Deconstructing Latin American Music

Music reflects the culture of a country, its beliefs, attributes, and strengths, but also the shortcomings, deficiencies, and problems that its society lives. With time, music transforms and updates to become part of the identity of an entire generation. Some trendy songs popular in Mexico and Latin America encourage violence against women in various ways. It is essential to reflect on what the musical expression and lyrics promote, be aware of their true meaning, and recognize the message’s intention. Therefore, using the stop motion technique to create videos, high school students analyzed and reflected in class on the messages in some fashionable songs they like or know from a family member or friend. In this article, I share students’ experiences and opinions.

Music’s melody, rhythm, and lyrics connect us with voluntary and involuntary feelings and mental images. We can continuously repeat them in our heads without assimilating their true message. The most worrying thing is that we must analyze them in depth because many of these cultural manifestations violate and denigrate women.

“The competence of critical thinking allows students to think objectively, critically and analytically, in the face of the constant bombardment of information generated every day, and that is easily available to them.”

Note that not all the violence reflected in the messages of Mexican and Latin American songs is physical. According to UN Women (2023), information and communications technology can digitally commit economic, psychological, emotional, physical, and sexual violence. According to INEGI (2021), psychological violence prevailed in such music (51.6%), followed by sexual violence (49.7%), physical violence (34.7%), and economic, patrimonial, or discriminatory violence (27.4%).

The power of music for learning and dissemination

Music is a sufficient and effective learning tool. Used well, we can capture students’ attention through the popular songs they like.

According to the SEP (2022), cultural expression is “the way we express our culture, for example, music, dance, literature, painting, and crafts.” These cultural expressions project social identity, showing its characteristics and context. Music plays a role in social, labor, playful, ritual, and ceremonial activities, allowing us to show feelings and emotions; it is also a means to educate. Music (songs) fosters contextual social values elevating or criticizing societal situations (Gómez M. et al., 2020).

In addition to the above, to reinforce music’s usefulness as a cultural manifestation, we highlight its role in disseminating information and training people. Using a well-known song in educational material can effectively depict social reality and reflect on its problems. When the listener knows the song or enjoys the musical style presenting the topic, the intended message arrives faster and with clear meaning (Educating in Equality, 2018).

What we listen to is what we promote

Currently, music technology platforms allow us a free choice of what we want to hear through simple search & play. These interactions become monetized per the policies of each platform. Rights holders, record labels, distributors, and artists earn income. The reproduction of each song becomes a statistic in the algorithms and the recommendation system of the new platforms. Reproductions and recommendations generate “trends.” Therefore, we must be alert that what we listen to is what we promote. Remember that listeners’ payment is not always currency; many digital platforms use their information to maintain services.

Students must learn to choose and be aware of their actions and decisions. Critical thinking competency develops this awareness. It allows them to think objectively, critically, and analytically in the constant bombardment of daily information that is readily available to them. Critical thinking empowers the student contextually to be a purposeful, reflective, self-sufficient, and creative person who focuses on improving his life and future.

Analyzing the hidden messages in Latin American music in class

In my Cultural Expressions class taught to fourth-semester high school students in the January-May 2023 semester, we analyzed the hidden messages in Latin American music. In their analysis, the students reviewed the contents of the subject related to characteristics of the countries in Latin America, their problems, and artistic manifestations such as songs, films, paintings, sculptures, short films, and literature to identify and understand the situations of artists in their countries.

In teams, the students chose a song in Spanish that caught their attention. It could be contemporary or from other years. After analyzing the song, they created a stop motion video (maximum 40 seconds) that exemplified the hidden message and presented it in class. Creating instructional stop-motion videos develops students’ artistic, creative, and technological skills and self-management. It allows them to supervise the production and editing work to ensure it fulfills its purpose (Audiffred, Pantoja, Hernández, and Castillo, 2021). Therefore, we selected this tool to highlight the songs’ most significant content.

Among the songs chosen by the students were Maluma’s Four Babys, La Planta by Caos, Cartel de Santa’s All Die for Me, 17 Years by the Blue Angels, and Nicki Nicole’s Revenge. Once they selected the songs, I asked the students to review each of the verses comprising the melody to identify the message communicated and the feelings and emotions reflected in them.

With the song of Unas Nalgadas by Alejandro Fernández, the students selected the following verses:

Permission, permission, permission
Don’t hurt them with your horns
A spanking with cactus stalks
Is what you get for false and betraying acts
How I loved you like a brute animal
How I went to give you my love lightly
A spanking with cactus stalks
A lesson is what you deserve
You hurt me
I know you did me wrong
You took out the copper and black interests (you betrayed me) (…).

The students chose these verses, and after analyzing the song’s message, they concluded that it was violent, as it reflected physical and emotional abuse in a dysfunctional relationship. A woman was unfaithful to her partner, and this caused the man to act this way. In addition, the students considered that the song normalized violence against women because “she sought them out,” and her action made her “an easy woman who is not respected.”

From Nicki Nicole’s song Revenge, the students chose the following verses:                    

(…) You got into my mind
You made me believe that my way of dressing was provocative.
You never let me be; you decided for me.
And now we are here; let’s see what you have to say.
Today I’m going to kill your rotten, suicidal mind.
You’re going to regret what you did to me.
How great to have you before me;
I want to see you pay the price slowly.
They were going to find me lying somewhere.
They were going to say, “OK, then what happened to her?
What did she do? Where was she? When did she go? What happened to her?
Perhaps she brought all this on herself.”
I knew what I was doing, where I was going, and where I was.
Do you think it’s normal to pursue me in the early morning?
This is for me and all women.
I want to make you feel what I feel now (…).

The students selected these stanzas because they felt that they realistically presented the physical and psychological violence a man exercised against a woman, which adequately illustrates what is happening today. Also, they considered that it has very violent and explicit lyrics.

Another song the students selected was La Planta (The Plant) by Caos. The students considered the most striking verses to be:

(…) Oh, let a single gardener collect the fruit
Unlike you, who were already collected
And if another is encouraged, then good luck to them
Let’s see if they get pricked.
And you look so much like a vine,
Wrapping around any trunk, entangling the twigs wherever you want
And because of your branching, we nicknamed you the harlot (…).

The students chose the song for the theme addressed in its lyrics, which attacks a woman for being with many men, calling her a “harlot.” It shows the psychological violence to which her ex-partner subjects her for choosing to be with several men.

Reflection

The students commented that producing a video with the stop motion technique was an eye-opening exercise to know the real meaning of some Mexican and Latin American songs. They were able to focus their attention on the message communicated, concluding that most of these productions reflected violence against women.

Among the most significant conclusions of this activity by the students were:

“Through the music, we discovered that the issue of violence against women is more prevalent than we thought.”

“We realized that Mexican culture tends to resolve problems and interpersonal conflicts through violence, which is not frowned upon.”

“It is sad to see how society normalizes these types of actions that do not respect the integrity of people and how they are affected by this.”

“We realized that, unconsciously, we listen to songs that discriminate against a specific gender; we trend it, which causes this type of thing to continue to increase.”

It is essential to encourage students to consciously analyze the lyrics of Latin American songs they hear daily, to identify their meaning, and to form critical judgment to discern the worthwhile messages and discard those that normalize violence against women.

This activity caught the students’ attention because, in a playful way and by selecting a song they liked, they could make a deeper analysis and practice developing their critical thinking about the real message of the music they sometimes hum without realizing it.

About the author

Judith Pérez Arceo (judithperez@tec.mx) is a Communicator. She has a Master’s Degree in Education with a specialty in Higher Secondary Education. She is a full-time teacher of Spanish at PrepaTec on the Morelia campus of Tecnologico de Monterrey, with more than 17 years of experience as a teacher, workshop leader, and editor of an educational company.

References

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Nájar, A. (2016). La música de México que está acusada de fomentar la violencia contra las mujeres. BBC News Mundo. https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias/2016/04/160422_mexico_gruperos_violencia_mujeres_an

MIRA Miraflores. (2018). Expresiones culturales en México y sus mayores exponentes.https://www.revistamira.com.mx/2016/07/20/expresiones-culturales-en-mexico-y-sus-mayores-exponentes/

ONU Mujeres. (2023). Preguntas frecuentes: Tipos de violencia contra las mujeres y las niñas https://www.unwomen.org/es/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/faqs/types-of-violence

UNESCO. (2023). Definición de Comunicación. https://es.unesco.org/creativity/indicadores-de-desarrollo/dimensiones/comunicaci%C3%B3n

Editing

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Editor of the Edu bits articles and producer of The Observatory webinars- “Learning that inspires” – Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education at Tec de Monterrey.

Translation

Daniel Wetta

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0