The news came at midnight this Thursday: the Mexican singer Peso Pluma will finally not perform at the Viña del Mar Festival, the most important musical event in Chile and one of the most relevant in Latin America that takes place every summer in the coastal city.
The artist announced the suspension of his show, in addition to the cancellation of his entire Latin American tour for “personal reasons,” according to the organization of the contest.
“We are sorry to inform you that due to personal reasons Peso Pluma will not be performing at the concerts/festivals scheduled in Viña del Mar, Lima and Asunción.
We hope to be able to return to these territories soon to give them the experience they deserve,” reported the singer's office.
Peso Pluma, which would be presented on March 1 to open the musical day, will be replaced by the Argentine artist Trueno (Mateo Palacios Corazzina), who will have the mission of closing the show, while the Argentine María Becerra will now be the one who will now give the lead. welcome that day.
Since 2016, Trueno has become a musical phenomenon in Latin America.
After triumphing in the world of
freestlye,
the singer entered the world of music mixing different styles.
He has had contributions with great references such as Cypress Hill, Víctor Heredia, J. Balvin, Natthy Peluso and Duki, among others.
The cancellation of the Peso Pluma
show
at the Viña Festival is the corollary of a controversy that broke out last January when questions arose about his invitation to the contest.
It was an opinion column by Chilean sociologist Alberto Mayol that started the fires.
In it he criticized that a public event, broadcast by a state channel, National Television of Chile (TVN), gave a platform to someone he classified as a “promoter of narco culture.”
Mayol's column, titled
Featherweight in Viña: Sometimes you have to listen to the voice of the narco,
on the
BioBioChile portal,
encouraged its readers to imagine a scenario in which an event of the magnitude of the Viña Festival is invited to a pedophile—making it clear that this is an absurd hypothesis—, to then contrast the presence of Peso Pluma and what it means for a state channel like National Television and the management of the municipality of Viña del Mar to invite figures like him.
The lyrics of the artist's songs encouraged a debate in Chile.
And after Mayol's words came the blows of the tail.
Representative Joanna Pérez, from the centrist Democrats party, presented a bill to prohibit the participation of artists who promote drug trafficking and other criminal activities in massive events financed with public resources, while the TVN board that broadcasts the musical event requested to cancel participation. of the Mexican singer, arguing that "he cannot share, transmit, or promote repertoires alluding to violence, drug trafficking and other elements related to the so-called narcoculture."
It is a request that was later withdrawn by the same board and its president, Francisco Vidal, assumed that he had made a mistake.
After several days of debate, on January 12, the Festival organization confirmed the participation of Peso Pluma in Viña del Mar and stated “that it will not incur any type of censorship or discrimination.”
Likewise, he noted that "Viña del Mar also recognizes the phenomenon of new musical genres and expects a successful six-night closing where the music and talent of the different artists will continue to be the pillar of the largest Latin Festival in the world."