Alfredo Villar in conversation with Karen Bernedo

No figure has had more impact on Peruvian popular culture than Lorenzo Palacios Quispe, known as “Chacalón”. A musical idol, hero of the working class, saint and prophet of the dispossessed, his memory has attained legendary stature in a country constantly struggling against despair and injustice. Papá Huayco is a novel portraying the life of Chacalón through a range of voices that speak through a poetic register and the language of the street, telling a story which is also that of so many thousands of Peruvians, who came to Lima in the last half of the 20th century. Alfredo Villar is a curator, art historian, music researcher, writer and DJ, and he has recently published the widest-ranging study carried out into Peruvian Cumbia: Yawar chicha: los ríos profundos de la música tropical peruana. In conversation with Karen Bernedo.