The Ancient Vengeful South American Demon in One of 2013’s Hottest Music Videos
Song: “La La La” by Naughty Boy ft. Sam Smith
A few months ago I was hanging out with my Bolivian friend Ricardo on a chilly January weekend, experimenting with mixed drinks (we’re both former bartenders) and taking turns playing our favorite songs on YouTube. Because that’s the kind of exciting life that thirtysomethings lead. Ricardo clicked on “La La La” and asked if I’d ever heard it. I said sure, several years ago. Casually he said, “Did you know the video’s telling the story of a child sacrifice based on an old folk tale from my country?”
I almost spat my Tequila Sunrise back into my plastic cup. “What?” Usually pop tunes don’t accompany videos centered around obscure mining myths. Especially major hits like “La La La,” which peaked at #1 in 26 countries and was briefly the UK’s fastest-selling single. Produced by ingenue Naughty Boy (London DJ Shahid Khan, only recently signed to a major label) and featuring a then-unknown Sam Smith, “La La La” stands as one of the early 2010s’ more impassioned, creative, pleasing songs. Khan weaves in synth piano and mallets over a mid-tempo drum ’n’ bass rhythm that provides the perfect background for Smith’s soulful vocals. The song was written by a handful of people, but the germ of the idea came from one of Khan’s failed relationships:
“. . . She was somebody I neglected while I was trying to find me. When I found me, she found it best to neglect me. It’s cool… Covering my ears like a kid and saying, ‘La. La. La.’ It’s the man-kid in me.” -Shahid Khan
So what was the old Bolivian myth? And what did it have to do with this song in particular?
To fully understand the legend, we have to take a closer look at Bolivia’s prolific southern silver mines. The largest one, Cerro Rico, was the richest source of silver ore in world history, funding Spanish colonization and making the conquistadores fantastically wealthy. But its success came with a price: over 8 million Indigenous slaves lost their lives, leading to the gruesome nickname “The Mountain That Eats Men.” Even today it’s an appallingly dangerous place to work. Accidents claim roughly 14 victims a month and the average life expectancy is about 40 years old due to severe respiratory disease.
The figure of El Tio arose in the mid-1500s as Indigenous Bolivians faced the overwhelming terror of firearms, slave labor, and European pathogens. Blank-faced priests and brutal landowners tried to wipe the region’s cultural slate clean with inquisitions and torture. But the Bolivians resiliently held on to their myths. They invented a goat-horned deity, the “Lord of the Underworld,” who roamed the endless lethal shafts of Cerro Rico demanding tribute in exchange for protection. Tradition held that anyone who heard the demon speak would immediately fall under his spell. He’s thought to be a combination of Satan and the pre-Colombian gods Huari (the Devil) and Supay (Death). The mountain’s narrow pitch-black tunnels are still strewn with statues and paintings of El Tio, at which miners place little gifts like cigarettes or coca leaves. The Catholic Church bans all images of the idol in the light of day except for once a year, when it holds a festival commemorating the Archangel Michael’s victory over him.
The video (spoiler alert!) follows one particular El Tio story about a young deaf boy with the power to heal others through his voice. After fleeing his abusive home, he meets a dusty old miner and (in a nod to the Wizard of Oz) buys him a still-dripping red heart from a street vendor. The next man they meet is a disfigured and ostracized policeman directing traffic, who the boy discovers has been cursed by El Tio. The group hears that El Tio can be found in the great peaks beyond the desert, so they set out on a (beautifully filmed) journey through the harsh wild scrub of rural Bolivia. Finally they find the jagged cave where El Tio lives. The two men and the dog can’t enter or they’ll fall under the deity’s control; they embrace the crying child and send him alone into the darkness to stand, fingers plugged childishly in his ears, before the lifesize statue of a grotesque horned god. “See,” Ricardo explained, “the kid is deaf so he can’t hear El Tio. He drowns the demon out with his voice so nobody will be hurt by him again.”
What exactly does the video have to do with the music? Essentially, they’re both about kids who don’t (or can’t) listen. The concept came from director Ian Pons Jewell, who sought to portray “a child’s magical journey” influenced by fantastical elements and song lyrics about tuning out negative situations. The end result is a gorgeous narrative blending and weaving the hurtful rejection of an adult relationship in England with a centuries-old legend about a cruel, rapacious Andean mining devil- to the tune of 1.2 billion views on YouTube. Most significantly, it’s an artistic link that AI can’t make right now; ChatGPT can’t configure a wounded pop/soul number with that creepy book of international folk tales you read in sixth grade. Ian Pons Jewell, if you’re out there, your job is safe. I only hope I’m right and the rest of ours are too.
Hey hey! Thanks for visiting- your presence is warmly welcomed. Please correct me if I accidentally got something wrong. If there are any songs, artists, or genres you’d love to learn more about, I’m always down for recommendations! This blog is free to read (and always will be) due to a fair amount of academic traffic, but you can always buy me a coffee (aka put a tip in my jar) if you enjoyed this article.
