Richard Fausset: A Mexican Coachella Gives New Meaning to 'Roots Rock' The Los Angeles Times
go to original January 1, 2014

The members of Yibel Jme’tik Banamil, from left: Delfino Diaz Lopez, Valeriano Gomez, Juan Javier Perez Perez, Mateo Heredia and Pascual Patishtan. They perform in Tzotzil, a language spoken by about 300,000 indigenous Maya in the central highlands of Mexico's Chiapas state. (Richard Fausset)

Valeriano Gomez was standing on a festival stage cradling his black guitar as fans spread out before him, waiting for the count-off, the downstroke, the next electric blast.

Gomez and his group wore matching woolen ponchos, dyed jet black, that made them look like some far-out garage band from the late LBJ era, the flavor of a long-gone week at the Whisky a Go Go.
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But the scene took on a different tone when Gomez, 28, began to sing:

Mi xa na', bu likemtal la tsunubale

Albun mi x-vul ta ajol …

Gomez's group, Yibel Jme'tik Banamil, was among the featured performers at Mexico's polyglot version of Coachella, a festival of rock not en español. The language was Tzotzil, a tongue spoken by Gomez and about 300,000 other indigenous Maya in the central highlands of Chiapas, one of Mexico's poorest states.

"Do you remember?" the song went. "Where your roots are from?... Tell me if you still know the language of your ancestors."

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

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