The 1990s music scene was unique in that the two genres that dominated the charts—alternative rock and rap—seemed to have little in common. But that perception would change in 1991 when a Los Angeles Chicano named Zack de la Rocha melded the two art forms together in the rap-rock outfit Rage Against the Machine. Influenced by punk bands such as Minor Threat and militant rap groups such as Public Enemy, de la Rocha delivered angry rhymes about social injustice over heavy metal riffs as front-man of the group. His biography reveals how personal experiences with discrimination led de la Rocha to pen raps that challenged racism and inequality.
Early Years
Zack de la Rocha was born Jan. 12, 1970, in Long Beach, Calif., to parents Roberto and Olivia. Because his parents parted ways when he was very small, de la Rocha initially split his time between his Mexican-American father, a muralist in the group “Los Four,” and his German-Irish mother, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Irvine. After his father began to exhibit signs of mental illness, destroying artwork and praying and fasting nonstop, Zack de la Rocha lived exclusively with his mother in Irvine. In the 1970s the Orange County suburb was nearly all white.
Irvine was the polar opposite of Lincoln Heights, the predominantly Mexican-American community of Los Angeles that de la Rocha’s father called home. Because of his Hispanic heritage, de la Rocha felt racially alienated in Orange County. He told Rolling Stone magazine in 1999 how humiliated he felt when his teacher used the racially offensive term “wetback” and his classmates erupted in laughter.
“I remember sitting there, about to explode,” he said. “I realized that I was not of these people. They were not my friends. And I remember internalizing it, how silent I was. I remember how afraid I was to say anything.”
From that day forward, de la Rocha vowed never again to remain silent in the face of ignorance.
Inside Out
After reportedly dabbling in drugs for a spell, de la Rocha became a fixture in the straight-edge punk scene. In high school he formed the band Hard Stance, serving as vocalist and guitarist for the group. After that, de la Rocha launched the band Inside Out in 1988. Signed to the Revelation Records label, the group came out with an EP called No Spiritual Surrender. Despite some industry success, the group’s guitarist decided to leave and Inside Out disbanded in 1991.
Rage Against the Machine
After Inside Out broke up, de la Rocha began to explore hip-hop, rapping, and break-dancing in clubs. When Harvard-educated guitarist Tom Morello spotted de la Rocha performing a freestyle rap in a club, he approached the budding MC afterward. The two men found that they both espoused radical political ideologies and decided to share their viewpoints with the world through song. In Fall 1991, they formed rap-rock band Rage Against the Machine, named after an Inside Out song. In addition to de la Rocha on vocals and Morello on guitar, the band included Brad Wilk on drums and Tim Commerford, a childhood friend of de la Rocha, on bass.
The band soon developed a following in L.A.’s music scene. Just a year after RATM formed, the band released a self-titled album on influential label Epic Records. While promoting the album in 1992, de la Rocha explained to the Los Angeles Times his mission for the group.
“I wanted to think of something metaphorically that would describe my frustrations toward America, toward this capitalist system and how it has enslaved and exploited and created a very unjust situation for a lot of people,” he said.
Zach De La Rocha News
The message resonated with the public. The album went triple platinum. It included references to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, South African apartheid, a Eurocentric educational curriculum, Fand other social issues. The band’s sophomore album Evil Empire, a reference to a Ronald Reagan speech on the Cold War, touched on de la Rocha’s Hispanic heritage with songs such as “People of the Sun,” “Down Rodeo” and “Without a Face.” Evil Empire also achieved triple platinum status. The band’s last two albums the Battle of Los Angeles (1999) and Renegades (2000), went double platinum and platinum, respectively.
Although Rage Against the Machine was undoubtedly one of the most influential bands of the 1990s, de la Rocha decided to leave the band in October 2000. He cited creative differences but stressed that he was pleased with what the band had accomplished.
'I am extremely proud of our work, both as activists and musicians, as well as indebted and grateful to every person who has expressed solidarity and shared this incredible experience with us,' he said in a statement.
A New Chapter
Almost seven years after the breakup, Rage Against the Machine fans received some long-awaited news: the band was reuniting. The group performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., in April 2007. The reason for the reunion? The band said it felt compelled to speak out in light of Bush administration policies they found intolerable.
Since the reunion, the band has yet to release more albums. The members are involved in independent projects. De la Rocha, for one, performs in the group One Day as a Lion with former Mars Volta member Jon Theodore. The band released a self-titled EP in 2008 and performed at Coachella in 2011.
Musician-activist de la Rocha also launched an organization called Sound Strike in 2010. The organization encourages musicians to boycott Arizona in light of the state’s controversial legislation targeting undocumented immigrants. In a Huffington Post piece, de la Rocha and Salvador Reza said of the strike:
“The human impact of what is happening to immigrants and their families in Arizona calls into question the same moral and ethical imperatives that the civil rights movement did. Are we all equal before the law? To what extent can states and local law enforcement officers engage in human and civil rights violations against an ethnic group that has been completely vilified in the eyes of the white political majority?”
Artist Biography by Kieran McCarthy
Zack de la Rocha is one of the biggest and most well-respected names in alternative music, known equally for his militant political activism and passionate vocal delivery. In the '90s he rose to fame as frontman for Rage Against the Machine, and used that pedestal as a catalyst to further his left-wing political beliefs. To understand the motives for de la Rocha's vocal stylings, one must first trace back his philosophical roots. His story begins in Irvine, CA, during the '70s and '90s, with de la Rocha growing up as a Hispanic youth in one of the most ethnically white areas of California. His mother was an anthropology Ph.D. and his father, Belo de la Rocha, was a well-known muralist, famous for his paintings of Zapatista farmers. His parents separated at an early age and Zack split his time between his two parents. When Zack was 13 years old, his father had a nervous breakdown and subjected his son to extreme religious asceticism. Soon, he could no longer cope with his father's fanaticism and chose to move in with his mother full-time.
Within a few years, de la Rocha began to express his feelings of anger and isolation by listening to hardcore punk music, including Minor Threat, Black Flag, and Bad Religion. Before long, he had joined his first high-school band, Hardstance, where he contributed both guitars and vocals. This band later evolved into Inside Out, which would eventually release one album on Revelation Records in 1991. As he grew older, he strayed away from his rock influences and became increasingly affected by a stream of hip-hop artists, such as KRS-One and Run-D.M.C. This is about the time when he bumped into Tom Morello, a Harvard-educated political science major and kindred soul in socialist thought. The two clicked musically and intellectually and started a band together, which de la Rocha dubbed Rage Against the Machine. With a backdrop of heavy metal riffs and Morello's clever distortion techniques, de la Rocha's hip-hop-tinged vocals singed with unparalleled intensity. It wasn't long before the two were on the main stage at Lollapalooza II and became one of the most politically volatile bands ever to receive extensive radio and MTV airtime.
Soon, de la Rocha became one of the most visible champions of liberal causes around the world. The band's first video, 'Freedom,' was a mini-documentary about the plight of Leonard Peltier, a Native American convicted of killing two FBI agents. De la Rocha also became a prominent spokesman for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal movement and picked up his father's cause in support of Zapatista rebels in Mexico. De la Rocha's activism took him as far as the floor of the U.N., where he testified against the United States in their treatment of Abu-Jamal. The band's music and message were so closely intertwined that de la Rocha did not consider his albums successes unless they resulted in tangible political change. Their second and third albums both peaked at number one, but the political windfall was not what he had hoped for. Increasingly restless, he embarked upon collaborative projects with KRS-One and Chuck D. By the end of 2000, de la Rocha announced that he was leaving the band.
In 2001, de la Rocha was recording, on separate occasions, with Roots drummer ?uestlove and former Company Flow frontman El-P, as well as with producers DJ Shadow, Dan the Automator, Roni Size, and DJ Premier. Rumors of a potential release date circulated, but the project was ultimately scrapped. Soon after, de la Rocha took on another endeavor with Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor, but of the 20 songs that the duo recorded, only 'We Want It All' saw the light of day, on the 2004 compilation Songs and Artists That Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11. Aside from making some appearances at political rallies and guesting on other artists' albums -- including Blazing Arrow by Blackalicious and In the Mode by Roni Size & Reprazent -- de la Rocha remained relatively quiet as a solo artist until 2008, when he teamed up with onetime Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore to form One Day as a Lion. A new version of Last.fm is available, to keep everything running smoothly, please reload the site.
Popular this week
digging for windows
Zack De La Rocha Age
164 listeners
Latest release
digging for windows [Explicit]
Run The Jewels Zack De La Rocha
Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California, United States (1970 – present)
Zacarías Manuel de la Rocha (born January 12, 1970 in Long Beach, California) is a rapper, musician, poet and activist, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of Rage Against the Machine. His latest release has been under the name One Day As A Lion.
In 1983, de la Rocha's father Roberto (known as Beto)—a member of Los Four, the first Chicano art collective to be exhibited at a major museum (LACMA, 1974)—suffered a nervous breakdown and… read more
Top Tracks
Rank | Play | Loved | Track name | Buy | Options | Listeners |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | digging for windows | 164 listeners | ||||
2 | C.I.A. (Criminals In Action) | 35 listeners | ||||
3 | We Want It All | 27 listeners | ||||
4 | C.I.A. (Criminals In Action) (with Krs-One & the Last Emperor) | 1 listener | ||||
5 | C.I.A. (Criminals In Action) [Explicit] | 1 listener | ||||
6 | Battleflag | 1 listener | ||||
7 | Constructive Rukus (C.I.A. [Criminals In Action] Rmx) | 1 listener |
Top Albums
- 28,557 listeners
- 16,659 listeners
- 1,120 listeners
- 308 listeners
- 19 listeners
- 12 listeners
Similar Artists
Don't want to see ads? Subscribe now
API Calls
Zack de la Rocha is an American musician and activist, born in Long Beach, California on January 12, 1970. He is best known as the singer of the rock band Rage Against the Machine. While in high school he joined the band Hard Stance that evolved into the band Inside Out. The band released a single album together titled No Spiritual Surrender in 1990. In 1991 he helped form the band Rage Against the Machine. While together they released 4 studio albums, 2 live albums, and 17 singles. They won two Grammy Awards and were nominated for a total of six. In 2008 they were inducted into the Kerrang Hall of Fame. In 2000 the band broke up and Zack decided to pursue a solo career. He worked on a solo album and a number of songs, but none were ever released. In 2007 Rage Against the Machine reunited and toured around the United States and internationally until 2011. In 2008 Zack helped form the band One Day as a Lion and they released one EP while together titled One Day as a Lion. He has also been involved in activism for a number of different causes and spoke on the floor of UN about the treatment of Abu-Jamal by the United States.