ABSTRACT
Like most of the world’s megapolises, Mexico City used to have a vibrant, yet ambivalent, music industry before the coronavirus crisis. In a way, the pandemic revealed and emphasised the pre-existing polarisation of the Mexican music sector. On a more global scale, the pandemic stressed and questioned the mediated nature of live music. This chapter explores these questions through the example of cumbia sonidera in Mexico City, a musical culture mainly related to low-income populations that challenges familiar notions of live music. For this purpose, I address the case of YouTube videos related to sonideros before and after the pandemic, showing how they function as ambiguous yet popular media within the sonidero economy. At the same time, these videos reshape sonidero culture through gendered and localised representations of poor neighbourhoods. I discuss this video production in relation to notions of popular music heritage on digital platforms.
