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Industry News
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Bloque
�Salsa and rock aren�t enemies,� insists Ivan Benavides, guitarist and vocalist of Colombian dynamo Bloque. �They share the power of the rhythm, the black heritage; they�re big-city music... We�ve always heard rock on the radio,� he says. �Zeppelin, Hendrix. But we also hear traditional music and Latin music.� Hailing from every region of their vast and varied country, the members of Bloque deliver the best of Colombian music with the urgency of rock �n� roll. In their world, the unruly torrent of rock, blues and R&B spring from a Caribbean source. �To us,� Ivan concludes, �Ruben Blades is the Latin Lou Reed.� And Bloque is truly a Colombian supergroup. Comprised of musicians backing Latin megastar Carlos Vives (Ivan co-authored Vives� hit album Tierra del Olvido; guitarist Teto Ocampo was Vives� musical director), the eight members of Bloque have toured the world, playing sold-out, stadium-scale shows. They are music masters -- stepped in folk and regional styles, fluent in jazz, rock and Latin music -- whose vision is as unlimited as it is rhythmically relentless. There�s a riot going on in the capitals of Latin America, a rock �n� roll revolution sweeping aside stereotypes of Latin music and style. Bloque brings an irresistible Caribbean swing -- a psychotropical funk, Ivan calls it -- to the front lines of Latin rock. �In Colombia, we have so much music,� Ivan says. �But somehow, in the �80s it got pushed aside for bland pop bands. There was no one developing the older music. That�s what we do.� Like on �Rap del Rebusque,� the scavenger rap that merges hip-hop and the story-song of Colombia�s Tierra caliente. �La Pluma� pays homage to Peregoyo, the man who introduced electric guitar to Colombian music; while �Majan�� ripples with African-inspired rhythms from the coast. �I love the culture, the riches of our country,� asserts Ivan, �But the problems are great.� In their powerful rhythms and hard-hitting subject matter, Bloque practice a kind of tough love for their homeland. �Bogot� is like a giant suburb of a city that doesn�t exist,� Ivan remarks, adding that Colombia excels in producing coffee, emeralds, beauty queens and civil wars. But Bloque�s music sees the problems of their home with a global perspective. �Something in this world stinks, and it�s not the sewers. So much concern with image, so much makeup,� Ivan writes about �El Hedor� (The Stench). �Maybe it�s the symptom of a sick society that can�t look at itself without shame.� �We don�t believe in the big messages, the poets with all the answers,� is how Ivan explains their ambivalence. �We need to be more ironic than that.� And so their name derives from the special commando unit founded to hunt cocaine lord Pablo Escobar. But Bloque also connotes a unity, a strength of purpose. Bloque are a band on a mission: to move hearts, minds and butts with a music that rocks like you�ve never imagined. Now wake up and smell the coffee!
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