This article describes the historical process through which the music rock went from being a foreign cultural intrusion to become a cultural axis of regional identity by overcoming the national berries built in the early 20th century. We argue that the underlying basis of this move was audio capitalism: the ability to exchange cultural goods for money, ensuring the music economic sustainability. In the 50’s only the upper class was able to travel abroad, buy and play the emerging music of rock and roll that represented the post-war youth. However, due to the rock’s foreign origins, it interacted, challenged and put on the defensive national cultures with state support, in particular in Mexico. On several occasions, this cultural defense became a political repression in numerous countries. In the 70’s, several local governments banned the rock and roll music, creating an underground scene where rock not only survived but thrived. Nonetheless, in the 80’s rock and roll came out of its clandestine status, and the lower classes started using it as a platform to express their unjust reality, turning their music into political demands. In the 80’s, rock and roll became expression of the lower class, crossing different social classes in three decades. With the advent of MTV Latino in 1993, the cultural national frontiers collapsed in the imaginary of the audience, and the geographical spaces expanded to include Brazil, Miami, and Spain. Thus, the cultural medium that in the 50’s was part of the upper classes and in the 70’s put on the defense several Latin American governments, on the 90’s became the medium through which a new Ibero-American community was imagined in the youth that bought the music or watched MTV Latino.

Thesaurus: cultural activities; contemporary music; pop music; nation building