LAS Post #2

Day 2: 

The first reading, "La Nueva Canción and Its Significance" by J. Patrice McSherry, starts by describing the political, social and economic hardships that the Chilean people experienced before La Nueva Canción or the New Song, emerged. In the midst of its uprising, there were many changes happen in Chile among the people. For example, music (by young musicians) began to speak about important issues that the people were facing. Women 30% less then males in the same jobs, lower class people had no job security or opportunities, there were harsh, tyrannical managers running businesses, and on top of all that economic hardship, the air quality was getting worse and worse due to cotton dust. Therefore, the music gave the people an outlet to feel connected to the change that was beginning to take place. The Chilean New Song music was a mixture of folk rhythms and Latin American instruments. It also involved modern and complex harmonization, and some dissonance to provide emotional pathos for the listener. The audience for this music was not only the marginalized groups in Chile, but it spread to more people throughout the world. The author talks about more issues that this movement affected by saying, "The New Song Movement represented a rising challenge to this hegemonic conception of life in Chile". The people in power were no longer the only ones heard because of the impact of the music in peoples lives. 

One of the most significant artists in this style of music and this movement was Violeta Parra. She was involved in communicating the social message clearly to the people. She, as an artist, represented important cultural aspects of the music, and in her performance as well (cultural memory). She wrote simple, but profound music. She had a lot of influence on this movement. 

Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist analyst, heavily influenced the author with his perspective on how knowledge comes about and how ideas become "normal" or "common sense" in society. The author applies Gramsci's theories to the New Song movement. Some of the theories discuss the importance of creating "organic intellectuals" that go against the hegemonic structure of the political climate. According to McSherry, this has to do with the New Song Movement because the defiant nature of the music in this movement, challenge the hegemonic structure, and give rise to minorities, giving them a sense of community. 

The next article "Rapping for a Revolution" by Eunice Rojas, is about a very similar to the last article. This article outlines the importance of social justice and movements that take place through music, specifically, rap and hip-hop. This article also talks about voting and similar theories of Gramsci and his view on voting and the importance of a counter-hegemonic structure in particular. He says that music is an outlet for an audience to rally and cultivate counter-hegemonic thought. Gramsci also believes that in order to pull down the people in power, the groups that are liberal in a democracy have the power to cultivate a similarly powerful, hegemonistic group that can overpower the capitalists. The rap duo Rebel Diaz has helped cultivate this powerful message of social justice in their music, and the importance of overthrowing capitalism, and strengthening the democracy. This group has used communicative memory to relay their message to their audience. This means that for the band, this is an important cultural memory that they need to convey. 

In the song "Which side are you on", Rebel Diaz is conveying the importance of the working class to band together and fight off the capitalists, and powerful people in the country. This is a cultural memory for the band, and the people because we are living in it right now, and this will provide background and support in our efforts. 

Another group called Residente is also involved in this political journey, and they heavily support Bernie Sanders and hope that he will run again in 2020.