Becoming enraged: Lemebel, Paquita la del Barrio and “the language of anger”

From a critical gender perspective, this article seeks to reflect on the musical dimension of the work of Pedro Lemebel (1952-2015), attending to the practices of assemblage between his lyrics and certain sentimental songs with which Lemebel musicalizes his various subversive practices—practices that, in this case, are intertwined with the “voice” of Paquita la del Barrio. Through their incorporation, it is possible to glimpse how Lemebel produces a diversity of alliances with “the feminine”, which account for an irreverent becoming-woman with respect to the dominant sex/gender categories. From the erotic and the intimate, to the exquisite insolence with which Lemebel confronts the apparatuses of state power, it is possible to glimpse unusual forms of subversion that do not cease to challenge the local revolutionary imaginary. Exploring these artistic productions along inter- and subtextual networks highlights the points at which these words establish complicities in their irascible forms of resistance.