Карлос Мехия Годой: Музыкант, поэт и голос Никарагуа

Nicaraguan musician

Carlos Mejía Godoy (born June 27, 1943) is a Nicaraguan musician, composer and singer songwriter and one of the main representatives of the testimonial song or new song of his country. He grew up in a family related to popular music, folklore and traditional culture, which gave him a very early relationship with the cultural and artistic world of Nicaragua. He had a close friendship with the guitarist of the Camerata Bach and Los de Palacagüina, Pedro Miranda, and with the Nicaraguan musician Silvio Linarte. Carlos and Luis Enrique were pivotal in the New Song Movement in Central America beginning in the 1970s. They were both honored with Nicaragua's highest cultural distinction, the Order of Rubén Darío. He actively participated in the Sandinista Revolution, composing a good part of the songs associated with it and spreading the cause of the fight against the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza Debayle throughout the world. After the revolutionary triumph, he was one of the main cultural promoters of the Sandinista governments. After the loss of power of the FSLN in the 1990 elections, he left the FSLN and gradually became politically distant from this party and the leadership exercised by Daniel Ortega, becoming an active participant in the 2018 protests.

Many of his songs, performed with his band los de Palacagüina, became associated with the Sandinista movement as songs of the workers and revolutionaries. He even composed a Mass for the working class, the Misa Campesina Nicaragüense. Many of his songs during the late 1970s gave instructions on how to use, assemble, and disassemble the rifles people were capturing from dictator Somoza's National Guard during street battles. One of his biggest achievements of his career as a songwriter came in 1977 when the song Quincho Barrilete (Quincho, the boy of the little barrel), composed by himself and performed by Eduardo Gonzalez won the sixth edition of the OTI Festival. A victory which is still remembered by many Nicaraguans. In 1980, Carlos Mejía Godoy y los de Palancagüina were internally selected by Televicentro Nicaragua to represent their country in the OTI Festival in 1980 with their song La chavalita de España (The little girl from Spain). This song marked the return of Nicaragua to the event after two years of absence because of the turbulent Nicaraguan Revolution. Their competing song, which although was one of the favorites, ended in a respectable but disappointing tenth place with 15 points. He was the vice presidential running mate of Edmundo Jarquín of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) in the November 2006 presidential election. They came in fourth place. In February 2021, Mejía Godoy condemned a proposed law that would declare the songs of the Nicaraguan National Guard, as Heritage of the Nation, considering it confiscatory of his work.

Mejía Godoy is the father of the United States Army conscientious objector, author, and anti war activist Camilo Mejía, as well as the musicians Carlos Luis 'La Bujilla' Mejía and Augusto 'El Negro' Mejía from the Grammy nominated Nicaraguan ensemble La Cuneta Son Machín. As one of president Daniel Ortega's fiercest critics, he fears being killed. He lived in Costa Rica from 2018 2020. Since 2020 he has lived in Santa Rosa, California. Mejia Godoy is married to Xochitl Jimenez.