Querido FBI - Background, Recording and Release

Background, Recording and Release

While Calle 13 was in the middle of the recording of their first album, Filiberto, which was the leader of the Puerto Rican Revolutionary group known as Los Macheteros was killed during a raid at his house led by the F.B.I., on September 23, 2005. Ojeda Ríos was deemed a fugitive by the FBI (he had been hiding at various places in Puerto Rico over a period that lasted exactly 15 years) for refusing to submit himself to justice on charges issued in absentia after a bank robbery in Hartford, Connecticut for which he was labeled as a conspirator. Although Ojeda's group had not been held responsible for any criminal acts during the thirteen years prior to the raid, and local law enforcement authorities had given his case a low priority, federal law enforcement agents insisted in pursuing Ojeda. The raid's timing (which coincided with the anniversary of the Grito de Lares, the most successful event ever related with the Puerto Rican independence movement), led a considerable amount of the Puerto Rican populace to speculate that the event had the dual purpose of killing Ojeda and giving the pro-independence movement in Puerto Rico an exemplary punishment.

Angered by the FBI's action, Residente (singer of Calle 13) wrote a song about what happened and asked his record label, White Lion, to allow them to release the single about thirty hours after Ojeda's killing, to the public via the Internet through viral marketing through Indymedia Puerto Rico, an alternative news website. The song was co-produced by local DJ Danny Fornaris.