Chacalón y la Nueva Crema

El Faraón de la Cumbia

Lorenzo Palacios Quispe, known as Chacalón, big jackal, was born on April 26, 1950 in La Victoria in Lima to a poor family from Ayacucho, and became known as El Faraón de la Cumbia, El Faraón de la Chicha and Papá Chacalón. Spanish Wikipedia credits him with José Luis Carballo as chicha's greatest popularizers; chicha is Peruvian cumbia and huayno with a tropical rhythm. His early groups were the children's band Los Amigos del Barrio in 1965 and 1966 and Grupo Celeste, whose albums included El fabuloso! (1975) and El tropiloco mundo del Grupo Celeste (1976); a single, "Viento", sold about a million according to El Peruano. He left Celeste in 1978 and recommended his brother Alfonso as replacement.

La Nueva Crema, named by Carballo after the rock band Cream, dates from 1978 on Spanish Wikipedia and from 1972 in El Peruano, so the founding year is open. Spanish Wikipedia lists the albums Chacalón y La Nueva Crema (1981), Éxitos...Éxitos...Éxitos (1982), El soberano de la cumbia (1983), Los admirados de La Nueva Crema (1984), Tu vida, mi vida (1985), ¡Soy feliz! (1986), La voz del pueblo (1987), Loco amor (1988), Niños pobres del mundo (1989), Jugaste conmigo (1990), La otra (1991), Siempre contigo (1992) and No es fácil perdonar (1993). His concerts at the Carpa Grau were massive, summed up in the saying that when Chacalón sings the hills come down. In 1987 he received a UNESCO award for the Radio Inca campaign Niños pobres del mundo. Sounds and Colours notes that he did not write the lyrics of the songs he performed.

He died in Lima on June 24, 1994, aged 44, and the funeral drew huge crowds, with estimates of 20,000 to over 70,000. A miniseries about him, Chacalón: El ángel del pueblo, aired around 2004 or 2005. Scholars Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste and Pablo Vila call him the archetypal protagonist of chicha lyrics. His sons Chacalón Jr. and Christopher Yashiro have followed him into music.