Latin America’s most defining music has always surfaced miraculously from the peripheries. Brazil’s samba was born in Rio’s hillside shantytowns. And long before son was transplanted and recreated in the swanky nightclubs of pre-Castro Havana it was rural music from the island’s eastern city Santiago de Cuba. Today, with the music industry in disarray, a new generation of music mavericks is relying on different tools. In this age of digital downloads and the Internet as a means for self-promotion, underground movements around the globe have tossed out the middleman and are independently breaking through to new audiences. A lot has changed since samba and son began changing people’s perceptions. But this much remains true: The most sublime forms of creativity are hidden gems with the power of charting new directions. As our special report reveals, music revolutions brewing throughout Latin America are proving that today’s most innovative sounds are being spawned in the underground.

THE MOVEMENT: Rock fusion/Heavy metal/Punk

HISTORY: Rock ‘n’ roll, the music of el imperialismo yanqui to the north has been considered subversive since Fidel Castro took power. In the ‘60s having long hair or owning a Beatles record was enough to get you branded a gusano (counter-revolutionary). “Listening to a different kind of music was like a betrayal, it was seen as abandoning the trenches,” says Madrid-based, Cuban journalist Félix Varela, whose blog “Contigo en la distancia” is a forum for alternative Cuban music. For a long time the only state-sanctioned music movement was the nueva trova, with its traditional folk idioms and politicized lyrics promoting the virtues of the revolution. In the ‘70s, the popularity of the radio program Nocturno coupled with music festivals in Varadero –– which included performances by Spanish rock bands Los Mustangs and Los Bravos –– consolidated a Cuban audience hungry for rock music.

KEY MOMENT: The emergence of a rock scene per se in the late ‘80s owes its existence to the opening of El Patio de Maria in 1987. This live venue was the mecca for rock cubano, especially for bands inspired by American heavy metal. While the ‘90s brought with it more openness for hard rock’s marginalized crusaders, in 2003 the scene was again destabilized when officials closed El Patio claiming that is was corrupting the youth.

THE MOVEMENT: Electronic Fusion

HISTORY: While Rio remains Brazil’s traditional cultural hub (it birthed samba, bossa nova, the Black Rio movement and baile funk), over the last several years São Paulo has become the new epicenter for young, tech-savvy hipsters who soak up cross-cultural currents over the Internet and mix and match them with traditional Brazilian rhythms. “It is hard to describe a scene in São Paulo,” says producer extraordinaire Rica Amabis, who spins a labyrinthine-like web of projects and side projects, a few of which have been picked up by U.S. indie labels. “A city that has 20 million people from all over Brazil results in a mix of music that you can’t see anywhere else … the scene in São Paulo is one of experimentation.”
KEY MOMENT: Identifying a pivotal moment in the upsurge of experimental electronica in São Paulo is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. After a dry-spell in the ’90s, São Paulo is now experiencing a renaissance further fomented by a crop of sharp-eared indie labels such as Ybrasil, Outros Discos and Trama Records. Their sole objective is to back cutting-edge music that bridges past and present to offer a glimpse of Brazilian music in the future.