In Prague last September, 1,000 a thousand Italians in white overalls linked arms and marched toward a city bridge, facing down tanks which guarded a meeting of world bankers. The Italians belonged to the militant Ya Basta'Monos Blancos group. They wore mock body armour and had a huge stereo which blasted Clandestino, the first solo album by Manu Chao.
Thousands of people from dozens of countries sang along to the irresistible refrain of the title track, which lists the unwanted flotsam washed up by an unjust economic order: "Peruano, clandestino, Nigeriano, clandestino, Boliviano clandestino." It was a defining moment, a single piece of music pulling together the loose strands of a kaleidoscopic counter-globalisation movement.
Representatives of the Italian government approached Chao last month to mediate with protesters at next weekend's G-8 summit meeting in Genoa. "I'm an ambassador for myself and no one else," he said, rejecting the offer.
A week later the singer played to 100,000 people in Milan, where he invited members of the Monos Blancos on stage, urging fans to go to Genoa where Chao will lead a street protest in favour of migrants.
Nearly seven Six years ago, before that, on an improvised stage in the Springhill housing estate, in west Belfast, vocalist Manu Chao and his band, Mano Negra, kicked a soccer ball around and sang: "The people united will never be divided."
The pace and passion of the Mano Negra concert had the locals tapping their feet, until hips reluctantly began to move and finally modesty was cast aside and women in pencil skirts stage-dived beside the nose-ringed brigade.
Mano Negra was a pioneering post-punk band which created Alterlatino, a new genre of music combining punk, salsa, reggae, rap, rhythm and blues. If Clash singer Joe Strummer had been born in Bolivia and formed a band from local street musicians, this is how it might have sounded.
While Latino rock bands rewrote Led Zeppelin riffs to impress their peers, Alterlatino bands found inspiration in their own surroundings, forging an indigenous identity within an alternative rock idiom.
Mano Negra led a posse of bands such as like 'Los Fabulosos Cadillacs' and 'Todos Tus Muertos', in Argentina, (Argentina), attracting a fanatical following among a generation of a disillusioned young generation coming to terms with the aftermath of brutal military dictatorship.
However, Mano Negra was too big an enterprise to sustain, weighed down by the its multiple talents, as eight very different musicians constantly pushed their musical boundaries.
They travelled around Colombia by train for a year, performing in a brightly-coloured carriage. The Colombian army intervened when the band tried to drag the train carriage through the streets of Bogotβ, emulating Fitzcarraldo, to play their final gig in the main square of the capital city.
When Mano Negra came to an end, vocalist Chao packed a mini-recording studio into his bag and took off around the world, a footloose troubadour in search of a new sound. Three years later, he returned with his solo album 'Clandestino', (1998) (1998), with 16 tracks reflecting a multicultural monologue inside Manu Chao's head, transporting the listener from Algeria to Argentina.
The album took off by word of mouth and soon hit the French top 20, twenty, where it stayed for 18 months, selling two million copies. Manu Chao sang in Spanish, French, English and Portuguese, tracing the solitude of modern living across several continents.
Cuban rhythms collided with techno beats while fragile melodies sang to bruised Brazilian street kids. From the metropolis of Mexico City to the Lacandon Jjungle, in south-east Mexico, Chao balanced bitterness with celebration. 'Clandestino' was the view from below, on the beach at Ceuta, at the tip of southern Spain, where the corpses of desperate Moroccan immigrants wash up ashore as watched by indifferent Spanish holiday-makers look on. It is also the wind from below, as Pachamama (Mother Earth) raised her head to send a final wake-up call before total destruction.
The last sound on the album was a desolate wind blowing across a bleak desert. ManuChao, aged (40,) is a smiling, handsome ruffian who says he would have been a football hooligan had it not been for the divine intervention of punk rock.
His father Ram≤n is a pianist and writer, chief Latin-American editor for Radio France Internationale, the French World Service. He was born in Paris to a Basque mother. Manu Chao's grand-parents were communists, exiled to Algeria and Cuba, where they amassed a giant record collection.
Chao began playing guitar as a child, his brother Antoine taking up the drums. By 14, Chao was playing in a band called Recuerdo la de Viroflay, singing in "grave tones" and standing absolutely still, a far cry from the manic pogo days ahead. Proud parents introduced their children to flamenco and classical music while Chao and Antoine added rock, ska, reggae, punk and rap to the mix. Mano Negra was born.
These days, Chao's live group consists of whichever whatever musicians he happens to meet up with on the road. Now he has released his long-awaited follow-up to 'Clandestino', entitled 'Pr≤xima Estaci≤n- - Esperanza ("Next Stop - Hope").
The new album picks up the same themes as 'Clandestino' but visits global time zones, checking into Havana (5 a.m.) and Managua (11 p.m.) before asking what time it is in England. and Mozambique. The time motif is reminiscent of the American Indian habit of checking out an outsider's credentials: "Does he know what time it is?" they ask.
The last Mano Negra album, 'Casa Babylon', began with the war-cry "Alerta Bogotβ!", and this one opens with a single spoken word: "Atento!", ("listen up"). Chao's pared-down acoustic sound lacks the big noise of the punk era, but the fragile melodies and soulful insights prove more powerful than the lump hammer of the hardcore scene.
This is the soundtrack to the streets of Seattle and Gothenburg, Los Angeles and La Paz, a record with its feet off the ground and its heart taking up residence wherever people struggle for a more dignified existence. It's not surprising that Chao has emerged in these times; what is remarkable is that he has entered the mainstream, becoming one of Europe's most successful artists. In the past month, the new album has gone to number one in Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium. It made number three in Austria, number six in Germany and, on June 30th, knocked Radiohead and REM off the top of the Eurochart to become number one on Billboard magazine's chart of charts for all European countries. The new album is already number three also went to number three in New York, a sign that English-speaking audiences are finally sitting up and taking notice.
'Pr≤xima Estaci≤n - Esperanza' showcases fresh musical growth, from the Arabic lilt on 'Denia' to the ragtime-jazz sound of 'Trapped By Love'. The likely hit from the album will beis 'Me Gustas Tu', part nursery rhyme, part rhumba, a 'Macarena' with brains and balls. There are laughing boxes, snippets of some crackly old film, a touch of the Moulin Rouge, a nod towards The Jungle Book, and tribute paid to the pleasures of marijuana. The song went to number one when it was released in Spain.
In the Mano Negra days, Chao associated the group with political issues, a trend he has continued, fame and fortune notwithstanding; "I'm completely in support of the anti-globalisation movement," he says. said, "I donate royalties to the Zapatistas in Chiapas and I don't trust politicians - you've got to act on a neighbourhood level." Chao is unlikely to sit back and enjoy his fame and fortune. "You've got to keep breaking new ground and leaving behind what you already know," he said in a recent interview.
A recurring motif on 'Clandestino' was the "rumbo perdido", the "lost path", as Chao willingly hit the road, heading into the unknown, losing himself in order to find himself afresh. His latest record finishes with the triumph of love over bitterness. "Mama, can I have a child?" asks a little boy, his mother tenderly explaining the laws of nature.; "I'll always be by your side," she says, as a tape loop repeats the child/mother exchange, along with a voice from the Spanish metro: "Pr≤xima Estaci≤n - Esperanza."
Pr≤xima Estaci≤n - Esperanza is on Sony. More information about Manu Chao can be found at www.manuchao.net