Mecate are a
rap music
Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
group from
El Salvador
El Salvador (; , meaning " The Saviour"), officially the Republic of El Salvador ( es, República de El Salvador), is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south b ...
.
History
The band was born at some stage during 1998 in Jorge Manuel's (a.k.a. "Piocha") house. Piocha was a talented guitarist with some exposure to the Salvadoran rock scene who often experiment musically with Ernesto Asecas ("Neto") and Enrique Salopino ("Pino") who both lacked musical background and had only recently been exposed to hip-hop music.
With time the experiment took a more defined shape and added new recruits, including drummer Carlos Alfredo (alias "Kalimba"), Rafa, and chorus girl and dancing king Jose Manuel ("Lady"). The sessions culminated in an ill-fated performance during a school event in the Salvadoran British School (ABC), where the band performed their original track "Armando Pleito." Audience members were reported to have been "thoroughly disgusted" by the lack of skill, talent, and "any sort of entertainment value whatsoever"; backstage the band was escorted by the event organizer and invited to retire from the music scene indefinitely.
But their ingenuity kept them going, and with the aid of
Fruity Loops
FL Studio (previously known as FruityLoops before 2003) is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by the Belgian company Image-Line.
FL Studio features a graphical user interface with a pattern-based music sequencer. The program is availa ...
software, Neto, Lady, and Kique began to prepare some home-brewed tracks. Only after several attempts did the band manage to get some of their tracks on the air.
With the single "El Directo", Mecate tapped a vein in the country's conscience, by playing in the mainstream's ears the story of a heavily controversial underaged gang-member accused of at least 18 killings.
[''Central America Newspak'', The Center, 1999, p. 159] The title created serious debate in the local media, including a ruling by the Interior Minister to ban it from the airwaves.
[Martinez, Mario]
Retiran música vulgar de las radioemisoras
, elsalvador.com. Retrieved October 26, 2018
The band disbanded in order to pursue academic studies. However, thanks to the Internet they kept making sporadic attempts to reenter the Salvadoran airwaves with a few tracks such as "Poder Latino" and "Prototipo" and eventually contributions with
Pescozada
Pescozada is a hip-hop group formed in Chalatenango, El Salvador. Their name means "slap" or "punch" (usually in the face) in modern Spanish. They are also well known throughout El Salvador for addressing political situation, its problems, and ...
for "Movimiento" and Ayutush for "Paranoia". At some stage the talented Demetrio Soto Martinez ("Demi") joined the group and laid down what are arguably some of the best verses to date in Latin hip-hop, with a unique rhyme style.
References
{{Reflist
Salvadoran rappers