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Zacarías Manuel de la Rocha (born January 12, 1970 in Long Beach, California) is a rapper, musician, poet, and activist best known as the vocalist and lyricist of Rage Against the Machine.
Early lifeIn his early youth, de la Rocha's father Roberto de la Rocha (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 took his religious ideals to extremes
. He destroyed his art, and, when Zack visited him on the weekends, he was forced to fast, sit in a room with the curtains closed and the door locked, and help destroy his father's paintings.
After a while, he was unable to cope with this lifestyle and stayed with his mother in Irvine.
Musical careerEarly careerIn high school, de la Rocha became involved in the hardcore punk scene and played guitar and sang for various bands, including Juvenile Expression with Commerford. His interest in bands like the The Clash and Bad Religion turned into an appreciation for other bands like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, and The Teen Idles, and he joined the straight edge band Hardstance.
De la Rocha eventually formed the Hardcore band Inside Out, which gained a large national underground following. They released a single record, No Spiritual Surrender, on Revelation Records in 1990 before breaking up. In de la Rocha's words, Inside Out was "about completely detaching ourselves from society to see ourselves as...as spirits, and not bowing down to a system that sees you as just another pebble on a beach. I channeled all my anger out through that band."
After Inside Out broke up, he embraced hip-hop and began freestyling at local clubs, where he met Tom Morello and Brad Wilk. Eventually de la Rocha's Juvenile Expression bandmate Commerford joined them and Rage Against the Machine was formed.
Rage Against the MachineBefore long, Rage Against the Machine was on the Rage's second and third albums peaked at number one in the United States, but did not result in the political action de la Rocha had hoped for. He became increasingly restless and undertook collaborations with artists like KRS-One, Chuck D, and Public Enemy.
De la Rocha frequently made speeches during RATM live performances.
On September 13, 2000, Rage Against the Machine performed their last show before breaking up, during which de la Rocha gave a notable speech before playing "Killing in the Name":
cquote So who went out and joined us for the Democratic National Convention? I've never seen so many fucking cops in my life. It's like everybody knows that everybody went out there; the only thing we were out there to do is express how much we hate both the Democrats and Republicans because they sold this fucking country out. And by expressing our rights to resist, what do they do? They open fire on the crowd. I don't care what fucking television station said the violence was caused by the people at the concert; those motherfuckers unloaded on this crowd. And I think it's ridiculous considering, you know, none of us had rubber bullets; none of us had M16s; none of us had billy clubs; none of us had face shields. All we had was our fists, our voices, our microphones, our guitars, our drums, our timbales and whatnot. And anytime we get beaten in the streets for protesting, we take it to the court system, but the court system don't wanna hear it. Look what happened to Amadou Diallo in New York. They shot that brother 41 times and let all four officers go. It's time for a new type of action in this country.
"Creative differences"In October 2000, de la Rocha left Rage Against the Machine, due to "creative differences." It is rumored that Commerford's stunt at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, where he climbed atop of a fixture on stage because RATM had lost the award for Best Rock Video to Limp Bizkit, may have contributed to de la Rocha's decision to leave the band. Commerford later stated he had pulled the stunt in protest that cameras at the awards show were already hovering over Limp Bizkit before anything was even announced, which he disagreed with.
The other members of the band sought out separate management and secured the immediate release of the album Renegades. On October 18, 2000, de la Rocha released the following statement:
The 2004 soundtrack Songs and Artists that Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11 included one of the collaborations with Reznor, "We Want It All".
On October 7, 2005, de la Rocha returned to the stage with new material, performing with Son Jarocho band Son de Madera. He later spoke as MC and again performed with Son de Madera at the November 22 Concert at the Farm, a benefit concert for the South Central Farmers. He sang and played the jarana with the band, and performed his own new original material, including the song "Sea of Dead Hands".
Reunion of RATMde la Rocha performing with Rage at Coachella 2007.
On April 14, 2007 Morello and de la Rocha played together at House of Blues in Chicago at the rally for fair food with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). At this performance Morello played acoustic guitar while de la Rocha was on the mic. They played a new song that de la Rocha claimed he just wrote about the victory for the farmworkers over McDonalds and Taco Bell and their quest in acquiring fair wages from Burger King.
Rage Against the Machine, as a full band, headlined the final day of the 2007 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 29. The performance was initially thought to be a one-off, but that was cast into doubt following Chris Cornell's exit from Audioslave.[ first = Chris ] Four more performances are planned as part of the Rock The Bells Festival with the Wu-Tang Clan. Rage Against the Machine also played the 2008 Big Day Out music festival in Australia and New Zealand. While playing the Big Day Out Festival they played thier first solo shows since their break up in at the Sydney Entertainment Centre on 22nd of January 2008. This concert coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day in which Zach made a speech during Wake Up which addressed current political issues in the world. They also played a second solo show at Melbourne's Festival Hall on the 30th January 2008. along with the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans on October 26, 2007. and at Vegoose 2007 on October 28th. Rage Against The Machine are also confirmed to play during the 3 day music festival "Oxegen 2008" in Ireland. Rage Against The Machine are confirmed to play the other 3 day festival also at the time of "Oxegen 2008", T in the Park, on the Saturday night.
More recently, RATM have been confirmed to headline the Nova Rock Festival, Austria in June 2008 and Reading and Leeds Festivals, UK in August 2008. They also headlined the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals in Germany on June 6 - 8.
At Rage's first reunion show, de la Rocha made a speech during "Wake Up" in which de la Rocha called numerous American presidents war criminals, citing a statement by Noam Chomsky regarding the Nuremberg Principles:
Zack de la Rocha
Solo albumIn an article published in Billboard, it was announced that work had been completed on de la Rocha's first solo album, which he had been working on at least since his departure from RATM in 2000 and, by some accounts, as early as 1995. The project with former Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore is titled One Day As a Lion. Sources familiar with the album say it features de la Rocha playing keyboards and that the sound is a hybrid of Led Zeppelin and Dr. Dre. It was also said that a portion of the recording took place recently at Jack Johnson's new eco-friendly studio in Los Angeles. The self-titled album is set for worldwide release on 22nd July with ANTI-.
DiscographyZack de la Rocha performing with Tom Morello on April 17, 2007.
Hardstance- Face Reality (1988 - 7" vinyl and re-issued in 1999 on Conversion Records)
Inside Out- No Spiritual Surrender (1990)
- Benefit 7" (1991 - Bootleg live recording with Youth Of Today)
Rage Against the Machine- Rage Against the Machine (1992)
- Evil Empire (1996)
- Live & Rare (1998)
- The Battle of Los Angeles (1999)
- Renegades (2000)
- Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium (2003)
Solo and collaborations- "Mumia 911" from Mumia 911 LP a benefit album (1999) with dead prez, Afu-Ra, P.E.A.C.E. and Aceyalone of the Freestyle Fellowship, Black Thought, and the Last Emperor under the name The Unbound Allstars
- "C.I.A. (Criminals In Action)" from Lyricist Lounge, Volume One (2000) with KRS-One and the Last Emperor
- "Burned Hollywood Burned" from Bamboozled soundtrack (2000) with Chuck D and The Roots
- "Om Nia Merican" from "Amethyst Rock Star" Saul Williams (uncredited)"
- "Centre of the Storm" from In the Mode, Roni Size/Reprazent (2000)
- "Release" from Blazing Arrow, Blackalicious (2002)
- "March of Death" released free over the web (2003) with DJ Shadow
- "We Want It All" from Songs and Artists That Inspired Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
- "Act III Scene 2 (Shakespeare)" from Saul Williams, Saul Williams (2004)
- "Can't Kill the Revolution" with Tool
Copyright Citations
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