Decolonial Metal Music in Latin America

Book excerpt: A historical and sociological journey through Latin American heavy metal music. The long-lasting effects of colonialism--racism, political persecution, ethnic extermination, and extreme capitalism--are still felt throughout Latin America. This volume explores how heavy metal music in the region has been used to challenge coloniality and its present-day manifestations. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, Nelson Varas-Díaz documents how metal musicians and listeners engage in "extreme decolonial dialogues" as a strategy to challenge past and present forms of oppression. Most existing work on metal music in Latin America has relied on theoretical frameworks developed in the global North. By contrast, this volume explores the region through its own history and experiences, providing a roadmap for this emerging mode of musical analysis by demonstrating how decolonial metal scholarship can be achieved.