“Out with Milei,” read the Labor Party pamphlet I was handed at the Buenos Aires Pride March. It was early November, and I’d been in the city for about three weeks—hitting a couple of concerts each night, conducting buzzy rap interviews, and getting into viral trouble. I was overdue for some “me time,” but reality has a way of finding you even when lost in a sea of flesh. “[Javier] Milei’s 10 months are a nightmare for the Argentine people,” continued the text, an evisceration of the libertarian president’s polarizing and financially chaotic first year in office. The exorbitant cost of meals and lodging led me to believe they weren’t entirely exaggerating. Glancing back at the page, I chuckled at the silhouette of his signature ’60s shag stamped with a bold circle and slash through it. I’ve always admired this country’s refusal to take a crisis lying down, and that indomitable spirit—mixed with a healthy dose of melodrama—has forged one of the most idiosyncratic cultures in Latin America.
With ethnic roots stretching back to Italy and Spain, Argentina’s constitution could have been written in colorful paisano sign language. The nuances of their speech are shared only by their cousins in Uruguay, who also prefer informal vos conjugations and pronounce y’s and ll’s in a much-mimicked “sh.” Buenos Aires natives, known as porteños, are an especially proud and gregarious people. Casual conversation will inevitably lead to politics and sports, eliciting some sort of lament about the state of the economy and parting with a quote from their pantheon of tango and rock ’n’ roll gods.
In fact, Argentina’s musical canon is nothing short of mythical. Renowned tango pieces from Carlos Gardel and Astor Piazzolla emanate cinematic elegance synonymous with down-home gauchos and port city tenderloins, embodied immaculately by ballroom dancers around the world. Their rock movement is one of the first and most influential on the continent, boasting foundational beat records from Los Gatos, prog poets such as Luis Alberto Spinetta, and new romantics superstars Soda Stereo. The harrowing military dictatorships of the 1960s and ’70s propelled folk troubadours Mercedes Sosa and León Gieco into countercultural sainthood. And in subsequent decades, the avant-garde realms of Rosario Bléfari and Juana Molina were nourished by vast theatrical and literary glossaries, while the nation’s unparalleled workers’ movement embraced the mobilizing power of murga and cumbia villera.
Back at Pride, we, too, were mobilizing. More lurching rave than parade, glitter-spackled friend groups pooled around flatbed trucks commandeered by their favorite discos. It was refreshing to hear DJs spinning empowerment classics by Diana Ross and Lady Gaga interspersed with homegrown pop favorites Miranda! and Emilia. I caught performances from shimmering club kids Kei Drama, Electrochongo, and Faraonika, and spent most of the afternoon with synth-pop twinks Matt Montero and Ceretti, running for beer refills and pissing on police barricades.
I squealed at the sight of Chocolate Remix, the reggaeton artist behind the dissident anthems “Bien Bow” and “Otario.” I’d interviewed her years back, going deep on Argentina’s reproductive rights movement and the liberating power of raunchy dance music, and though we’d remained Instagram friends, our paths had never crossed. After a long hug and a quick catch-up, we joined the chants: “Mucho sexo gay, contra Milei,” we called while passing the presidential palace, referencing a homophobic cartoon shared weeks prior via the head of state’s social media. The response, “Mucho sexo anal, contra el capital,” expanded the scope of our satire—an art form that has long been queer people’s sharpest weapon against the status quo.
Politically charged music is essential to the sui generis of Argentine identity, not just reserved for partisan protests and discontented artists on the fringe. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, mustachioed bard Charly García philosophized about tyrannical oppression on hits like “Canción de Alicia en el país” and “Los dinosaurios.” He narrated gut-wrenching desolation from Buenos Aires as well as during his exile in Brazil, which at the time was also subject to iron-fisted rule, as his name gradually became shorthand for the eternal struggle of “us vs. them.”
Class solidarity is another pillar of Argentine society, and in the ’90s, Viejas Locas embodied blue-collar hustle on “Homero,” while La Renga and La Mosca Tsé-Tsé exulted the rapturous passions of soccer fans on enduring stadium anthems. Scraggly college rockers El Mato a un Policía Motorizado would later give voice to a generation lost in the fog of tragedy, following the country’s economic collapse of 2001 and the deadly fire at popular venue República Cromañón, in 2004. And mid-pandemic, rapper Trueno emerged as a wunderkind of freestyle and old-school hip-hop, proudly exulting the banner of proletariat stronghold La Boca.
Then there is Dillom. Once a minor player of Argentina’s massive trap movement, the impish agitator has grown into one of the gutsiest auteurs on the scene, with conceptual albums that examine gendered violence and parasocial relationships. His big break came in 2019, when he stepped into the booth with then-burgeoning producer Bizarrap, shrieking like a swine about how he makes trap while his peers put out trash. “Dillom: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 9” is an anomaly within the single most influential star-making platform of the past decade, one that has launched the careers of rap stars Milo J and Villano Antillano, in addition to the vengeful comeback of Colombian pop goddess Shakira. Most dismissed Dillom’s showing as a squandered opportunity, but his silly bars proved prophetic. After a few successful tracks, he released the horror-tinged blockbuster POST MORTEM, a sprawling project stuffed with rage, indie rock, and RKT that exposed the underachieving of juggernauts Duki and KHEA.
One of my first tasks while in Buenos Aires was to interview Dillom, who, after years of touring and racking up prestigious award nominations, had finally unveiled his much-anticipated sophomore LP, Por cesárea. Described as a psychological thriller, the jagged masterpiece examines trauma as a self-fulfilling cycle, with a fictional protagonist who falls into patterns of abuse and paranoia leading to his eventual demise. Digital trap instrumentals were replaced by pummeling rock ’n’ roll, dovetailing into a post-pandemic genre resurgence led by young musicians literally banding together to stave off loneliness.
I previously profiled Dillom in 2023, for Rolling Stone, so we’d established a friendly rapport and a certain degree of trust. This time, for Latin media site Remezcla, I grilled him about the historical significance of his rock reinvention and headline-making jabs at the president and the economy minister. We chatted at the offices of Bohemian Groove, the label behind the RIP Gang, which is a collective of artists he started alongside rappers ill quentin and Broke Carrey, now also housing Saramalacara, K4, Odd Mami, and Muerejoven. With projects delving into cloud rap, grunge, and tango, the Avengers of the porteño underground push audiovisual boundaries and remain fiercely collaborative despite their individual successes. The interview was enormously inspiring, and a few days later, my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I received an Instagram DM from Dillom inviting me to his ultra-exclusive Halloween party.
As a homosexual with a nightlife background, I take All Hallows Eve very seriously. My costumes are usually inspired by music videos and album covers, and after wracking my brain for a theme that would tickle local sensibilities, I landed on the artwork for Almendra’s 1969 self-titled debut—arguably the bible of Argentine rock. Depicting a weeping, Pagliacci-esque figure dressed in a pink T-shirt and striped headscarf, with a rubber arrow stuck to the top, the illustration conceived by bandleader Luis Alberto Spinetta is often interpreted as either a critique of the petit bourgeois or a caricature of one of his university professors.
Praying to the drag ancestors, I painted the word almendra onto a fuschia T-shirt I bought downtown and crafted the arrow from a thin plank of wood and a baby bottle. For the character’s sort-of-elongated swimmer’s cap, I was prepared to paint white stripes onto fuschia fabric; but a serendipitous Grindr date with a fashion designer turned into an excursion to the garment district, saving me the extra work. The night of the party, I assembled all the elements, made my best attempt at costume makeup, and glued on a paper teardrop fashioned from tax forms I had lying around. I gulped the rest of my malbec and rushed out the door, greeted by my Uber driver with a cheer and a chuckle.
The party was at some fancy bar in Buenos Aires’s Microcentro. Security was tight as I walked in with two industry colleagues, one dressed as Inspector Gadget and the other impersonating Puerto Rican reggaeton singer J Álvarez. The tunes were slamming . . . and there was Dillom, DJ-ing dressed as Beetlejuice, playing everything from Thriller to Brat. It was a hoot. My costume was also a success; a Yankee channeling a pillar of Argentine iconography was like fondling the balls of their sizable ego. I got pulled aside by a woman who introduced herself as a photographer, leading me to a small studio set up in the back. I posed like my life depended on it—after all, I didn’t go through the trouble of constructing a surrealist fantasy just to refuse high-quality snaps.
Though the night was filled with racy exploits I cannot spill here, I hoped to keep the high-profile fraternizing under wraps until after the Dillom story went live. He and I are cool, but I wouldn’t want conflict of interest to discredit either of our hard work. However, the next day, as I emerged from my hungover haze, my phone began to buzz uncontrollably. Turns out, the photographer was none other than Nora Lezano—perhaps the sharpest lens in Argentine music, revered for her intimate portraits of Charly García and Gustavo Cerati. I then found out the party was hosted not by Dillom but by pop superstar Lali, who shared the best pictures from the night (including mine) on her Instagram, broadcasting my campy twist on Almendra to her twelve million followers. I’m told I even made it onto the morning news.
This was one of two undesired brushes with viral celebrity during my month of porteño shenanigans. The other was the culmination of a marathon run of concerts I attended in the first days of my visit. I was staying about three blocks from the new venue, C Art Media, and caught tremendous shows from Mendoza indie rockers Mi Amigo Invencible and Chilean pop wizard Álex Anwandter, the latter with a short but riveting intermission by reborn disco diva Juliana Gattas. The space can accommodate about three thousand patrons, and while I never experienced it sold out, I raved comfortably during performances from British DJ Jamie xx and Spanish rage lord Rojuu. In more underground settings I saw neo-perreo vixens La Chera and Pielcitta, folksters El Príncipe Idiota and Simón Campusano, theatrical punk queen La Piba Berreta, and the grotesque industrial tango of Marttein, which was most mind-blowing of all.
One day, the Venezuelan YouTuber Doble R reached out to ask if I had tickets for the NAFTA show at the 15K-seater Movistar Arena. I confessed that I wasn’t a fan of the popular neo-soul group and didn’t plan on attending, but I could pull some strings at Sony and get back to him. Within minutes, two courtesy tickets landed in my WhatsApp, and I decided to join my friend for the groovy ride because in this business it’s prudent to reassess your ambivalence every once in a while. Sadly, groove was nowhere to be found. This was my second time seeing NAFTA live, so I didn’t expect their drowsy hymns to sweep me off my feet; but I was taken aback by just how bored the audience seemed—people chattered like a happy hour crowd with hotel-lobby music playing in the background. About thirty minutes in, my companion suggested we bounce and go for shawarma. No arm-twisting was required.
The next day, I took to the app formerly known as Twitter to articulate my dissatisfaction with NAFTA, arguing that music so deeply rooted in Black rhythms and experience had been whitewashed into Muzak. My viral critique was part of ongoing commentary on the tidal wave of R&B and disco-pop bands that have flooded easy-listening playlists in recent years, with Argentina reigning supreme on back of acts such as Bandalos Chinos, Silvestre y La Naranja, El Zar, and Conociendo Rusia. This struck a nerve not only with avid followers of the scene, but more so with people exhausted by hollow algorithm fodder. Class discourse recurred in the comments, casting these turtleneck-clad hipsters as, to quote a colleague, “flat white caramel funk.” As my viral stint drew in more faceless avatars and cantankerous streamers, I decided to step away and let the terminally online fight among themselves.
As a kid growing up in the Caribbean, I daydreamed of bohemian adventures in Argentina, fawning over the boisterous personalities and melodic accents I saw on MTV Latino and soccer telenovelas like Dibu and Cebollitas. In 2009, I dismantled my life in New York City and headed to Buenos Aires, where I spent a year attending public university, teaching English for meager wages, dancing countless nights away, and vexed by the social gridlock of near-constant protests and unfathomably tedious bureaucracy. Fifteen years later, and now looking through the lens of music, I’m still delighted and confounded by a culture simultaneously able to create the most-commercial tunes this side of Taylor Swift while still wary of the socioeconomic ramifications of message-less art.
My memory is filled with these expressive contrasts: an adorable Villa Crespo mural of kittens inlaid with a stern portrait of Karl Marx; the towering Eva Perón light installation erected blocks away from the aristocratic Teatro Colón; a map hung in the kitchen of electronic producer Coghlan, refocused to emphasize Argentina as the center of the world. Hell, I can’t wrap my head around how a country that has universal healthcare and free access to education would elect a government that campaigned on stripping away those very rights. But I suppose not everything is for me to get, and as an American, I’m certainly in no position to judge. So instead, I defer to the wisdom of the Argentine people and pray, “Mucho sexo anal, contra el capital.”
Richard Villegas is a music journalist, podcaster, and professional chismoso with bylines in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Bandcamp, and Remezcla. When not raging behind his desk in the Dominican Republic, you can find him traipsing through Latin America in search of fresh underground music and a cheap local beer.
Illustration: Sarah Sumeray
