IN STEREO

Because I know this is a project you are doing about the preservation of the old town or cultural heritage, I didn’t think I was going to be one of the interviewees. [I thought] there would have to be architects, engineers, anthropologists… And well, I did not think that I… I'm a musician, and that's another part of my life that I would like to tell you about. Can I tell you? Throughout the university degree in fine arts, I never agreed with Western music. We are against colonialism, even in music. I have always worn my [traditional indigenous] sandals, and whenever I had to take an exam and I was forced to wear a suit, I had to borrow one. I know what I'm going to do: fusion with indigenous rhythms, that's my idea.

There is a theme: ‘Do not let the culture die’. Culture lives in our memory. And that is what we want to achieve, that is the central theme. It would have to be done by research and technology, from all departments, which means anthropology and musicology. It would revalue all the Andean peoples, in their identity – not with any crap, but in its greatest act: when our music is made. When is [culture] lost? It is with politics. I have many friends who are from the country, and they do not even give them a space here. When is this going to die? When is politics going to die, and these shitty regulations? Culture and politics go hand in hand – this is where society has gone wrong. – Lucho