Lino Nava was a great Latin American rock guitarist and human being

▲ The image was captured in Acapulco during a La Lupita concert, on May 28, 2000. Photo file

Israel Campos Mondragon

La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, May 9, 2024, p. 7

The national rock scene was shaken by the news of the death of the musician, producer and composer Lino Nava, which occurred last Tuesday night, due to the brain cancer that he had suffered since 2019.

His friends, the musician Alonso Arreola and the journalist Chava Rock, reported the death on their social networks. The latter stated: let’s say goodbye to him as what he was, the great guitarist of Latin American rock, the great human being and companion.

Lino de Jesús Nava Mendoza was born in Mexico City in 1968. He is considered by the national press to be a pioneer of rock in Spanish; He had his first approach to music with the metal group Raxas in 1988, with which he recorded Presence. He opened for the British band Black Sabbath in 1989, during their visit to the country.

By 1991, he was part of the group La Lupita, along with the musicians Héctor Quijada, Rosa Adame, Ernesto She was Domene and Poncho Toledo. In 1992, the band’s first album appeared, To serve you, with which they won the Nuestro Rock award for best new group of that year. At that time, he also recorded with Café Tacuba and Caifanes.

Nava was also a producer. One of the works in which he collaborated was on the debut album of the singer Amandititita. He also served as music composer for the film Km 31, by Roberto Castañeda, and the score of Bitten bullet, by Diego Muñoz. Additionally, she had Alex Reed appearances in Café Tacuba and Eduardo Cruz’s videos along with Penélope Cruz.

On Telehit he made programs with national and international artists from different genres, such as rock, hip-hop and electronics.

Nava founded the heavy metal band Recolector in 2007, in which musicians such as Tony Almont, from Toque Profundo, collaborated; Frank Ferrer, from Guns N’Roses, and Rusty Anderson, Paul McCartney’s musician.

In 2021, he announced that he was cancer-free and even shared an image in which he was seen wearing a shirt, in which he read Fuck Cancer. However, the illness returned and since 2023 his projects were stopped. After chemotherapy and surgical interventions, on May 3 he relapsed.

The public, friends, musicians and institutions mourned the death on social networks. Channel 22 and the Ministry of Culture of Mexico City recognized the guitarist’s legacy. Canal Once remembered him in his participation in the program Talking with Cristina Pacheco, in 2013.

The Mexican photographer Fernando Aceves wrote: I would have liked to say goodbye to you carnalito. The writer Xavier Velasco published: “together we made a song that we named Bar Diva It was no coincidence, we were united by a long list of laughter and revelry.”