Calle 13 Backlash Results In Concert Cancellations
20 October 2009, 3:49 PM. By Alex Alvarez
Calle 13’s resident Residente, René Perez, has cost the band a few gigs due to his sartorial choices for hosting Los Premios MTV 2009.
The reggaetonero wore a t-shirt to the awards show reading “Uribe Bases Paramilitares,” possibly as a means of criticizing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe’s decision to allow the U.S. to have bases in Colombia and/or as a way of suggesting Uribe has ties to far-right paramilitary troops. Man, who doesn’t.
Other t-shirts worn by René during the awards ceremony included slogans like “Fuera Micheletti Del Poder,” referencing the recently instated Honduran president, and “México Nunca Olvida 2 Oct 1968” in honor of the student protests - and subsequent massacre - in Tlatelolco.
Yesterday, Manizales mayor Juan Manuel Llano announced that he’d be cancelling Calle 13’s Colombian concert, which would have taken place this coming January.
This comes on the footsteps of an announcement that San Juan’s mayor, Jorge Santini, cancelled the group’s upcoming Halloween concert in the Puerto Rican capital following Rene’s remarks concerning the recent layoffs of 20,000 Puerto Rican state workers. Rene additionally used his hosting duties as a platform to announce that Puerto Rico’s governor, Luis Fortuño, was an H de P. Or, as one English-language media outlet put it, he “used an epithet directed at the island’s Gov. Luis Fortuño that also besmirched the politician’s mother.”
Fortuño has called Rene’s comments “chabacanería” and said they demonstrated a lack of respect for Puerto Rico.
Another Calle 13 concert axed after political remarks [CBC News]
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Wait, you mean Calle 13 is more than that one guy?
Hello! Deja el show. Where there’s a Residente, there’s a Visitante. The two are half-brothers.
I’m slightly annoyed at the way he went on with his ‘rebellious tactics’ since most of them were things a 5-year-old would say, but at least he used his screen time for something other than the usual dumbass jokes.
I heard about this all morning on the radio Monday morning and found it interesting that people listen to many things celebrities have an opinion about… Yet, lately the ones who have tried to meddle in real politics have faced a serious backlash. I agree that perhaps some of the messages may have been childish (but really how much can you fit on a Tshirt?) but at least he SAID/DID something! Remember that standing by in silence is almost as bad as being part of it
I love him…i saw a pseudo-documentary he did on mtv about the indigenous people of latin america and i loved how he presented them