according to: Bitman & Roban
There are multiple possible reasons why this instrumental song by Chilean electronica duo Bitman & Roban (Latin Bitman’s pre-solo project) may have been titled “1989.”
The year 1989 is full of emotional significance for Chileans since it marks the return of democracy, after 17 years of military dictatorship (for more on this watch Gael Garcia Bernal in the Oscar nominated No). With the end of the tyranny, hundreds of exiled Chileans started to move back home and with them they brought their kids, born and/or raised abroad.
Some of these kids were coming back to Santiago with hip-hop tapes, a music style that was experiencing its golden age in the northern hemisphere, but was still virtually unknown in the extreme south of the continent. Ana Tijoux, a frequent collaborator on Bitman’s productions, was one of those kids (so were the other three members of her former group Makiza). Hence, many point out at 1989 as the birth of the Chilean hip-hop scene.
But maybe the track has nothing to do with that, and gets its name because of the main sample, the strong bass-line borrowed from the song “I Bleed” of Pixies’ Doolittle — a seminal album released in (you guessed it!) 1989.
[insert-video youtube=5pi8XnZ5a3c]