Latino Popular Music Cultures

So in order to diversify the offerings of my U.S. Latino Lit. course and to touch on some different cultural productions, I've decided to have my students acquaint themselves with some of the dominant trends in U.S. Latino music over the last hundred years or so. Since muxtape no longer exists, I thought I would post some of the songs on the mix I am making them.

"El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez"

Corridos were musical forms produced in the border zone between United States and Mexico used to carry news, gossip, etc. from town to town. This one depicts the resistance of Gregorio Cortez to the brutality and murderousness of the Texas Rangers toward the native Mexican population:



These forms of corridos were replaced in the contemporary moment with Narcocorridos which depict the heroism of drug-runners between Mexico and the United States (see Los Tigres Del Norte, which I've posted earlier).

Perez Prado "Que Rico el Mambo"

This form is Cuban in origin, but Mambo in general was not a phenomenon that really caught on in Cuba. It exploded in the U.S. fostering several films produced in Hollywood around the Cuban-American relationship, and shuttled Desi Arnaz (of I Love Lucy Fame) to stardom. This is by far the most popular Mambo tune in the United states:



Daddy Yankee - "Gasolina"

Representing the explosion of the Reggaeton phenomenon, a sort of Latino Hip-hop constructed around almost exactly the same beat/time signatures, the hit Gasolina:




Abe Vigoda - "Skeleton"

Mexi-American kids from Chino producing tropical punk, of L.A.'s The Smell scene fame:



Diplo - "¡Soy Cumbia!"

Although Diplo is not Latino, he is responsible for circulating historical and current trends in Non-Western music in the United States and Western Europe. This mix from his Mad Decent radio show/podcasts features the 1970s(?) Afro-Columbian trend of Cumbia music.

Los Crudos - "That's Right We're That Spic Band"

Hardcore legends of Ecuadorean and Chicano origins. I've embedded the video for Martin's (the lead singer) famous but now out of print documentary of Latino Punk/Hardcore called "Beyond the Screams."