This week, my chosen song is Hasta la Raíz, created and released on August 30, 2020, by the YouTube channel Playing for Change. This song, whose title translates to English as Down to Your Roots, was initially written and performed by Mexican recording artist Natalia Lafourcade for her 2015 album under the same name. The song sings the importance of remembering your roots, which include your family, friends, home, experiences, and love. However, in the video I have selected, the song is used to convey additional meanings alongside this, which is clearly expressed to the audience during the film’s intro. This intro informs watchers about the Day of the Disappeared, which is a holiday celebrated throughout South America and Mexico in honor of the forced disappearances of thousands of individuals across those countries due to many factors, including war, drug trafficking, and other violence. The holiday was established in 2010 by the UN and has since been celebrated each year on August 30 as a day to remember the ones who were lost and the despair their families felt, but also to rekindle the hope that each missing person will one day go back to their families.

When listening to the music in the video, the audience will hear this solemn feeling flow into them as the instrumentation, which consists of varying chordophones, rattles, drums, a harmonica, and many others, is played at a slow, relaxed tempo that conveys the reflection and remembrance that occurs on the Day of the Disappeared. However, despite the sorrow commonly felt on this day and expressed in the music, the lyrics of the song reflect the feelings of love and a yearning for reunion through words stating, “The importance of remembering your roots, which includes your family, friends, home, experiences, and love.”

I chose this song this week because I feel that the message conveyed through this particular recording needs to be heard and seen. Thousands of people have been taken and, therefore, thousands of families who have suffered from their disappearance, broken by the fact that they don’t know where their loved ones have gone. This YouTube channel knows that, although people may not be able to make a direct influence from where they watch the video, sharing the names and faces of the individuals who have disappeared and their loved ones while playing music leads to a unified hope and a stronger voice for, as the channels name suggests, change.