González, Rodrigo (1950–1985)

Rodrigo González, known as "Rockdrigo," was a Mexico City street musician who wrote and performed rock songs in Spanish with an acoustic guitar and harmonica in the early 1980s. He was born on December 25, 1950 in Tampico, Tamaulipas, and subsequently relocated to Mexico City, where he died on September 19 during the 1985 earthquake. He released the album Hurbanhistorias in 1985, and his friends subsequently compiled and released three others after his death. In 1984 Rockdrigo and friends founded the rupestre movement, a collective of soloist trovadours who produced semi-acoustic songs with social content to address daily trials and tribulations of life in Mexico City. Known as "el profeta del nopal" (the prophet of the nopal), a Bob Dylan type who employed Mexican humor, Rockdrigo composed songs that depicted the everyday reality of the lower socioeconomic classes and appealed to university-educated, middle-class audiences.

See alsoMusic: Popular Music and Dance .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Discography and Videography

González, Rodrigo. Hurbanhistorias. Mexico City: Pentagrama, 1985.

González, Rodrigo. Rodrigo González: El profeta del nopal. Mexico City: Pentagrama, 1986.

González, Rodrigo. Aventuras en el DeFe. Mexico City: Pentagrama, 1989.

González, Rodrigo. No estoy loco. Mexico City: Pentagrama, 1995.

Montero, Rafael. No tuvo tiempo: La hurbanhistoria de Rockdrigo. Mexico City: Pentagrama, 2005.

Secondary Works

Agustín, José. "Rockdrigo." In El hotel de los corazones solitarios. Mexico City: Nueva Imagen, 1999.

Hernández, Mark A. "Chronicles of Mexico City Life: The Music of Rockdrigo González." Studies in Latin American Popular Culture 26 (2007): 63-78.

López, Modesto, ed. Rockdrigo González: El profeta del nopal. Mexico City: Ediciones Pentagrama and Conaculta, 1999.

                                  Mark A. HernÁndez