Mano Negra – Senor Matanza

Casa Babylon, 1994: after Cargo 92 and the Colombian train

In May 1994, Mano Negra released Casa Babylon on Virgin France, their fourth and final studio album. Señor Matanza is track four, written by Manu Chao with the band, and runs about four minutes. Much of the record was tracked at Studio Ornano in Paris, with further work in Cologne, New York and Buenos Aires. By release, the group had already fractured after Cargo 92 and the Colombian train tour that Ramon Chao later documented. The single still went out with Manu Chao’s voice at the centre.

The lyric names a figure who owns the taxi, the shots, the land, the paramilitary, the federal agent, the school and the pawnshop. "Matanza" means slaughter. It is not a portrait of one named boss so much as a map of how power, drugs and silence lock a city. The arrangement mixes Latin rhythm, rock guitar and spoken asides in the patchanka style the band had built since the late 1980s: Spanish lyrics, street noise, no polite border between genres.

François Bergeron directed the video on location in Colombia with Manu Chao. The clip treated the song like a short film rather than a stage mime. Fidel Nadal appears among the album guests. Other Casa Babylon titles such as Santa Maradona and Viva Zapata share the same late-period Mano Negra mix of politics, football and radio scraps. Album credits still list Antoine Chao, Santiago Casariego, Philippe Teboul, Daniel Jamet, Joseph Dahan, Thomas Darnal and Pierre Gauthé beside Manu Chao, even as several had stepped back from the road. The Spanish chorus helped the track travel on Latin American radio after the French band had effectively ended.