BOLIVAR LOOPS
A bunch of enormous, abandoned tins. Home-grown oil seeps out of the world?s largest reserve, out of the same ground from which the occasional endangered orchid blooms. If you?re hungry, simply reach up and pick a mango in a land where everything grows, flooded by the monsoon and the ever-present music. Desert, mountains, the Caribbean and the Amazon half-filled by a melting pot of colonists intermingling and killing each other in frenzied fusion with infinite indigenous cultures, as the roots of enormous saman trees destroy the foundations of colonial houses. Fast-forward cycles of creation and destruction: life is so exuberant that death can?t help but match its intensity, in a sense of suspended time that illustrates the idea of celebration better than any other place on earth. A full tank of petrol is cheaper than a beer. Can paradise really be nationalised?
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A ghost sings a ranchera
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"Contrapunteo" for Capriles
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Nicolás Maduro Rap
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Los Catedrátikos Reggaeton
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Venezuela febrero 27
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The revolution will not be televised
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Violence in Venezuela
A ghost sings a ranchera
I discovered this ranchera at Christmas, while Chávez was in Cuba and I was in Acarigua, unravelling rumours of the Comandante?s death.
?Yo sé bien que estoy afuera / pero el día en que me muera / sé que me vas a llorar. / Dirás que no me quisiste / pero vas a estar bien triste / y así te vas a quedar?
"Contrapunteo" for Capriles
?Contrapunteo? is a music subgenre from the plains. It?s a bit like a rap battle: an improvised duel, against a rival, more or less based on an existing melody. The odd thing here is that there's no opponent: Capriles is silent, but he knows that he has no choice but to follow the tune set by Chavez and his political scene.
Nicolás Maduro Rap
The new candidate revamps the style, chances a rap, and incites the masses with some exalted rhymes. Between the lines, we can read the squirming signs and affects of a kind of desperate ritual in response to the absence of the leader that the crowd hails: "Chavez is Love".
Los Catedrátikos Reggaeton
Reggaeton group Los Catedráticos snuck into the jail La Sabaneta, which has a long history of riots, to record a video clip. We can get an idea of the weapons stockpiled by the ?malandro?: a booming force that is gradually taking hold as a State within the State, to the beat of bullets and cocaine. ?Ellos me tienen un miedo cabrón / ellos saben cómo le meto, saben como soy / ellos lo piensan todo el día / andan maquinando todo el día / si me tiran, ¿qué les pasaría??
Bonus tracks
(a few documentaries)
Venezuela febrero 27
A documentary on the ?Caracazo? - a wave or riots that took place in February 1989 in protest against the implementation of IMF recommendations by Carlos Andrés Pérez. The government responded by killing civilians, triggering a period of escalating violence.
The revolution will not be televised
A documentary on the 2003 coup and the way it was falsified by the media narrative partial to the neoliberal powers. It illustrates how important the presence of the Comandante was at this crucial moment, which turned out to be a fundamental turning point for Chavism.
Violence in Venezuela
A British documentary that looks at the high level of violence in Venezuela today, and analyses how this situation has come about. Interviews with murderers, visits to prisons and morgues...