Rock en Español

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As often happens, the collision of cultures and their musical styles is yielding exciting results. The Latin rock boom is being fueled by many young musicians like Gonzalez who have one foot in Mexico and the other in the States. Gonzalez, 29, lived in Miami until he was 15, then moved to Mexico City, where he says he was "blown away" by the richness of Mexican art. A kid who grew up on the classic rock of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and "all the new-wave stuff that was happening in the early '80s—the Police, Joe Jackson, the Clash, Blondie"—suddenly was exposed to Ruben Blades, Celia Cruz, and other Latino legends. Bob Marley and other world-beat musicians further broadened his horizons. Now he and Fher—Maná's singer and co-songwriter—mix all these influences in their music.

Part of the mix for Maná and other rock en español bands is a strong strain of political activism. The Mexico City hip-hop collective Molotov became one of the few bands to cross over to English-language radio in Los Angeles with the Spanglish track "Voto Latino," an outrageous, in-your-face shout of ethnic pride: "I'll kick your ass yo mismo / Por supporting el racismo." The Grammy-winning Argentinean rockeros Los Fabulosos Cadillacs paid tribute to Chilean folksinger Victor Jara in the 1995 song "Matador," recalling his torture and death in 1973 at the hands of the right-wing Pinochet dictatorship.

Maná's lyrics touch on social issues in a less incendiary way, but often carry a strong political and environmental ethos. The band founded an environmental organization called Salva Negra (Black Forest), which they continue to fund, and formed alliances with Greenpeace and Amnesty International for its current tour. Gonzalez credits Fher, his songwriting partner, with expanding the band's social consciousness. In '92, Fher wrote the lyrics for a song that asks where, if we keep on destroying our planet, will our children play? Audiences reacted positively, Gonzalez says, and "we thought, if this is just one song, imagine if we started getting involved a lot more, doing a lot more things and helping in a bigger way."

Can a rock band change the world?

"Change the world? No," says Gonzalez. "But it could change a lot of people." He pauses, then adds: "I think maybe John Lennon could have changed the world."

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