Manu Chao inhabits a universality that spoke to people, then and now.Īccording to Peter Culshaw, author of the book Clandestino: In Search Of Manu Chao, Chao became depressed about the dissolution of Mano Negra (and the end of a long term relationship). These tours allowed Manu to engage with Latin American communities up close, know their struggles firsthand, and in many cases, come in contact with radical political groups such as EZLN in Mexico and guerrillas in Colombia. and UK, but they decided instead to board a ship across the Atlantic Ocean and play coastal cities in South America the next year, they embarked on another unconventional tour, boarding a train to play in different Colombian cities during the last days of Pablo Escobar. GIF by Alan Lopez for Remezclaīy 1992, their label pushed them to tour the U.S. They became fixtures on radio, thanks to eclectic tracks like “Mala Vida” and “Sidi H’Bibi,” which eschewed French and embraced Spanish and Arabic, respectively. Initially inspired by punk bands like The Clash and The Jam, Manu and his brother Antoine soon broadened their taste, culminating in the creation of Mano Negra in 1987, an ethnically diverse band of immigrants and descendants of immigrants that played punk, son, ska, flamenco, salsa, Algerian raï, and many other styles. Chao was born in 1961 to Felisa Ortega and writer Ramón Chao, anti-Franco intellectuals who migrated to France to avoid persecution due to their leftist ideals. In many ways, Clandestino is the album Manu Chao was born to make. Clandestino also rekindled “protest pop” in a way seldom heard before, contributing to a discourse of sociopolitical unrest and selling more than 5 million copies along the way without a supporting tour or official singles released to radio. The label “world music” – a genre coined by Western record companies as an umbrella term to market folkloric and popular music from across the globe, lumping them together without much context – became widely used around that time, but few artists embodied that kind of post-globalist utopia. Although his former band Mano Negra was at one point one of the most popular musical groups in France, Manu renounced the country as his own, disappearing on the road and appearing throughout Mexico, South America, Europe or Africa, something that allowed him to reach audiences beyond traditional borders. There’s nothing conventional about Clandestino, yet its radicalism relies on humanist values. The project turns 20 this year, and remains perhaps his boldest statement yet. Busking is what taught Manu Chao about the universality of music, and it informs Clandestino, his debut solo album. He’s known to pop up on the sidewalk next to any given bar of any given city he happens to be in at the moment and start playing. Yet he probably feels more comfortable being labeled a busker: a musician in the street playing his heart out, observing his surroundings, and making songs about it. José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao Ortega is perhaps France’s most successful rock musician of all time, not to mention an inimitable icon of rock en español.
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