A Few Notes on Venezuela

Welcome to Caracas. First day in the capital of Venezuela, seven o'clock in the evening, right next to a big, policia militar-guarded avenue, I am mugged. I lose my passport and my quick just-passing-thru becomes a tedious wait of two weeks.

Today´s El Universal tells that during the last friday, between 8:00 in the morning and 8:00 in the next morning, 51 people were killed violently in Caracas. Compared to this, Rio de Janeiro is a peaceful trip to a beautiful place in the country - Rio´s average daily body count hovers around 17. One victim that made headlines was a 19-year old male, shot to death in his own home, by a thief who was robbing the clothes hung to dry in a window.

Welcome to The Bolivarian Revolution. After ten years of Hugo Chavéz, for better or for worse, Venezuela is one of the least democratic countries on the continent. Chavéz is everywhere, supported by a huge propaganda engine building a cult around the leader´s charismatic personality. The graffiti on the streets screams Sí, Chavéz! Open the television, any time during the day, and after a little surfing you´ll find a channel running a speech by Chavéz. "With Chavéz, people are the government", goes the official slogan of the nation, and the face of the president seems to mark every official or unofficial surface.

Chavéz might be on the side of the poor people against the evil forces of the international capitalism, but he is also a fanatic, a militant and a populist. And very much like George Bush he loathes so much, Chavéz just can´t keep his fingers of the affairs of the other nations, spending the country´s oil riches on political adventures abroad. Crisis of March 2008, following Colombia´s strike against FARC on the Equador´s territory, was seen by many - and not completely without a reason - as a shameless attempt by Chavéz to spark a war on the continent.

Welcome back to the Spanish-speaking part of the continent. The duo Wisin & Yandel are ruling the reaggaton right now. And thus, they are pretty much ruling the airwaves everywhere. There are two songs that you will hear every single day, many times, unless you stay in your hotel room and keep the windows shut tight. And don´t turn on the television.



First, on Donde Está El Amor, featuring Franco de Vita, they are lamenting over the bad things happening around the world.



And Sexy Movimiento should be pretty self-explanatory.

I don't really like either of these songs. I don't actually care that much about the whole Los Extraterrestres-album of Wisin & Yandel, but my taste doesn´t matter here. This is what the Latin America is playing.

And finally, welcome to Venezuela. Despite all the violence, difficulties and challenges, Venezuela is a beautiful country, full of incredible natural wonders and riches.

Guilty pleasures

For a while now, I've had this weird feeling that something is missing. A background noise, a smell perhaps, something. Until I realized what it is: reggaeton. In the rest of the Latin America there is no way to escape reggaeton - even the monkeys must be pumping it in the Venezuelan jungle - and in Brazil I haven't heard a single "boom-chi boom-chick"-beat. A continent divided by the two languages.

I didn't imagine missing reggaeton. It's not a sound that would hold a very high esteem in my native Finland, and I can't say I liked it that much either. Yet recently I've developed it into something of a guilty pleasure. Up north reggaeton usually gets dismissed as the cheesy Latin bastard-son of hip-hop and reggae. Language is again one obvious barrier, but it's a matter of cultural understanding too. I stumbled on this great blog, by the Hunter College researcher and journalist Raquel Z. Rivera, and reading such an in-depth analysis on the genre and it's background makes also the music much easier to grasp. And there are really great reggaeton artists that should appeal outside the Hispanic world too.

The greatest of them all, to me, is Tego Calderon. There is no match for his laidback flow, scarred voice, fat accent and the calm, super-cool style that would eat the aggressive boasting of youngsters for breakfast, without even breaking the sweat. And it doesn't hurt that Tego's beats include few of the most interesting fusions of various Caribbean and Latin American music styles. Seeing is believing: I witnessed Tego live at Buenos Aires, and there is no way to beat his charisma.

Rivera and Frances Negrón-Muntaner descibe the importance of Calderon in breaking the reggaeton into the main-stream of Puerto Rican culture in a highly interesting article Reggaeton Nation: "A turning point in gaining critical attention was the musically, poetically, and politically sophisticated 2003 debut album of Tego Calderón. His populist lyrics — which reminded many of salsa’s El Sonero Mayor, Ismael Rivera — together with his innovative musical fusions, use of world-renowned musicians in live shows, and charismatic yet humble demeanor appealed to the old-school salsa lovers and the intellectual left."

Allow me to introduce The Underdog. Here's a couple of my personal favourite songs. First two from the album The Underdog / El Subestimado and next two from the most recent album El Abayarde Contra Ataca. And to illustrate Tego's love for the salsa, the song Llora, Llora features the Venezuelan salsa-legend Oscar d'Leon.

Tego Calderon: Slow Mo (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Llora, Llora (feat. Oscar d'Leon) (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Ni Fu Ni Fa (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Los Mios (feat. Pirulo) (zShare)