Just in case this hasn’t made the Tumblr rounds yet, Argentine folk singer Facundo Cabral killed in Guatemala; promoter apparently targeted via The Washington Post
One of Latin America’s most admired folk singers, Facundo Cabral, was killed Saturday when three carloads of gunmen ambushed the vehicle in which he was riding, prompting expressions of anguish from across the region. Authorities said the performer’s concert promoter was apparently the target.[…]
Cabral, 74, rose to fame in the early 1970s, one of a generation of singers who mixed political protest with literary lyrics and created deep bonds with an audience struggling through an era of revolution and repression across Latin America.
Cabral was a confirmed vagabond, born poor in 1937 in the provincial city of La Plata after his father abandoned their large family. At the age of 9, he began hitchhiking alone up the length of Argentina to beg for a job for his mother.[…]
By the time Argentina fell under military rule in 1976, Cabral was clearly identified as a protest singer, and so he fled for his life to Mexico, where he kept recording, writing books and giving concerts.
This had me crying last night. He was immensely popular in Latin America and for many of us, young ones coming of age right after brutal dictatorships, his music spoke of issues we had no idea of, of struggles we had barely heard about. All over Latin America there are shock waves about this assassination and rightfully so, because Cabral was a voice for many voiceless people in our region.
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