Rock en Tijuana: The Pulsing Future Of Borderland Culture, Melissa Sattley, Austin Chronicle
Tijuana DJs Pepe Mogt and Ramon Bostich are leading a musical revolution. They call it 'Nortec,' a hybrid of techno beats and the traditional brass and rhythms of the Norteño music their parents listened to. Barely two years old, Nortec has become the heart of an artistic renaissance in this border town, writes Melissa Sattley in the Austin Chronicle. 'Here, musicians and artists want to vanquish the border city's reputation as a killing field for Mexican drug lords and San Diego's sin city and give it the kind of cultural credibility it's never had before as a center for music, art, and design.' Raul Cardenas, a 31 year-old architect who Sattley describes as the intellectual force behind the Nortec movement, says 'people in Tijuana are used to being outsiders who live at the outskirts of both the U.S. and Mexican cultures. This outsider feeling, he says, fuels Nortec artists and musicians. When people in Tijuana go to a bullfight, they root for the bull, not the bullfighter.' The Nortec Collective, the first Nortec compilation to be released in the U.S., comes out in February.
--Leif Utne
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