Juanes to Santos: Hands off my music

In 1984 Bruce Springsteen demanded that U.S. President Ronald Reagan cease from using “Born in the U.S.A.” as part of his reelection campaign. Twenty-six years later a similar situation is occurring in Colombia.

On Monday Colombian pop rock star Juanes accused presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos of using one of his hit songs without the musician’s consent. In a message written on his Twitter page Juanes accused the Santos campaign of “abuse” for crating a pro-Santos video with a rewritten version of his song “La camisa negra” (“The Black Shirt"). “I’m wearing a shirt/ because I support Santos/ I want him to be the president and protect our homeland,” warbled a Juanes imitator in the video that had been posted onto several social networks.

The Santos campaign quickly tried to remove the video in question from sites such as YouTube and Facebook, and attempted to assure Juanes that they were not behind the video’s creation. Indeed, the originator of the video turned out to be a former Senatorial candidate from Santos’ own party.

Earlier this month the Santos campaign came under fire for publishing a radio commercial with the voice of current president Alvaro Uribe allegedly giving his full support to the ex-Defense Minister. In reality, the ad used an imitator of Uribe and pre-recorded sounds of a cheering audience though that information was not disclosed in the commercial.

The latest polls indicate that both Santos and independent candidate Antanas Mockus are in a dead heat and that neither man will win outright in the first round later this month.

Image- Univision.com
Online Sources- El Universal, Media Nation, EFE, AFP, BBC Mundo, El Espectador,