Zack de la Rocha

Zack de la Rocha (born January 12, 1970) is the former lead vocalist of Rage Against the Machine, a politically-inspired band who were highly regarded as one of the most influential rock bands in recent history, having helped pave the way

Zack de la Rocha (born January 12, 1970) is the former lead vocalist of Rage Against the Machine, a politically-inspired band who were highly regarded as one of the most influential rock bands in recent history, having helped pave the way for many of today's hard rock bands that fuse rap and rock.

In 1983, Zack's father Beto suffered a nervous breakdown, and took his religious ideals to extremes. He destroyed his art and when Zack visited him at the weekends, he was forced to fast, sit in a room with the curtains closed and the door locked and help his father destroy his paintings -- paintings which had helped him establish a sense of Chicano identity. After a while, he was unable to cope with this lifestyle, and stayed with his mother in Irvine, which at the time was "perhaps one of the whitest cities" in Southern California. The city has now grown more diverse to include various ethnicities with large Chinese, Korean and Persian communities.