All this week, the Song of the Day features artists playing this Saturday at Pachanga Fest.
As a teenager, Ceci Bastida joined a punk band, decrying the social conditions in her hometown of Tijuana. Bastida and her bandmember Julieta Venegas (who played last year at Pachanga) soon broke off from the group, but they didn’t give up their political roots. Bastida spent a decade backing up Venegas before going solo in 2010.
Her 2014 album, La Edad de la Violencia, is an honest look at Mexico’s problems, soundtracked by infectious synth-pop that’s just as dance-friendly as it is thought-provoking. Venegas guests on “Ven (Beautiful),” a track that Bastida wrote for her unborn daughter. “I always have focused on social issues,” she recently told Rookie, “but as soon as I got pregnant, I started thinking about the world in a different way. What kind of world was I bringing my daughter into?” Listen to the song below.
Ceci Bastida plays Saturday, May 16 at 5:30 p.m. on the HEB Pavilion Stage.