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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