In January 2020, the world was starting to receive worrying news that a potentially deadly virus had emerged in China and was beginning to spread. We did not yet know the severity of the approaching pandemic, but immediately campaigns sprang up all over Latin America on how to avoid getting sick—wash your hands, keep social distance, cover your mouth when coughing, etc. Little was yet said about wearing masks, and the imposition of lockdowns was unthinkable.

It was at this very beginning that the Mexican singer Mr Cumbia released “La Cumbia del Coronavirus” last January. Throughout the 2020 months of February and March, various artists from all over Latin America followed suit.

By then, the pandemic was still in the beginning and nobody had any idea that the world would practically stop in the following months. By mid-March of last year, Argentina and Costa Rica decided to close schools, Bolivia and Colombia reinforced their borders, Chile and Mexico banned fans at soccer matches and other countries also adopted similar measures—although no Latin American country, aside from Brazil, had reported more than 100 infections at that time. Argentina reported its first death —and the first for the region— on March 8.

Back then, dozens of artists managed to find in music a way to have fun, even joke about the pandemic, but also to teach basic hygiene measures and, in the end, to vent about the whole situation that was soon going to get worse.

Full article at Latino Rebels’ website. Date of publication: 19/03/2021.