With 20 million people, Mexico City is one of the most densely populated and most polluted cities in the world. Every sort of music is there, and in Mexico music wears its heart on its sleeve, expressing love, hate, jealousy, desire and humour in dozens of ways. The best-known Mexican music is mariachi and it's frequently depicted as a cheesy tourist phenomenon in and around the cantinas of Plaza Garibaldi. If chilangos (residents of Mexico City) are having a party they go and pick up a mariachi band with their guitars, fiddles, fancy suits with silver trappings and huge sombreros. Like it or not, kitsch is an essential part of Mexican culture.

The style of music Los de Abajo represent is called ska - an urban sound that blends the popular Latin dance halls sounds with some traditional elements and rock. The movement started at the end of the 1980s when international rock bands were finally allowed to play in Mexico and generated this home-grown fusion.

Tropipunk is how Los de Abajo (Those from Below) describe their music. A ten-strong band of former students and activists, they throw a host of Latin rhythms, Mexican son jarocho, reggae, funk and hip-hop into the blender - spiced with attitude. This is the sound of contemporary Mexico City and their recent album Cybertropic Chilango Power includes recordings of street vendors on the Zocalo and drumming to Aztec gods worked into the musical mural. Many of the lyrics take a swipe at the establishment with songs about corrupt politicians and the government's links with the drug trade - and Los de Abajo have been open in their support for the Zapatistas, Mexico's indigenous freedom fighters.

BBC Web Links

Los de Abajo: Awards for World Music