Nueva canción

Songs reflecting conflict have a long history in Spanish, and in Latin America were particularly associated with the "corrido" songs of Mexico's War of Independence after 1810, and the early 20th century years of Revolution. Nueva canción then surfaced almost simultaneously during the 1960s in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Spain. The musical style emerged shortly afterwards in other areas of Latin America where it came to be known under similar names. Nueva canción renewed traditional Latin American folk music, and was soon associated with revolutionary movements, the Latin American New Left, liberation theology, hippie and human rights movements due to political lyrics. It would gain great popularity throughout Latin America, and left an imprint on several other genres like rock en español, cumbia and Andean music.

Nueva canción musicians often faced censorship, exile, torture, death, or forceful disappearances by the wave of right-wing military dictatorships that swept across Latin America and the Iberian peninsula in the Cold War era.