Arte Gratis November 8, 2021
Before yielding the mic, Victor thanks everyone for coming to LibreArte on this wet talent night. Tarps provide just enough shelter for the huddled audience and the hundreds of surrounding used books. Some of the onlookers raise enormous bottles of beer procured from the Abarrotes next-door.
The hiphop trio starts the set in Spanish, but it turns out to be a second language for them. When the rap goes rapid-native, it is anyone’s guess what tongue we are hearing—maybe Tzotzil, maybe Tzeltal. The clutch-chuck consonance is well suited to the Afro-form, sounding more like a rhythm instrument than a word or phrase.
The performers are dressed in ragged black, with Converse and industrial boots and copious neck tattoos—in short, standard issue for the genre. They trade microphones after stanzas, as there are only two for three singers. The woman in the middle is especially serious. Her enigmatic verses pack a punch, although Quien Sabe as to what machines she is raging against.
This act receives the most enthusiastic audience response of the evening. Less impressive is the nappy-headed Argentine couple that indulges in reinterpretations on Bob Marley, substituting attitude for soul. I have seen them busking on Guadalupe de Real, and their music does not appear to improve with practice. Their confidence is remarkable and unwarranted.
Next come a Trombone player, jazz guitarist, and a new poet from Monterrey. The poem has something to do with laundry trouble, and for this I applaud my bilingual insights. The soundtrack to her exposition is more decipherable, but not much, as the song I could have sworn was Ballad of a Thin Man ends up being My Funny Valentine—“Chew make me smile with my heart.” The trombone player adds some restrained flatulence to the performance piece, which is, if not refreshing, at least refritos.
According to my anonymous source, the best way, in fact, to learn a new language is to sing it. “Even if you don’t know what the sounds mean, you will eventually. The processing is different with music—it’s quicker, easier, it stays with you longer.” It worked for the King of England, we agree, although he was not trying to learn Spanish, or Tzotzil.
The music set that truly sends my hips a-hopping is the Son Jarocho of two campesinos from Veracruz. Just two stringed instruments are played—the tiny Jarana and a gut-laced guitar that looks like it survived the revolution. Accompanying them are two rough voices, trading verses, hollering more than singing, occasionally in tune, completely auténtico. Jarocho is to discerning Mexicans what old-timey and bluegrass are to Yanquis—acoustic roots music from the countryside. This is confirmed by the straw hat they pass at the end—every gig is potentially a paying one.
The edgy performances continue late into the night, long after the microphone has gone dead and LibreArte has closed its doors. A South American with hair like Fabio stands in the center of the Andador, dressed in a superman costume, shivering beneath foam muscles. He holds up a flimsy umbrella, which rather disrupts the super-power vibe he is trying to project.
In the near distance, we hear bangs. Six pistol shots ring in quick succession somewhere in Barrio Santa Lucia, just as the rap artists prophesied. Whatever is actually happening will not likely be reported, as San Cristóbal’s leading journalist, Fredy López Arévalo, 62, was assassinated last week outside his home. He was celebrating his mother’s birthday at the time. Additional information is neither forthcoming nor reasonably expected. Los Chismes and poems will have to suffice.