Now playingLatin America's rock movement was sparked by Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba" and the Beatles but found its own voice in youth and resistance to dictatorship.
BREAK IT ALL: The History of Rock in Latin America
S1 · E1 — The Rebellion
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The Repression
When the band Peace and Love began chanting, "We got the power!" at the first rock festival in Mexico in 1971, the government responded by banning rock.
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Now playingWhen the band Peace and Love began chanting, "We got the power!" at the first rock festival in Mexico in 1971, the government responded by banning rock.
After the fall of the Argentine dictatorship in 1983 and the Mexico City earthquake in 1985, rock explodes with ingenuity. And it's all in Spanish.
Argentina's Soda Stereo was the first all-hemispheric hitmakers, followed by Mexico's Caifanes and Los Prisioneros from Pinochet's Chile.
Mexico's Café Tacvba fuses rock and folk traditions while Aterciopelados, rising with MTV Latin America, does the same with Colombian beats and sounds.
Anger about social injustice infuses Latin American rock after the Zapatista uprising, paving the way for reggaeton and rap and new female rockers.