La Paz

We're walking down the Prado, the Champs Elysées of La Paz, browsing for CDs from the makeshift market stalls. Rows of pirate CDs with photocopied covers (retailing for less than $2 each) merge with stalls selling fruit, toiletries and ladies' underwear.

I pick out a copy of the Grandaddy album. 'Amigo,' says Weymar, my guide to CD bargain-hunting Bolivian-style, 'que pasa? This,' he says, thrusting the Molotov album under my nose, 'is the sound of young Bolivia.'

For a country with such a rich heritage of folk music, Bolivia's musical taste is surprisingly diverse: US rap, British prog rock and Latin metal from across South America all find a place on the Prado's CD stalls.

But on the streets of the world's highest capital, your choice of pirate CD purchase is as much an indication of your social status as it is your musical taste.

Middle-class teenagers tune to music station Top Rock where the Darkness and the White Stripes are on heavy rotation alongside Latino acts Octavia and Azul Azul. The station is strictly Shakira-free.

In the slums of El Alto, however, teenagers dig Latino rap with 'Fuck you, gringo' lyrics and nu-metal with a twist of salsa. Meanwhile, the daughters of the well-to-do are more likely to be listening to Britney.

Later I take a stroll across town to La Cueva del Jazz, the new club run by leading jazz musician Carlos Ponce, who champions a sound he calls 'Bolivian jazz'.

'Bolivian jazz takes traditional folk rhythms and fuses them with the different schools of jazz and funk,' he explains. 'Bolivia is a diverse, evolving country and so is its music. It's just a shame more people don't come to discover this for themselves.'

They listen to

Molotov
Mexican rocksters with fine line in anti-gringo rhetoric.

Alcholica
Think Nine Inch Nails with panpipes; La Paz-based.

Azul Azul Latino hip hop crew from Santa Cruz.

Los Kjarkas Cochabamba's finest folk-rock crossover act.

Octavia Alternative La Paz college rock.

Britney Spears
Louisiana-born pop songstress.