Singing the Virus with Vernacular Whatsapp Latin Aesthetics

“Corona Sound Machine” is a digital collection of Latin music about the virus. In order to turn spreadable media (often considered as ephemeral junk) into a contemporary cultural archive, 15 Corona-related songs have been collected via Latin American Whatsapp groups. How to sing a global virus with Latino aesthetics? 🤔 Beyond Miami-centric cultural stereotypes, the pandemic blends with diverse traditional and modern genres inspiring multiple creative directions. This collection provides analytical comments about such vernacular phenomena. From vocal folk performances to synthetic post-Internet mashups, the featured contents below spread complex emotions (e.g. paradoxically trying to laugh during the tragedy or exorcizing fears about what may happen during the lockdown). They also express “viral” ideologies about collective preventive action, gendered normativities, celebrity cultures and social injustice.

Yes! “La Tigresa del Oriente” is a well-established viral artist from Perú: she’s been dubbed “La Reina de Youtube”. And she just updated her 2007 viral hit “Nuevo amanecer” in order to sing the current crisis: “Dear brothers (...) Coronavirus is all over the world (...) and this sickness is already in Perú”. She sings the globalized world and its porous borders before getting to the very frontiers of our bodies as surfaces for the virus: “If you wash yourself with soap, the virus won’t get inside you”. With her iconic Amazonic diva features, she’s also viralizing her transcendental sloganeering: “The pandemic will be over and a new dawn will come”. Neighboring countries are namechecked (🇲🇽, 🇦🇷, 🇧🇴, 🇧🇷) both as “anxiety-driven” target audiences and new potential virus locations.

This Mariachi-inspired song comes from Ecuador: Lucas Jiménez wrote it during the quarantine with his father on top of Vicente Fernández's mexican Ranchera classic “La Ley del Monte”. Typical macho “charro” values (i.e. “courage”, “strength”) are conveyed to “fight” the virus: “We will win together”. “Female nurses”, “policemen” and “military” forces are mentioned as helpful institutional “entities” working against the spread of the virus. “God’s help” is also required in the lyrics. #Coronavirus becomes a viral hashtag while local people are waiting for food supplies or social leisure activities in the background.

Who knows if those moves also inspired this 2020 “bleach” formula from their colleagues in Spain!

Here’s another Vallenato about the end of the world... Diomedes Díaz's 1992 apocalyptic verses are brought along to sing what happens on the 14th day of the quarantine: “The world is about to end” and “hunger will kill us”. In this vernacular mix, the social implications of the pandemic in Latin America are illustrated by vintage Disney cartoonish famine.

Have you heard about “Rap Medicina”? This Dominican Doctor (who also goes by the “R4” moniker as a rapper) is a true master of scientific knowledge and viral aesthetics. He thoroughly reminds our sensorium that there is an archaeology of other recent lethal viruses (SaRS, MERS-CoV): Don’t we live in a world whose structural features include a series of contemporary pandemic waves? Listen to him rap about the key facts and figures of the current CoVID19 crisis: its evolution, its symptoms and diagnosis and its lucid conclusion: “No cure, no vaccin”. Spreadability is precisely located with rhymes about “saliva drops”. A concrete preventive protocol goes viral with “R4’s” biopolitical flow and his didactic Powerpointesque aesthetics.

“Musica llanera” from Colombia is often used to sing the pandemic! This original song by Álvaro Perilla tries to make sense out of the current crisis in a very religious perspective: “The Bible had announced it” and “we have to trust Almighty God”. That’s the global framework for other common viral tropes which come along in his highly idiomatic and colloquial lyrics: “a 40°C fever”, the so-called “Bat soup”, etc. This is basically a “prayer” blending in equal parts of popular superstition and available knowledge.

Did you say Macarena?

#rhymeswithcuarentena #boredomisananagramforbedroom #domesticdisciplinarychores #whynotsneeze #superspreaderonomatopoeia #achú

This playful "QuarenSamba" is sung in Portuguese from the point of view of an old Brazilian man who eventually went viral and got remixed: “It’s killing the elderly and it’s killing the young! The so-called “Coronavirus” is killing the joy of the people!”. #miseenabyme #killercough #grandfinale

Is this the Colombian “Guasca” genre? In any case, we get to see a Paisa man spreading a bunch of gender clichés about the quarantine and “feminine” beauty. In the midst of this global pandemic, are misogynistic "fears" and machismo going viral too?

El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico’s 1985’s classic “No hay cama pa’ tanta gente” meets the pandemic with this viral Flintstone remix. The saying “There are not enough beds for so many people” can therefore be related to available Hospital beds. The lyrics tells us that the virus is happening outside: “You can get infected if you go to the street”.

This Cuban bouncy song namechecks the World Health Organization. It spreads the #QuédateEnCasa hashtag asking people to #StayAtHome. Does it turn the “coughing in your elbow” health measures into viral gimmicks or dance moves?

Yet another Mexican cumbia about the pandemic. This time the Coronavirus is presented as a “relative of Chikungunya” that spreads in “the city”: “If you’re not careful, it will kill you”. Accordingly enough (?) the musicians pretend to drink Corona beers.

“La Tía” is portrayed in this song as the main source for the “infodemic”: this imaginary (but very relatable) Latina “aunt” character keeps spreading “home made medicines” and “miracle cures” among her WhatsApp contacts. The irony is getting sick from her generous advices (e.g. "drink hot water and lemon juice"). During the Lockdown, virality happens across platforms: TikTok videos are circulated widely whenever they provide humorous stereotypes for “senior” audiences.

Closing remarks:
1. The global pandemic of Coronavirus inspires a Latin American cluster of spreadable songs.
2. Most of these songs go viral on WhatsApp while pretending to replicate anti-viral protective measures.
3. True embodied media virality happens when a catchy virus-related song gets stuck into your head.