On March 18, 2022, René Perez—also known as Residente and member of the famous duo Calle 13—released the video to his 2022 song, “This Is Not America,” featuring the Afro-French Cuban musical duo Ibeyi.1 The first six seconds of the video are silent and show a short segment of Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar's 1987 installation, “A Logo for America,” a 42-second animation for an electronic billboard in New York City's Times Square.2 A map of the contiguous United States made from small colorful digital orbs appears on screen with the words “THIS IS NOT AMERICA” superimposed on it. What follows is a powerful audiovisual exercise in destabilizing the meaning of the word America with a deluge of impactful images: Lolita Lebrón, militant of the Puerto Rican nationalist party, leading an attack to the U.S. House of Representatives; violent sequences displaying police brutality in protests in Argentina, Venezuela, Chile,...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Research Article|
December 01 2022
This Is (Not) America(n Music)
Eduardo Herrera
Eduardo Herrera
Eduardo Herrera (he/him/his) is Associate Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Herrera is the author of Elite Art Worlds: Philanthropy, Latin Americanism, and Avant-Garde Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020) and coeditor of Experimentalisms in Practice: Music Perspectives from Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). Herrera is currently working on two book projects: Sounding Fandom: Chanting, Masculinity, and Violence in Argentine Soccer Stadiums and Soccer Sounds: Transnational Stories of the Beautiful Game.
Search for other works by this author on:
American Music (2022) 40 (4): 433–443.
Citation
Eduardo Herrera; This Is (Not) America(n Music). American Music 1 December 2022; 40 (4): 433–443. doi: https://doi.org/10.5406/19452349.40.4.03
Download citation file:
Advertisement
Total Views
15
5
Pageviews
10
PDF Downloads
Since 7/1/2023