On May 17, 1980, a Maoist faction of the Peruvian Communist Party known as the “Shining Path” launched a guerrilla war from rural Ayacucho in hopes of toppling the Peruvian government. The guerrillas’ calculated use of extreme violence, coupled with a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by the Peruvian military, soon plunged the region into chaos. According to the final report of the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2003, nearly seventy thousand people were killed or “disappeared,” and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes between 1980 and the end of the conflict in the 1990s following the capture of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán.

In the midst of the violence, musicians in Ayacucho turned to their art as a way of bearing witness to the brutality of the conflict. Using traditional music forms, including the wayno, singers and songwriters built upon a deep tradition of social commentary in Andean music to forge a new song movement, one that spoke with a powerful voice of outrage, and at times, hope, in a climate otherwise marked by fear and silencing. Cassette tapes of canciones testimoniales (testimonial songs) soon circulated between Ayacucho and its scattered refugee population, while new star performers of this music emerged, including Carlos Falconí, Manuelcha Prado, and many others. Their songs continue to be performed and recorded today, providing a forum for the remembrance those deadly years.