The Untold Truth Of Manu Chao

Manu Chao is one of the most recognized musicians around the world, especially in Europe and Latin America. But in the Anglophone world, he's gone largely unrecognized. Of those English speakers who're familiar with his music, the album "Clandestino" is probably his best-known record. Eschewed early on by broadcasters because of its drug references, and carrying some strong anticapitalist vibes, it didn't receive a lot of marketing from its record label, Virgin. All the same, largely via word of mouth, it picked up a wide following and became a cult classic after staying in the French charts for four years and selling over five million copies worldwide!

Part of the reason why Chao's music fell under the radar in the English-speaking world may be the fact that his rise to fame coincided with the rise of "world music" as a genre label. An overly large umbrella term encompassing all music from non-English-speaking countries, it's now rightfully scorned as outdated and problematic. 

However, perhaps ironically, if there's any musician this label actually fits, it might just be Manu Chao. Known for singing in a range of languages, with musical influences from several different countries, his uniquely punk attitude is characterized by an unwillingness to conform to any one culture or style. For his tendency to break so many of the conventions and boundaries most musicians adhere to, he's been described as "music's last true radical," and he's done plenty to earn that title.

Unfailingly outspoken about issues of equality, Manu Chao has a stance of radical acceptance, embracing cultural differences and vocally opposing forms of oppression like fascism, racism, and capitalism. These themes often show up in his music, making connections between modern social movements with the struggles of the past and drawing on the long history of struggle against fascism in Europe. With his band Mano Negra, he made a point of touring other countries facing similar struggles, including Colombia, gripped for decades by the conflict between a left-wing insurgent group and far-right paramilitary forces.

Chao's firmly anti-fascist stance goes all the way back to his childhood, as a running tradition in his family. Under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain, his grandfather had been sentenced to death. This was the event that caused Chao's parents to flee to France shortly before his birth in 1961. For Chao, welcoming cultural differences is not simply a matter of social acceptance but also a political statement, showing up in the fusion of cultures which his music is famous for. As for his left-wing influence, he draws on a long legacy of activism in Europe which has often been overlooked in the modern world.

[Featured image by Derzsi Elekes Andor via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]

Manu Chao first became famous for performing with the band Mano Negra. Meaning "black hand," it was once the name of a group of Spanish anarchists. La Mano Negra was founded in the late 19th century in Andalusia, a large region of southern Spain. At their core, they were a rural workers' rights movement. Their aims were to bring down the government and aristocracy, with the ultimate goal of land reform and a change in the social order. Created as a secret organization, they gained a reputation for violence, being committed to using any means necessary to achieve their goals. Even extreme ones. Ultimately though, they saw this as simply a means to an end in their efforts to prevent the wealthy from abusing their power.

The name was later used for a group of Latino guerillas in a comic book, "Condor," written by Dominique Rousseau, and it was in this comic that Chao first heard the name. Ramón Chao, Manu's father and a political refugee from authoritarianism, was the one who explained the history and the significance of the name Mano Negra — noting also that the name "black hand" had previously been used by a Yugoslav militant group, as well as being a kind of witch from Gallician folklore. Manu later mentioned in interviews how he finds it interesting that the name has significance in many countries, including Colombia, where it was the name of a paramilitary group.

Mano Negra's first album was called "Patchanka," a word meaning patchwork, which fits the often chaotic combination of styles that have always defined Manu Chao's music. But it's also a little more than simply an album title. Patchanka was actually the name that Chao gave to his own musical genre. His distinctive sound started out as a blend of French, Spanish, and North African styles, combining elements of genres from ska-punk to salsa to flamenco to Algerian raï.

Ever since, Manu Chao's music has remained difficult to categorize, with critics often describing it using terms like "genre-defying." His influences have only continued to diversify too, later drawing influences from genres like cumbia, funk, reggae, and cabaret. Reflecting his borderless fusion of musical styles, Chao's vocals are almost hyperpolyglot in their sheer eclectic variety of languages. He most often sings in French or Spanish, but also includes languages like English, Galician, Arabic, and Wolof. 

Journalist Vivien Goldman once noted that this inclusionary spirit and refusal to conform is an extremely punk attitude, tying together Chao's early musical influences with his multicultural background, and cementing his popularity across so many countries. His search for new influences to incorporate has been tireless too, making a point of looking far and wide. He's performed with a variety of Latin American artists and has found a lot of inspiration from street culture and local bars.

With worldwide fame, Manu Chao has played at some high-profile places. Among others, he's performed on the Pyramid Stage of the U.K.'s Glastonbury Festival and in Mexico City's Zócalo, the second-largest public plaza in the world. Refusing to let fame go to his head though, he maintains an exceptional amount of humility and is just as happy playing in low-key venues like small bars in Spanish cities. While on tour, between big concert dates, he's known for giving small impromptu performances to all kinds of audiences, including students, striking workers, and mental patients. Sometimes, he simply shows up to workers' protests with a guitar.

This is when he's playing at a venue at all, and not simply busking on the street. One place he can sometimes be seen playing in a bar in Barcelona is called El Mariatchi. It's the kind of place that definitely suits his vibe, for a few different reasons. The Mariatchi bar is a speakeasy, one of the first to open when squatters occupied disused buildings to turn them into underground drinking dens. Now a permanently established but easy-to-overlook bar, it's the kind of place where any night might see musicians show up and spontaneously start playing.

To say that Manu Chao is okay with pirated music feels like an understatement. If anything, he fully supports it. In an interview with Radio France Internationale, when asked his thoughts on pirate recordings, he replied simply, "Great!" It makes sense that Chao would be happiest with people freely sharing music, given his attitude toward capitalism. He previously described in an interview with Social Worker that today's world was like "living in a dictatorship of money." Accordingly, he's perfectly fine with thousands of buskers in Barcelona owning pirated copies of his music. Moreover, he's also dabbled in music piracy himself, having produced cost-price CDs of local artists' music for buskers to sell.

Pirated music has been a contentious issue ever since mp3 file sharing first became possible on the internet, with musicians divided over the issue. Several artists fully support file sharing though. Together with others like Moby and Courteney Love, Manu Chao is of the opinion that internet file sharing is only really detrimental to producers and record labels, while the musicians themselves make the bulk of their income from performances. Radiohead made its statement on the issue by releasing an album with a downloadable pay-what-you-want model, proving that musicians can get by without record labels even getting involved. Manu Chao has taken this one step further still, with his official website hosting several of his songs which are available for download completely free of charge.