Zach de la Rocha
| Zack de la Rocha | |
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De la Rocha performing with Rage Against the Machine in April 2007
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Zacharias Manuel de la Rocha |
| Born |
January 12, 1970 Long Beach, California, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1988–present |
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Zacharias Manuel "Zack" de la Rocha (born January 12, 1970) is an American musician, poet, rapper, and activist. He is best known as the vocalist and lyricist of rap metal band Rage Against the Machine from 1991–2000 and 2007–2011. He left Rage Against the Machine in October 2000 and embarked on a solo career. With former Mars Volta drummer Jon Theodore, de la Rocha also co-founded One Day as a Lion in 2008.
Zacharias Manuel de la Rocha was born in Long Beach, California on January 12, 1970, to a Mexican-American father, the artist Robert "Beto" de la Rocha (born 1937), and a mother of German and Irish origin, Olivia Lorryne Carter (born 1941). His father played an integral part in his cultural upbringing. Beto was a muralist and a member of Los Four, the first Chicano art collective to be exhibited at a museum (LACMA, 1973). De la Rocha's grandfather, Isaac de la Rocha Beltrán (1910–1985), was a Mexican revolutionary who fought in the Mexican Revolution and worked as an agricultural labourer in the U.S. De la Rocha would later see the hardships his grandfather endured reflected in the struggles of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation.
De la Rocha's parents divorced when he was six years old, and he moved from East Los Angeles to Irvine with his mother, who attended the University of California at Irvine and ultimately earned a Ph. D in anthropology. De la Rocha later described Irvine as "one of the most racist cities imaginable" and said that "if you were a Mexican in Irvine, you were there because you had a broom or a hammer in your left hand". De la Rocha became a vegetarian as a teenager.
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