Simón Mejía, the founder of Bomba Estéreo, has a passion for environmental justice.
Beautiful video, music to dance and calm. Watch this.
Excerpt from this story from Grist:
Environmental justice may not sound like it’d make for a good bop, but “Déjame Respirar,” the new release from Bomba Estéreo, one of Colombia’s most popular bands, manages to be equal parts deforestation PSA and dance party mood setter. That’s basically par for the course for the group, whose members believe musical roots cannot be separated from the land that inspired them.
The music video for the song, which translates to “Let me breathe,” acts as a kind of love letter to (and perhaps, from) the Colombian rainforest and its denizens. It opens with an aerial view of a wide river flanked by lush greenery. Birds chirp as a boat speeds along the curves. The scene shifts to a bonfire, where an Indigenous woman sings as constellations appear and disappear from view. The visuals are part of a documentary collaboration between Simón Mejía, the founder and bassist of Bomba Estéreo, Stand for Trees, a nonprofit that works to protect endangered forests, and the American actor Joaquin Phoenix.
Bomba Estéreo is known for bangers like “Soy Yo” (I’m me), “To My Love”, and “Internacionales” (Internationals). A lot of the band’s music has a feel-good, funk-meets-pop sound that’s also inspired by Latin American genres like cumbia and champeta. The group’s style is also central to Mejía’s passion for environmental justice: Without Indigenous and African influence, he asserts, modern Colombian music wouldn’t exist as it is today.
Here’s the documentary, “Sonic Forest,” which is 35 minutes long. The song you hear in the video above is part of the documentary, toward the end.
