Abstract
This article discusses the way that young people in Lima establish themselves as heirs to Arguedas, specifically through the analysis of music by contemporary fusion bands Cronica de Mendigos and Tayta Bird. I argue that they use Arguedas as a signifier in their music to show their cultural capital, legitimize their musical projects, search for belonging as young limenos with roots in other places in Peru, and celebrate cultural diversity. These two bands—in contrast to those founded in the 1990s that have been studied in relation to Arguedas—actually include excerpts of Arguedas’ texts or sound clips of him singing in their songs. Unlike academics, however, these musicians are not trying to establish whether or not Arguedas was ‘right’, and more often dialogue with ideas about Arguedas—his notion of mestizaje as celebratory multiculturalism, his idea of an inclusive nation as one of todas las sangres, his own search for belonging as a mestizo—rather than with the texts themselves. Through establishing themselves as heirs to Arguedas and creating music which mixes autochthonous and global genres, these musicians establish themselves as cosmopolitans who ‘belong’ both in the Andes and in Lima or any other global city.
Highlights
On 27 May 2015—the day of indigenous languages in Peru—Rock Achorao’ and PenZion Producciones released a compilation album of contemporary musical genres in indigenous languages entitled ‘Mana Wanaq: 22 canciones en los idiomas del Perú’
Like numerous others in the independent music scene in Lima, the contemporary fusion musicians featured on this album incorporate the local into their music in the form of autochthonous musical genres and instruments, indigenous languages, and references to Peruvian writer, anthropologist, and musician José María Arguedas (1911–1969)
Vik: ‘José María Arguedas is My John Lennon’. Such as Crónica de Mendigos and Tayta Bird establish themselves as heirs to Arguedas in order to legitimize their musical projects, negotiate their identities as limeños with roots in other parts of Peru, and celebrate cultural diversity through sonically modelling a more inclusive society
Summary
This article discusses the way that young people in Lima establish themselves as heirs to Arguedas, through the analysis of music by contemporary fusion bands Crónica de Mendigos and Tayta Bird. I argue that they use Arguedas as a signifier in their music to show their cultural capital, legitimize their musical projects, search for belonging as young limeños with roots in other places in Peru, and celebrate cultural diversity. These two bands—in contrast to those founded in the 1990s that have been studied in relation to Arguedas— include excerpts of Arguedas’ texts or sound clips of him singing in their songs. Through establishing themselves as heirs to Arguedas and creating music which mixes autochthonous and global genres, these musicians establish themselves as cosmopolitans who ‘belong’ both in the Andes and in Lima or any other global city
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