Lauren Shaw's edited collection of essays and interviews examines the way in which music has provided a strong voice for resistance to forces of modernization, globalization, and state power in contemporary Latin America. Many genres of Latin American music appear in this volume — guaracha, bomba, plena, tropicália, trova, vallenato, salsa, rock, and hip-hop — although it is not the intent of the book to discuss their genesis or describe the music. Instead, the authors and musicians consider how national and global social, political, and economic conditions reverberated through song, including the ways in which song critiqued and challenged power structures.
The first section contains chronologically ordered essays on music and agency. Some of these selections consider the sociopolitical commentary of an entire genre (tropicália, rock), while others focus more narrowly on performers or song lyrics. The scholars draw theoretical inspiration from a variety of...
