Music’s Revolutionary Ties to Latin American Protest Movements
Ben Honeycutt
Anton Rosenthal & Marisela Chávez
Latin American History
4 December 2014
Music’s Revolutionary Ties to Latin American Protest Movements
Tyrannical leaders, ruthless U.S. influence, and barbaric suppression against civilian populations choked out the voice of the Latin American populace throughout the middle of the 20th century. During the fog of the Cold War, tens of thousands of Latin American people would find their resistance wiped out beneath the U.S. domino theory, a C.I.A. backed notion that gave Pro-American leaders a blank check to untold brutality. With the population’s main options for organized resistance stripped away, the general population was forced to pursue other unifying means of protest. According to writers William H. Beezley and Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, In the bleakest stretch of the 1960’s, “younger composers began changing the nature of sambas, which entered a new phase of protest music.”[1] From the 1960’s, music has been an outlet of protest, a transcendent of class, and a platform for Latin America to be heard throughout the world.
Music has played a vital role in the lives of Latin Americans for the past generations. At times fulfilling a tremendous need alleviating the day to day realities of the Latin American people, music is integral to the nations’ popular culture. Beezley and Curcio-Nagy describe, “popular culture encapsulates the pleasure of everyday life. It offers moments of laughter […] of delight in jobs well done […] [and] escape from daily life.”[2] Providing this type of escape and pleasure to the lives of the Latin American people already serves an undeniable good to the community as a whole. This sentiment is echoed in the film Sounds of Solidarity. Covering the music scene in Port-Au-Prince, Haitian producer J. Perry argues that, “In Haiti, music connects everyone together. It’s what we live for, anything [we’re] going through, poverty and ups and downs, […] we [always] have music.[3] The documentary goes on to illustrate how the Haitian community from every economic background comes together for extravagant musical events.[4] This class transcendence seen in the concerts in Haiti underlines music’s connection with the people. While Haiti’s collective identity in the sphere of politics has been shrouded out by the United States geopolitical influence for the past centuries, an undeniable unity can be observed through the country’s musical scene. This points to the reality that Haiti’s citizens have a much more of a relationship and influence on their popular culture through music than they do in the realm of politics. The role that the people of Haiti have in their musical output highlights the sheer importance of music in the nation’s popular culture.
As music has been a unifying force inside Haiti, it has also been an observable form of rebellion in several Latin American countries. In artistic revolution brewed inside Sao Paulo in the 1960’s, harkening back in their nation’s history, Brazil began to pursue a cannibalizing art form. Taking influence from all around the globe, Brazil’s “cannibalization” took a myriad of diverse artistic movements and made them distinctly Brazilian. An example of this style in music is found in the composition of Caetano Veloso. In the face of country-wide oppression, Veloso used an electric guitar to compose musical protests that rang true to the Brazilian people. Veloso’s use of the electric guitar highlights an inspiration taken from a global source and harnessed to galvanize the people of Brazil. This musical response underscores the interactions the working class had with Brazil’s elite politicians, and shines a spotlight on the critical role music plays inside the Brazilian culture. While the people were facing untold political repercussions for open protests, music became an outlet for a countless amount of people throughout the nation. Veloso remains a major figure inside Brazil to this day, and his discography and the discographies he has inspired continues to weave inside the fabric of the Brazilian identity.
While Brazil proved the power of using music as a form of protest, Cuba has shown how music is the most prominent form of popular culture in comparison to other means of artistic expression. In Ned Sublette’s book, The World That Made New Orleans, From Spanish Silver to Congo Square,” the author takes a moment to describe black culture in historical Cuba, articulating that “slaves in Cuba had their own religions practiced in their own languages, and dances, and music. By contrast, slaves in the United States had lost their ancestral vocabulary.”[5] This passage establishes that the Afro-Cuban population was still very much in touch with the musical genres and creations of their African ancestors, a reality that would become crucial for Cuba in multiple ways. The first is summed up by Beezley and Curcio-Nagy, who convey that, “During the 1930’s, Cuban musicians traveled to New York City, where they listed to jazz and then took home the instrumentation and improvisation they just heard. This exchange worked both ways, as Afro-Cuban music influenced rhythm and blues artists and jazz musicians.”[6] This reciprocity reveals how Latin American stylings influenced music on a global stage, forever shaping Cuba’s place in the world’s history. In addition to attaining a worldwide influence, music was also critical because it allowed innovators from all economic backgrounds to create. This reality is very much unique to music, as musicians with little to no education were shown to arise and influence the entirety of a nation’s popular culture. Perhaps no better example can be found outside of Cuba, where the vibrant Afro-Cuban creations from oppressed slaves would ascend to the center of world’s musical scene in less than a century.[7]
Music will always have a pristine place in the Latin American community. In the face of violent dictators and stifling geopolitical oppressors, music has been a source of unification, protest, and platform that has allowed Latin America to be heard throughout the world.
[1] Beezley, William H., and Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, eds. Latin American Popular Culture: An Introduction. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000, xi.
[2] Beezley, William H., and Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, eds. Latin American Popular Culture: An Introduction. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000, xi.
[3] Sounds of Solidarity: Haiti's Dance Music Movement. Haiti: Thump, 2014. Film.
[4] Sounds of Solidarity: Haiti's Dance Music Movement. Haiti: Thump, 2014. Film.
[5]Sublette, Ned. The world that made New Orleans: from Spanish silver to Congo Square. Chicago Review Press, 2008.
[6] Beezley, William H., and Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, eds. Latin American Popular Culture: An Introduction. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000, xi.
[7] Sublette, Ned. The world that made New Orleans: from Spanish silver to Congo Square. Chicago Review Press, 2008.