Chavez's New Gig

October 3, 2005
New York Times
Venezuelan Strongman's New Gig: National Disc Jockey

By JUAN FORERO

BARINAS, Venezuela - Deep in Venezuela's new, cumbersome Social Responsibility Law is an item that requires radio stations to play more - much more - Venezuelan music. The idea, the fiercely nationalist government says, is to promote Venezuelan culture over foreign culture, particularly American rock, which has dominated radio airplay for years.

If the measure seems obscure, its effects have not been. From the techno-pop wizards of cosmopolitan Caracas to the folksy crooners of this cattle town, Venezuelan musicians say they are reaping benefits from President Hugo Chávez's efforts to regulate culture.

For Huáscar Barradas, 40, a flute-playing magician who mixes the traditional with pop, the law has ensured that he is now booked solid at concert halls across the country. Simon Diaz, 77, a playful troubadour who enjoys international fame, is pleased that the songs he popularized decades ago are now on the airwaves once more. And halfway across the country from Caracas's eclectic music scene, Anselmo López, 71, with his traditional white liqui-liqui suit and four-string bandola, says he is comforted to know that some of his old forgotten songs are now being heard again.

"All of a sudden, I get calls from people at radio stations who never played my music before," Mr. Barradas said backstage in Caracas on a recent night as he prepared for another show. "They now put four or five of my songs on a rotation. I'm on all the radio programs, the most important ones."

While the law has been a blessing for musicians, it is often a mixed one, because many are unsure exactly how they can take advantage. That is particularly the case here in Barinas, a town of pastures and grain silos that is famous for being the hometown of Mr. Chávez, who in his seven years in office has promised a social and cultural revolution.

From here, on the oven-hot plains of Venezuela, comes some of the country's great traditional music, mournful songs of love lost or rat-a-tat ballads, often bawdy and humorous, about big, wide trees, fast horses and romantic sunsets. The instruments are simple, bandolas and cuatros, small guitars played with fast precision, as well as maracas and harps.

Yet, some of the best-known musicians, like Mr. López, a household name among older Venezuelans, are so down on their luck that making it back may prove impossible.
"The problem is it's hard to find my records," he said, noting that some of them are so old that no one has them anymore. Mr. López, though, still sees benefits in the law, with those records of his that still circulate selling more than before. "Sales go up, I guess, when your music is heard more," he said with a shrug.

Carlos Tapia, another Barinas resident and one of Venezuela's best-known harpists, said he welcomed the law because his brand of music had in recent years received little notice, as radio stations turned to rock, rap and pop. "The music situation was very poor," he said. "It was just hard to get heard."

But now, big-name musicians who do traditional music, from Scarlett Linares to Reynaldo Armas, have contracted him for concerts and recordings. "There is much more work than before," he said, explaining how he constantly travels Venezuela's winding roads to get to concerts.

In addition to requiring that at least 50 percent of all radio music programming be homegrown, the cultural law, approved last December, requires that half of all that music be folkloric. It is vague enough that it covers older balladeers like Mario Suárez and the hot urban hipster Rafael "the Chicken" Brito, whose stew of jazz with harps and cuatro guitars of Venezuela's outback is all the rage.

Franklin Cacique, a keyboardist with Saladillo de Aguierre, a famed 16-man group that performs the folkloric gaitas of the northwest, said the law had spawned fresh, new music as bands scramble to take advantage. "It's leading to the creation of more imaginative music, as musicians try to interpret Venezuelan music in different ways," he said. "People have awakened and they want to hear this music."

Still, not everyone is pleased. For radio stations, it has been a headache, handled grudgingly but expeditiously by some and with an air of rebellion by others, like Caracas's 92.9 FM, which responded by playing vulgar folkloric music, much to the government's distaste. At KISS-FM 101.5, the format of soft rock ballads by the likes of Huey Lewis has given way to the tangy guitar of "My Old Horse," Simon Diaz's 1980 classic.

But it was not easy. The station had Venezuelan music in stock, but none of the "traditional" recordings required by the law: llaneras, from the country's grasslands; the gaitas, with their raucous lyrics; or the wind music of the high Andes. We asked everyone who worked here to find traditional music at home and bring it in," said Carmen Romero, a manager at the station. "We almost shot ourselves. There just was not enough of that music."

Others grouse that the law amounts to another half-baked idea from Mr. Chávez's populist government. All countries worry about not playing enough of their music but the fact is that folkloric music is not the majority's music," said Carlos Espinoza of Record Report, a company that monitors airplay in Caracas. "I like to hear folkloric music when I'm in a steakhouse out in the country. But in Caracas, standing in line, I don't want to hear the harp, the cuatro and maracas. I have a right to decide what I want to hear."

Those who are making the most of the law are the few musicians who, in recent years, had already found success. Those musicians, mostly based in Caracas, have producers and press agents, and they have momentum and enterprise, having recorded in recent years.

Mr. Brito is considered one of the most successful. At 33, he mixes the cuatro, which he plays with fluid grace, with Afro-Venezuelan drums, with a jazzy flute, with all kinds of pop sounds. The foundation is as folkloric as it gets, but laced with modern sounds that radio stations love.
Already successful before the law, Mr. Brito is reaping bigger dividends now, with his songs at the top of the charts and a new record sure to do well when it hits record stores.

"Half my life, I've been doing Venezuelan music," he said. "I've played it since I was a kid, I've traveled the world but never has my music been heard so much as now."