South America’s role in the early evolution of black metal in the 1980s, though it is often most specifically linked to it largest and most populated country, Brazil, achieved its influence in no small part due to the significant contributions of several bands from Colombia, Brazil’s neighbor to the far northwest. The city of Medellín in particular spawned such bands as the infamous Parabellum, one of the continent’s oldest and most celebrated black metal cults, and Blasfemia, which formed later and shared members with Parabellum. The fact that these black metal bands were born within a sociopolitical context under the de facto governance of Pablo Escobar’s Medellín drug cartel is noteworthy.