. In spite of their using
folkloric dances as the musical basis for many of their compositions, the nueva can-
ción repertoire was a listener’s genre and did not have a dance function. Perhaps the
most influential aspect of the repertoire is the connection with leftist sentiments,
especially those denouncing poverty and political injustices. By 1965, Parra, with
the aid of her two children Angel and Isabel Parra, had laid the foundation for the
nueva canción by founding two venues for nueva canción performance in Santiago,
La Peña and la Carpa de la Reina, which became important meeting places for urban
intellectuals and university students. Important songs by Violeta Parra include “Si
Somos Americanos” (“If We Are Americans”) and “Gracias a la Vida” (“Thanks
to Life”); the latter, which was written just before her death in 1967, has become
an internationally popular song. After Parra’s death, the most notable spokesperson
for nueva canción was Victor Jara, who through his outspoken commentaries in
support of Chile’s oppressed (Jara was a member of the Chile’s Communist Party)
and against human rights violations in Chile, became a highly outspoken cham-
pion of the nueva canción movement. His song “Plegaria a un labrador” (“Prayer
to a Worker”) is a call to the campesinos (peasant workers) to come together and
unite to work for a better future through brotherhood of the common people. One
of his most daring songs, “Preguntas por Puerto Montt” (“Questions about Puerto
Montt”) not only decries the perpetrators who ambushed and killed innocent peas-
ant squatters in that port city, but also names the person responsible, Edmundo
Pérez Zujovic, in the text of his song.
Because of the populist sentiments of nueva canción songs and performers, the
movement was important in supporting the Popular Unity Coalition, and some of
the songs used during the 1970 campaign that eventually put Salvador Allende in
power became important staples of the repertoire. The Pinochet coup, which ef-
fectively ended the Allende regime, resulted in bad times for practitioners of the
genre. Many were imprisoned for their part in speaking against the government
(Victor Jara was eventually tortured and executed), while others were forced to
exile abroad. As a result the nueva canción became an underground movement that
reemerged later as canto nuevo, a somewhat understated version of nueva canción
which, because of the threatening political environment, resorted to a more meta-
phorically cautious means of expressing political sentiments.
During the 1960s in Cuba, much influenced by the nueva canción movement,
a new form of Cuban song with a politically conscious expression began to form.
Inspired by the American folk movement, these young singers were inspired by
Protest Song in Latin America | 313
American folk singers like Bob Dylan and used the guitar playing balladeer
model, combining it with Cuban-inspired musical genres such as son and bo-
lero to create a postrevolution style of Cuban song. As a result, this new version
of politically enlightened folk singing, which aligned itself with an older tradi-
tion of Cuban troubadours, Cuban trova , became a strong voice in the social con-
sciousness of Latin America. Singers such as Pablo Milanes and Silvio Rodriguez
came together at venues such as the now famous La Casa de Trova and Casa de
las Americas to perform their music for other Havana students and intellectu-
als who supported the ideals of the revolution. In spite of some early resistance
to the movement on the part of the Cuban government, nueva trova eventually
became a government-supported art form, and as the movement became more de-
fined, performers became government employees who travelled around the world
as Cuba’s cultural and social ambassadors. Rodriguez, in particular, has become ex-
tremely popular throughout the Americas and in Europe, selling out large concert
venues, and many of his songs, such as “Ojala,” “Playa giron,” an
d “Unicornio,”
have become best sellers. Much inspired by Bob Dylan, Rodriguez’s lyrics are
considered to be the Latin American counterpart to the former, because of the way
he expresses themes ranging from nationalism, to love, to anti-imperialism, often
using sophisticated metaphors to convey poignant criticism. Whereas the music
of the nueva canción chilena exhibited strong musical ties to Andean folkloric
tradition, the music of artists such as Rodriguez shows more of a cosmopoli-
tan influence than having an overtly Cuban sound. Nevertheless, artists such as
Milanes, who is a more versatile musician than Rodriguez, uses influences from
popular genres from Latin America, as in the song “Son Para Despertar A Una
Negrita,” which is in the clave rhythm of the Cuban son. A more recent exponent
version of nueva trova, sometimes called novisima trova, is Carlos Varela, whose
1989 album Jalisco Park at once supports socialist ideals but is also critical of his
own country and the difficulties of Cuban life. Varela’s music is important from
a post-Soviet era perspective, which resonates strongly with a younger Cuban
audience.
Because of the volatile political conditions that existed throughout different
parts of Latin America from the 1960s to the present, there have been many ex-
amples of protest song throughout the region. While many of the subgenres owe
much to the earlier nueva canción chilena, its influence can be seen in the forma-
tion of similar, yet locally relevant song repertoires in Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa
Rica, Puerto Rico, and Haiti. Inspired by the revolution against the Samoza re-
gime in Nicaragua (1979), there evolved a particularly unique style of protest song
that became associated with the support of the Sandinista movement. In particu-
lar, the folkloric sounds of brothers Carlos and Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy repre-
sented a timely, albeit dated, example of the unique social relevance of this music
directed toward workers and revolutionaries. One of Carlos’s songs, “El garand,”
314 | Protest Song in Latin America
El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico
The legendary Puerto Rican salsa orchestra, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico
(EGC), formed in 1962. Its original members included Rafaél Ithier and Eddie
Perez, both of whom had performed with the band of Rafael Cortijo. Ithier
and company developed a new repertoire and format, playing salsa music with
a percussion-centered orchestral ensemble featuring two pianos, two saxo-
phones, two trumpeters, three vocalists and later, trombone. EGC perfor-
mances are typically large, carefully choreographed stage shows, featuring a
solo singer or dancer. Although they have dipped into other Latin styles such
as boogaloo , tangos , and timba, they have always returned to salsa.
EGC’s song lyrics encompass themes from Puerto Rican folklore as well
as love, food, drinking, and partying. EGC, always based in Puerto Rico, has
maintained a consistent tipico sound ensuring them a loyal Puerto Rican fol-
lowing. EGC has had signifi cant personnel changes over the past 40 years and
the band members’ ages span the generations as does their fan base. EGC has
toured internationally and received awards and recognition.
Further Reading
Randel, Don Michael. “Crossing over with Rubén Blades.” Journal of the Ameri-
can Musicological Society 44, no. 2 (Summer, 1991): 301–23.
Rebecca Stuhr
gives detailed instructions on how to assemble a rifle, thus providing valuable
information for the unschooled revolutionary. In Haiti, Manno Charlemagne and
his style of protest song known as mizik angaje ([politically] engaged music) sang
about the injustice of Haiti’s poor and oppressed population. His music so out-
raged the Duvalier regime in the 1980s that he was forced to exile to the United
States. Nevertheless, his popularity was supported by a large diaspora population,
and after the ouster of Duvalier in 1986, he returned to Haiti, where his politi-
cally engaged music played an important role in the support and election of Jean-
Bertrand Aristide in 1990.
Further Reading
Luft, Murray. “Latin American Protest Music: What Happened to The New Songs?”
Canadian Folk Music Bulletin (Bulletin de musique folklorique canadienne) 30, no. 3 (Sep-
tember 1, 1996): 10.
Manuel, Peter. Popular Musics of the Non-Western World: An Introductory Survey. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Puerto
Rico
|
315
Moore, Robin. Music and Revolution: Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba . Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006.
Reyes Matta, Fernando. “ ‘New Song’ and Its Confrontation in Latin America.” In Marx-
ism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Ur-
bana: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Schechter, John Mendell. Music in Latin American Culture: Regional Traditions. New
York: Schirmer Books, 1999.
George Torres
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico is a Spanish-speaking U.S. territory (4,448 sq. mi.; pop. 3,725,789 in
2010) located about 90 miles east of the Dominican Republic. In the United States,
the number of Puerto Ricans is estimated at nearly 4.2 million. A product of cease-
less migrations—traced back to its pre-colonial times—Puerto Rico’s distinctive
musical genres include the early portorrico de los negros and coquis notated by
Mexican scholars and, in the recent era, the popular bomba (in its various styles),
danza, plena , and reggaetón. Especially with the New York-based salsa , Puerto Rican musicians are known for their versatility and adaptability in fields like jazz
performance, arrangements, stylistic fusion, and mass production.
Manuel G. Tavárez (1843–1883) and Juan Morel Campos (1857–1896) are the
first known composers to have developed the danza as an export commodity en-
joying popularity and prestige throughout the Caribbean and the United States. The
countless of local danzas disseminated in the region by local publishing houses,
tour orchestras, Spanish regimental bands, and world-ranked concert pianists since
the 1870s heralded the period of copious musical production Puerto Rican musi-
cians and composers have achieved from 1900 to the present.
After the United States acquired Puerto Rico as a colony in 1898, their policy
of Americanization was imposed to conform the island’s culture and society to na-
tional standards.
But national papers wrote about Puerto Rican music as “an amiable trait of char-
acter that needs no Americanization” with emphasis on the danza , “a music of a
distinctly high order.” Local danza recordings made in 1910 and 1917 called much
of the national attention due in part to their renditions of clarinet and baritone horn
improvisation that were, until then, rarely heard on cylinders. With the U.S. in-
volvement in World War I in 1917, various Puerto Rican musicians were recruited
in James Reese Europe’s 369th Regiment Hellfighters to create one of the best jazz
bands of all times. At their return, the New York Times referred specifically to “the
clarinet section, re
cruited from the Porto Rican Constabulary Band” as the special
feature at a Hellfighters’s 1919 fund-raising concert in Carnegie Hall.
316 | Puerto
Rico
Puerto Rican musicians enjoyed a reputation as sight readers. Envisioning new
sounds for the upcoming postwar period, African American bandleaders in the
1920s hired many of them, including jazz pioneer Ralph Escudero, Juan Tizol, and
the well-known Rafael Hernández. The stylistic input these musicians exerted was
felt in Negro musicals, Broadway pit ensembles, musical extravaganzas, in musi-
cal genres like the danza -related ragtime, and what was then known as hot jazz .
After 1900, as plena voiced the precarious conditions of working-class Puerto
Ricans, many of them moved in increasing numbers to areas like Arizona, Con-
necticut, Hawaii, and New York. With it, the center of musical production shifted
from the island’s principal cities to the mainland.
A study of Richard K. Spottswood’s near-exhaustive discography of recordings
in the United States from 1898 to 1942 reveals that out of 119 major recording art-
ists from Puerto Rico, 30 of them remained in the island contributing one-tenth
of all record matrices produced by the other 89, who settled in the United States.
After the 1927 introduction of sound cinema, local musicians employed in local
silent film productions soon intensified their migration to exodus proportions. For a
group of artists representing an island population one-100th that of Ibero-America
and less than one-1000th of the world’s, it is staggering that at the time, this latter
migratory group from Puerto Rico produced in the United States over 15 percent
of the estimated number of record matrices by all Spanish and Latin Americans,
and nearly 3.5 percent of production among all worldwide ethnic groups covered
in the study.
Modern Latin American popular music is mostly a product of the U.S.-based
recording industry with a considerable influence from Puerto Rican musicians,
especially after the mass production of electric records began around 1927. This
new period was likely initiated by Rafael Hernández, whose career as one of Latin
America’s prominent composers intensified after he formed the Trío Borinquen, a
Encyclopedia of Latin American Popular Music Page 54
