Through a repertoire that combined influences from the Cuban Trova and Argentine folkloric music with socially-conscious lyrics, the politically-minded singer-songwriter and writer Víctor Heredia became the voice of the disenfranchised—both in his own native country and throughout the rest of Latin America. Born Víctor Ramón Cournou Heredia on January 24, 1947, in Buenos Aires, he spent most of his childhood in the neighborhood of Paso del Rey, right outside the city's Capital District. He began performing from a very young age and won the newcomer's prize at the 1967 Cosquín Festival when he was just 19 years old. His studio debut, Gritando Esperanzas, appeared only a year later. After taking home the main prize at Cosquín in 1969, Víctor Heredia jumped into the spotlight with the LP El Viejo Matías, which sold over half a million copies upon its release in 1970. The success of the album earned him the chance to represent Argentina at the OTI Festival in Madrid in 1972 with the song "Sabes Que Estamos Aquí América." In subsequent years, he issued a series of albums that put him at the forefront of the Latin folk music scene, including Víctor Heredia Canta Pablo Neruda (1974), Bebe en Mi Cántaro (1975), and Paso del Rey (1976). Following his sister's and her husband's disappearance at the hands of Argentina's military dictatorship in 1976, Víctor Heredia went into exile and continued his recording career in Spain. The return of democracy in the early 1980s marked the beginning of a new phase in his artistic journey, one that brought critical acclaim and commercial success through songs like "Todavía Cantamos" (1983), "Sobreviviendo" (1984), and "Razón de Vivir" (1985). Over the next decades, Víctor Heredia maintained a prolific recording pace and collaborated closely with like-minded artists such as Mercedes Sosa and León Gieco, with whom he released the 2003 live album Argentina Quiere Cantar. In 2017, he celebrated five decades of music with the double live album 50 en Vuelo, featuring appearances by Lito Vitale, Ricardo Mollo, Juan Carlos Baglietto, and Soledad, among others. That same year, he was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Latin Grammys in Las Vegas.
