A Farewell That's Just Beginning

The death of Carlos Indio Solari occurred one week ago, but this collective mourning has barely started. What El Indio and Los Redonditos de Ricota meant—and still mean—in our lives still has much to say, share, and reinterpret.

Yes, to the dismay of those who seek to minimize his cultural impact, we have been anguished for a week. The death of El Indio brought back memories of adolescence and youth for at least two generations: a present that doesn't differ much from the late 1980s and the entire 1990s, with Los Redondos playing in the background.

Something repeatedly mentioned in testimonials and shared memories these days is that what strongly united us to El Indio and his music is that he never underestimated us. Los Redondos spoke to the people, to the working class; perhaps not at the beginning, when they performed in basements and venues visited by students and bohemian artists, but certainly from their rise to fame in the late 80s.

Carlos Solari's band connected with a need that those on the margins had: for someone to speak about what was happening to them. Their songs spoke of concrete, real experiences and everyday life.

The way they communicated was truly captivating: mixing lunfardo (Buenos Aires slang), neighborhood expressions, even swear words or vulgar terms with beautiful words, complex concepts, Latin phrases, and some entirely invented words.

This was crucial for the generation of workers' children who grew up between the 90s and the first decade of the 2000s—the children of the Argentinazo. In households plagued by unemployment, poverty, and misery—where there was no room for libraries or time to read—Los Redondos brought poetry, verses, words to look up in dictionaries, and questions to ask a cool teacher.

El Indio brought art closer to a generation for whom that right was denied, because it was a privilege, because we didn't deserve it. And not just music, but also drawing, painting, and literature.

The cryptic prologues of the albums La mosca y la sopa (containing the famous phrase Certain fires are not lit by rubbing two sticks together), Lobo suelto/Cordero atado, Luzbelito, or Último bondi were objects of voracious reading and obsessive analysis. In those texts, we first glimpsed Cortázar, Roberto Arlt, and Borges—three giants of Argentine literature.

The album covers by Rocambole (the band's visual artist) also contributed to this appropriation of art by the forgotten of the system. This artist used to say he wasn't worried about popular reproductions of his works—he preferred them on thousands of t-shirts, tattoos, and flags rather than in a museum where only a few would enjoy them.

That's what Los Redondos were: art spreading at the neighborhood corner.

Of all El Indio's work, love songs draw the most attention. It seems paradoxical to talk about love songs and Los Redondos, but only someone who hasn't listened to Mi genio amor, La reina Momo, Semen-up, Ella debe estar tan linda, Tarea fina, Esa estrella era mi lujo, Un poco de amor francés, La hija del fletero, Caña seca, Perdiendo el tiempo, Mariposa pontiac, Ella baila con todos, Gualicho, La pequeña novia del Carioca, or Una piba con la remera de Greenpeace could say that.

It's not the trite romantic love from soap operas. It's love that goes wrong, where we make mistakes, hurt those we love, and get hurt ourselves. But which is still beautiful to live through and worth it. It's love crossed by social circumstances, by the exhaustion of working 8, 10, or 12 hours without knowing exactly what for.

A great remedy for a great evil, nothing more and nothing less.

The God of the Broken

A very viral testimonial these days is from Agustina, a young woman who spoke of El Indio as the god of the broken. And we couldn't agree more. But it's important to clarify that we're far from wanting to romanticize marginality, misery, crime, or even drugs and alcohol.

What happens is that in the midst of all that horror, El Indio and Los Redonditos made poetry bloom and brought music. They told those who were in the worst situations that they could get out, that the matter was now and forever in their hands.

Of course they made mistakes several times: Walter and Olavarría are there forever to remind us. These were two young fans who died at concerts in separate incidents—a tragic mark on the band's history. There were also fights with record labels—and ultimately, they separated over money. Even if we go to their masses, many of us remain atheists and know that gods don't exist.

But on Sunday, June 8, 2026, something happened in Villa Domínico: magic happened again. Nearly one million people gathered, took to the streets, and despite differences in age, experiences, and ideologies, they were all together again in the world's largest pogo.