When the Mexican rap band Molotov burst on to the music scene in 1997, critics dismissed them as one-hit wonders, worth only a brief footnote in the history of the expanding Latino rock music scene. Last year I watched a thousand teenagers in tracksuits and baseball caps go insane at a Molotov gig in Mexico City, mouthing every lyric, fists in the air, with a look in their eye that would send any sensible tourist running to the nearest embassy for safety. This looked like more than a one-night stand.
The September release of the band's second album, Apocalypshit, has confirmed the band's position as the undisputed kings of Alterlatino music, a new category which distinguishes them from insipid rivals Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias. Their debut album Donde Jugaran las Ninas (Where will the girls play?) sold 1.2 million copies, their single Voto Latino won MTV's Latin Video of the Year award and the band narrowly missed a Grammy in 1998.
"The last 12 months have passed by like a dream," says Mickey, lead singer and resident Molotov court jester, "I felt like I was watching myself in a film."
The first time I met Mickey was backstage at a gig in an abandoned factory in Mexico City, where he carefully blew his nose into his hand, then ate the results, watched by a handful of adoring fans. It takes more than that to impress a Pearl Jam fan, however. Minutes later Mickey was on stage, pumping out the band's trademark nasty lyrics, while the two bass players blasted out funky rap anthems that proved irresistible.
The group's first album was a calculated assault on family values, the police, Mexico's ruling party and the country's stagnant music scene, earning the band some powerful enemies, notably the "Family and Parents' Association" which lobbied successfully to ban Molotov gigs across Mexico. The nation's dominant TV and radio networks kept them off the airwaves but the band turned the scandal to their advantage, selling the record from the back of a van in a publicity stunt which helped break sales records for a debut rock album.
Three songs have become all-time classics for Molotov fans; Puto, Voto Latino, and Gimme Power, songs which have also raised a storm, with lawyers and police following close behind. The most controversial song is Puto, literally translated "faggot", which was interpreted as a homophobic rant. "Kill a queer" is the main verse, repeated several times. In February 1999 gay rights activists in Bilbao slapped a lawsuit on the band under incitement to hatred legislation.
"Suddenly all these lawyers were shaking my hand and discussing plea bargains, demanding I buy a suit," says Tito Fuentes, the rough-looking bass player with a penchant for unfinished moustaches. "The whole thing was a misunderstanding," he adds, sitting in a Buenos Aires cafe, with the weary air of someone who has explained this a few hundred times before. "We never meant to offend the gay community."
In Molotov's neighbourhood slang, "puto" refers to anyone who refuses to "get off their arse" and do something about the state of the world they live in. It took a full-page ad in the Spanish daily El Pais, outlining the band's position, before they could get back on the road.
Mexico suspended judgment until the veteran gay rights activist Carlos Monsivais, now in his mid-seventies, gave the band two thumbs up, arriving unexpectedly at a Molotov gig. "I just wish I was younger so I could jump around at the front," said Monsivais. The latest on Puto is that the song has become a closing-time favourite in gay bars across Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile Voto Latino is an inspired slice of tropical rap, calling on Mexicans in the US to resist injustice and register to vote, with US-born drummer Randy Ebright at the mike: "You'd better run yeah that figures; cause I pull my trigger on you brotherkilla man, I'll kick your ass yo mismo (myself) for supporting el racismo . . . hasta la vista." The song became an anthem for Rock the Vote activists, organising immigrants to vote against discriminatory measures such as California's Proposition 187, a referendum which removed healthcare rights from undocumented immigrants.
Drummer Randy is known as the crazy gringo who picked up on punk music to escape the asphyxiating world of anglo-Mexican privilege. "I was an embassy kid," he explained. His family moved from New Orleans to Mexico City eight years ago, when his father got a job in the US embassy, raising their class profile from lower-middle to elite-bilingual. "I just hammered away at the skins and ignored everything else around me," he said.
In Gimme Power, main vocalist Mickey satirises Mexico's political class, who always need more power, "so they can come around to joder [screw] you". The chunky rhythm blends punk, rap and hip hopsounds, while a subversive marimba pops up uninvited, adding a mellow, discordant tone.
At a press conference last week, an Argentinean rock journalist asked the band if they felt an affinity with US gangster rap, a question greeted with smiles and raised eyebrows by the band. "Gangster rap has been around for decades in Mexico," explains Tito Fuentes, referring to Mexico's norteno music, a speeded-up version of country and western. "It's played by macho men in cowboy boots, with gold-plated pistols and big trucks who smuggle dope and liquor over the US border and trade bullets with the migra (US border patrol)," adds Randy, "We really don't have the guns or the wardrobe to compete with them."
The band recently played a sellout gig in Buenos Aires's Cement Club, an old bakery in the heart of the city, where a thousand teenagers sang along to every one of the two dozen tracks. Backstage the four band members looked oddly out of place, as if they had crashed someone else's party, while their fans, with body piercings and baggy pants, looked like they were the ones who should have taken the stage.
Molotov's latest record was produced by Mario Caldati Jr, at the Beastie Boys' New York studio, smoothing some of the rough edges off the band's raw noise rap. In addition the band has begun to dig deep into its Mexican roots, borrowing musicians from villages in Veracruz, famed for jarocho, a romantic ballad style. Dedicated music fans, Molotov lap up everything from the new Rage against the Machine album to James Brown, Fugazi to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. If you close your eyes and listen to the music a rainbow of influences comes to mind, from guitar maestro Link Wray to rhumba and cha cha cha, with Ice T thrown in for good measure.
"We're still searching for our own sound," admits Tito, the band's elderly statesman, who played in jazz bands before selling his soul to hip-hop. He explained how each band member wrote and composed three songs each on the new Apocalypshit record. The tropical collage technique threatened to convert the recording process into a collection of individual mini-albums, but the hand of Beastie Boys' producer Caldati soldered the pieces into one powerful collection.
The band expressed little interest in cracking the mainstream US market, even though their first album went gold. "We'd prefer to be big in Irlanda," says Paco, with a grin.
