Beyond `La Bamba'

The new Latin rock has taken off

by Franklin Soults

Up in the steep labyrinthine streets of the colonial mining town of Guanajuato, a classic slogan spray-painted on a whitewashed wall caught my attention on a recent Mexican vacation. "[[exclamdown]]El punk no está muerto!" it proclaimed, like a proud oath of indigenous resistance. Somehow I don't think the town's world-famous revolutionary muralist, Diego Rivera, would have been amused. More than just another example of omnipresent Anglo-American culture, the graffiti demonstrated Anglo-America's ability to win over foreign hearts and minds so completely that the wall writer felt the need to promote a gringo art form as if it were an underdog. Yes, punk rock is great and should flourish around the globe, but it's impossible to imagine this kind of proclamation being scrawled, say, by a black kid on the South Side of Chicago (a place where I've also spent some time as a bewildered tourist). So why in a crowded barrio in central Mexico would anyone want to identify so absolutely with the interstitial struggles of white-boy guitar rock?

The question isn't about just one kid in Guanajuato; it's about thousands if not millions of "rocanroleros" all over Latin America: multimedia performers in Tijuana, heavy-metal heads in Mexico City, ska-rock fusionists in Buenos Aires. More obliquely, it's also a question about the future of rock and roll in the US at a time of colossal demographic change. Just as Anglo-American rock flooded Latin America for decades, so Latinized rock will one day or another make its Stateside mark. Just look at the numbers. It's common knowledge that Hispanics are this country's fastest-growing ethnic group, but few realize that the Census Bureau predicts this growth rate will make a full quarter of the US population Latino by 2050 -- a date most people now in their early 20s will certainly live to see. If rock and roll survives that long, it will need to mix with Latin influences to a greater degree as the Hispanic population exerts a greater and greater force on the dominant culture. "Latin rock," therefore, isn't just another trend; to borrow a term from Rhino Records, it's part of a brown-skinned reconquista that will surely affect the nature of Anglo-American culture to come.

None of this is a secret, but if you don't hear about it too much, well, the future is still the future, and the current story south of the border has been covered well enough in the past -- just check out Ruben Martinez's articles on Mexican rockers in his fine 1992 collection, The Other Side: Fault Lines, Guerrilla Saints, and the True Heart of Rock 'n' Roll (Verso). As if to complement his journalism, Rhino and the Hispanic label Zyanya recently put together a basic primer of bands whom Martinez and others have often written about. Aptly titled Reconquista! The Latin Rock Invasion, the compilation answers the question "Why rock?" by documenting popular Hispanic bands that used rock as an overt form of sociopolitical protest in the first half of the '90s. Screw the imperialist implications, these artists seemed to say, we rock out because it's the most in-your-face music the world has ever known.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean they necessarily knew what to do with that principle. Whereas any self-respecting riot grrrl would mix her politicized love for white-boy guitar noise with a wary, anti-commercial aesthetic, most of the Mexican, Argentine, and European bands on Reconquista! serve their rock prepackaged. They might add a bit of native flavor here or there in a Latin beat or instrumental break, but from the earnest, new-wave forcebeats of Maldita Vecindad's opening song of social protest to the grandiose, multipartite structures of Tijuana No's closing art-rock suite, the fare on Reconquista! is little more than old-style AOR in a blender, a puree of everything from the Cure to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, from fluff metal to ersatz grunge.

Yet the compilation also provides glimmers of something more promising for the Latin-rock future to come. Some of the best stuff is just stray hits, like Cuca's cheeseball anthem to masochism, "El Son del Dolor" ("The Song of Pain"). But there are also a couple of standout cuts by a widely praised Argentine band whose own North American album is due out in August, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs. Their ghostly tale of political murder, "El Matador" ("The Killer"), and their ska/thrash combo platter, "V Centenario" ("Quinquecentennial," or something), deftly combine sharp reggae rhythms, lilting salsa-like vocals, and bracing rock arrangements for an accomplished, impassioned, open-ended amalgam reminiscent of the angular concoctions of the Black Rock Coalition, or the unexpected pop hybrids that are now cropping up in places like Sweden, or the inexplicable pastiches that Beck hears forming in the back of his head.

This move toward a style that is rock-based but not rock-bound also answers the question "Why rock?" with the most obvious yet expansive retort possible: "Because it's there." Forget social protest, the latest batch of Latin rockers are just looking for fresh new kicks wherever they can find them. What's more, by screwing around with native and alien sounds alike in an alternative, internationalist pop style, they have finally given Latin rock an identity to call its own. Not so coincidentally, this movement has also finally drawn the serious interest of the US music industry, as a slew of recent releases demonstrates.

Among the most interesting are a couple by Todos Tus Muertos and Café Tacuba. Todos Tus Muertos ("All Your Dead") are a bunch of Spanish and French "roqueros" led by a bearded, cigar-chomping guy named "Fidel." Their recent Dale Aborigen ("Go On Aborigine," or something) is available on both CD and CD-ROM from New York's Grita Records, and it offers thrashing punk rants, gentle instrumental interludes, and loose reggae grooves matched to Spanish lyrics that pay tribute to Mandela, Sandino, Zapata, and casual sex with a dog, among other things. Mexico's renowned Café Tacuba are more expansive still. Their late 1996 Avalancha de Éxitos ("Avalanche of Hits"; on WEA Latina) was meant as a respite from their reputation for genre-busting innovation, yet this eight-song collection of famous and obscure Latin covers has ended up the most celebrated of their three albums. Not only is this combination of rowdy nonsense grooves, rich and glossy pop tunes, and fake folklórico impressive, it introduces the principle of conceptual irony to Spanish-language music with surprising refinement. It's a small delight.

The new Latin rock has even infiltrated the Northeast, as demonstrated by the debut albums of Babaloo and Jayuya. Hailing from Boston's most diverse neighborhood, Jamaica Plain, Babaloo have earned a large local following with an approach that turns Latin rock's mission on its head. Instead of claiming rock as their own, this multiracial ensemble have taught themselves a repertoire of tropical world grooves to honor punk's premise that anyone can play anything he or she likes. Punk Mambo (Butcher's Ghost) is too thinly produced, and their over-the-top vocals nurture a weirdly fake foreignese, but when I caught them live neither my Anglo nor Latino compañeros complained as the groove kicked in and the room started to move. Jayuya share Babaloo's penchant for unnerving vocals (David Byrne meets Linda Blair), but Jayuya (Cosmic) partly makes up for that with a complex and novel hybrid sound. Blending salsa rhythms, art-rock structures, and punkish dynamics, their original concoction could conceivably appeal to diehard John Zorn or Frank Zappa fans (maybe it would even loosen their calcified hip bones).

As intriguing as some of these discs are, though, the cream of the crop is a compilation that artfully arrays the scene's brightest achievements and pushes them one step beyond. Silencio = Muerte: Red Hot + Latin (Red Hot/H.O.L.A.) may have been inspired by the need to address the exploding AIDS crisis in the Latino community, but whereas last year's companion volume, Red Hot + Rio, was just a dutiful tribute to "Girl from Ipanema" composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, this disc feels like a bold fanfare for a major new-world style.

The album's mastermind is producer Tomás Cookman, a Latin rock manager who joined together major Latin groups and sympathetic English-speaking acts in boundary-stretching joint ventures. Early on, the album swings into the multilayered concept with a trio of impressive outings by Café Tacuba, Todos Tus Muertos, and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, aided and abetted, respectively, by the omnipresent David Byrne, Argentine newcomers Los Auténticos Decadentes, and Black Rock pioneers Fishbone. The rush continues with a pair of international pop hits: a remake of Cuca's glam/grunge landmark, "El Son del Dolor," and a Latinized version of Buju Banton's reggae smash, "Wanna Be Loved." After that, there's a spell of strong Latin hip-hop featuring Cypress Hill's Sen Dog, and a heavenly stretch of smooth pop with a terrific bilingual version of Geggy Tah's "Whoever You Are" and a fab remake of Jobim's "Aguas de Março" by Cibo Matto (if they aren't the best rock band in the world, they're looking more and more like the coolest). By the time a dip in quality occurs, toward the album's end, it hardly matters because your mind is reeling with exciting possibilities. Could they have gotten Cuban-American country act the Mavericks? Or bilingual New Orleans roots rockers the Iguanas? Who needs to wait for 2050, anyway? The future is now, compadre.