Clandestino

Manu Chao

album cover

The Street Music of the Twenty-first Century

Clandestino is scraps and castoffs and tribal beats, the nickels and dimes that add up to culture. It is not traditional, but instead blends traditions from Europe and Latin America together, into a melting-pot swirl of global electronic groove music. There's been a ton of that stuff since the 1990s, and much of it is generic—tabla beats looped with hip-hop bass and bits of vaguely ethnic sounds to make a "small world" collage. French-born Manu Chao knows better.

His first international music adventure was with the Paris-based group Mano Negra in the early 1990s. A large and sometimes unruly ensemble known for impromptu performances in train stations and docks, the group became a sensation throughout Europe for its energetic gypsy dance music cut with elements of punk and hip-hop. Arguments over money drove some of the core musicians away, and by 1995 Chao (real name Oscar Tramor) moved to Madrid and formed Radio Bemba Sound System. His plans for the new group were more ambitious: A rock band that reflected the world's great street cultures. The band spent several years touring South America, soaking up folk styles and recording as it went, often collaborating with local musicians.

Clandestino is an out-growth of Chao's global-nomad phase. It's less overtly party-oriented than Mano Negra—Chao begins with South American folk tunes strummed on acoustic guitar, then adds dub-style bass lines, Afro-Cuban rhythms, and odd sonic artifacts (including samples of speeches by members of the Zapatista movement, the left-leaning Chao's political heroes). Some of his refrains carry sociopolitical messages—on the electrifying "Mentira," he sings about the escapist nature of urban life—and some, including his reworking of the Mano Negra hit "King of the Bongo" here titled "Bongo Bong," are down-right silly. Even in its most absurd moments, Clandestino represents a different, more culturally sensitive take on the mix-and-match world of electronic music. If this resonates, it's because Chao knows, loves, and respects his source material. Where others hear scattered scraps, he hears a symphony.

Genre: World
Released: 1998, Virgin
Key Tracks: "Mentira," "Lagrimas de oro," "Dia Luna . . . Dia Pena."
Catalog Choice: Proximo Estación: Esperanza
Next Stop: Mano Negra: Patchanka
After That: Ozomatli: Ozomatli.
Book Pages: 153–154

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#1 from Sal Garcia, Chicago - 07/03/2009 2:52

Does anyone have any idea who the mariachi sounding band and singer singing about ”llorona“ is? Its a snippet in the song ”Mentira“ off the Clandestino album by Manu Chao.

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