Happy Mexican Independence Day to those who celebrate.
There are festivities all over Mexico, as well as in many cities in the United States.
It’s a sign of how Mexican culture has spread through the world, and it reminds me of how Mexican music and movies made an impact in a place you might not expect: post-war Yugoslavia.
This is also a story about how the geopolitics of the Cold War were often much more complicated than just the US and its allies vs. the Soviet Union and its allies.
Yugoslavia came under Communist Party control in 1946, but only a few years later, the country’s leaders fell out with Josef Stalin and the USSR’s leadership over which of their two nations should be the dominant force in the Balkans.
This was a big deal in Cold War relations, of course, but it also had an effect on culture.
Yugoslavia’s regime couldn’t show Soviet movies in its theaters, or sell records of Soviet music, or broadcast Soviet TV shows.
But since it was still a Communist country, it also didn’t want to import movies and music and TV shows from the US or other Western countries.
So they turned to a third option: Mexico.
While Mexico definitely wasn’t a Communist country, it did have movies and music that told a story of revolutionary heroes who stood up for the people against the wealthy and powerful.
Which is what Yugoslavia’s leaders had tried to portray the Communist Party as doing in their country.
In the 50s and early 60s, Mexican culture started showing up all over Yugoslavia, and over time, Yugoslavian performers started doing their own versions, especially when it came to music.
Yugoslavian bands started dressing in traditional Mexican suits and performing mariachi songs the way bands in North America did.
Over time, these bands started adding some of their own culture to the music, and singing in their own language.
The hybrid style known as Yu-Mex became hugely popular, with millions of Yugoslavian fans digging the sounds.
Eventually it was overtaken in the mid to late 60s by rock and pop sounds, and of course in the 1990s, Yugoslavia broke up into a bunch of other countries.
There aren’t a lot of people carrying the torch for a style of music that was popular over a half century ago in a country that isn’t on the map anymore.
But of course that’s what this show is all about, giving those once popular moments in music and culture a second look, right?
Maybe next, we’ll blend Finnish heavy metal music with Brazilian bossa nova.
What’s even wilder than a video of two bicyclists doing some of their best stunts?
A video of two bicyclists doing some of their best stunts… while also on a moving train!
In mid-’60s Yugoslavia, mariachi music was really popular (The World)
A Series of Bike Stunts Performed on a Moving Train (Neatorama)
