How One Band from Veracruz Mexico Addresses the Violence in Its Hometown Betto Arcos - PRI's The World
go to original October 18, 2014

Los Aguas Aguas hail from Xalapa, the capital of the Mexican state of Veracruz. (losaguas.com)

Los Aguas Aguas first album, called Easy and Tropical Machine carried an upbeat “party-on” message, says bass player Danny Cruz. "Take it easy, just chill out, everything is going to be fine. Just dance and your problems will take care of themselves."

But in the past couple years, violence has increased around them and the band admits they became numb to all the bad news. Guitarist and singer Demiss Arenal says when he heard about a neighbor or someone’s friend being killed, all he’d say was “poor thing” and move on.

“We kind of turned cold," he says. "We don’t think about what happens to others. We just think it’s best to keep to yourself and your family. Suddenly, there’s an epidemic of fear.”

Arenal says one day he noticed the state police had set up a compound next door to his home.

“For the next two or three months," Arenal says, “they wouldn’t let me walk through my street or wouldn’t allow me to leave my house because they were doing some operation. They were harassing my wife and they almost killed my dogs because they barked at them, things like that. So I’d be inside the house, saying “how can I be a prisoner in my own home?"

That’s when he wrote the song, “El Sol" — The Sun.

Read the rest at PRI's The World

Los Aguas Aguas - El Sol (Ivan Rica)

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