Spanish
Popular Music through Latin American eyes
Rubén López Cano
The
relationship that Spain has with its ancient colonies in Latin America is a
complex one. Unlike the relationship that the United States has with Australia
and United Kingdom, for instance, Spain is not a military ally of any of the
big Latin American countries. Commercial exchanges are perceived by the common
citizen as an affair of the economical elites and the presence of Spanish banks
and corporations are seen suspiciously as a neocolonial activity. Asymmetrical economic relations make that
immigrants from Latin American countries to are mostly unqualified workers
while Spaniards travelling to the Americas do so in search of exoticism or
commercial advantages […] Independently of the above considerations, the fact
of sharing a common language has facilitated the consumption of cultural
products such as literature, music, cinema and television series on both sides
without regard to their provenance. Only the characteristics of the product and
the entertainment or satisfaction value they offer counts.
We
have a situation where a web of complex and paradoxical relationships
oscillates between the recognition of a common culture and the need of
asserting historical differences. It is in this unstable scenario that the
diffusion, reception and consumption of Spanish urban popular music takes
place. Perhaps for this reason many songs produced in Spain have not been
really understood in Ibero-America. Nevertheless some of them have been
cultural and vital landmarks for thousands of individuals. They have been a
defining element in the mechanisms of construction of the identity and the
subjectivity of successive generations in sundry social groups. They are an
integral part of the private life of many individuals and of the history of
Latin American music.
In
this article I shall examine some facets of this complex relationship. I will
emphasize above all, the processes and types of transnationalism of Spanish
music in Latin America in cases that go from the reproduction of stereotypes of
Spanish culture to the constitution of real transnational musical scenes
lacking any marks of national culture and sharing a mental imagery and worlds
of signification.
López-Cano
Rubén 2013. "Spanish Popular Music through Latin American eyes". En Silvia Martinez y Héctor Fouce (eds). Made in Spain. London and New York: Routledge. Pp.
187-195.
