Hip Hop Remix: Canto Libre (Victor Jara) by Agent of Change (@agent_of_change)

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The legendary Chilean sing­er Vic­tor Jara was one of the lead­ers of the Nueva Can­ción (span­ish for ‘New Song’) move­ment – a move­ment based around “socially com­mit­ted” music; music that takes a clear stand for free­dom, against poverty, against imper­i­al­ism and against human rights abuses. Nueva Can­ción gave voice to the mil­lions of peas­ants, work­ers and indi­gen­ous peoples of Lat­in Amer­ica who were being crushed under the weight of US eco­nom­ic and polit­ic­al dominance.

In the after­math of the bru­tal US-backed mil­it­ary coup of 11 Septem­ber 1973, thou­sands of social­ists and com­mun­ists were taken host­age by the army and roun­ded up in Chile Sta­di­um. Along with many oth­ers, Vic­tor Jara was beaten and tor­tured; his hands were broken, but his resolve was not. When sol­diers taunted him and told him to play some­thing on his gui­tar, he played Ven­ce­re­mos (We Shall Tri­umph) — the cam­paign song of the 1970 elec­tion that had brought the social­ist Sal­vador Allende to power. On 16 Septem­ber — forty years ago today — Vic­tor Jara was machine-gunned to death by sol­diers in the stadium.

Across the world, Vic­tor Jara is remembered as a hero and a mar­tyr; an exem­plary musi­cian who put his skill and his pas­sion entirely at the ser­vice of the struggle for a bet­ter life for human­ity. In com­mem­or­at­ing his death and cel­eb­rat­ing his life, we should remem­ber the prin­cip­al les­son he teaches us: that cul­ture is a weapon, one which must be wiel­ded effect­ively in these times where oppres­sion and repres­sion are so pre­val­ent. As Paul Robe­son said, “The artist must elect to fight for free­dom or slavery”.

This track is an instru­ment­al hip-hop remix of a very inspir­ing song by Vic­tor Jara, ‘Canto Libre’.
For more tunes and art­icles please vis­it: http://www.beatknowledge.org/

 

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Gata Malandra

Edit­or / Research­er at No Bounds
Gata is a music and arts lov­er, stud­ied anthro­po­logy, art man­age­ment and media pro­duc­tion ded­ic­at­ing most of her time to cre­at­ive pro­jects pro­duced by No Bounds.

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About Gata Malandra

Gata is a music and arts lover, studied anthropology, art management and media production dedicating most of her time to creative projects produced by No Bounds.

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