Rodrigo Bascuñán was born in Santiago, Chile in 1976. In 1977, his parents immigrated to Toronto, Canada to escape Pinochet’s dictatorship. The plan was to stay in Canada for a few years until things in Chile cooled down. As such, Rodrigo grew up thinking he would leave Canada any day. He and his family never left.

Rodrigo decided to start a hip-hop magazine, Pound, in 1998, while he was still in university. He fondly remembers taking business calls in class and hiding under his desk. Pound’s first issue was published in December 1999, and after almost ten years the magazine has published 44 issues.

In order to inject more political content into the magazine Rodrigo created the “Babylon System” column in the third issue. Originally, a collection of news bits and statistics, the column would flourish into original investigative reporting under the guidance of Pound co-founder, Christian Pearce.

It was from one of these columns that the idea for Rodrigo and Christian’s book Enter The Babylon System was born. Published by Random House Canada in 2007, ETBS was released to wide critical acclaim and multiple award nominations.

Rodrigo in now working on his second book, tentatively titled La Pobla.

The photograph was taken at Niagara Falls, Canada sometime in the summer of 1978. That’s Rodrigo’s mother, Luz, on the right, and his sister, Daniela, behind him. One can only assume that his father, Patricio, is taking the photo. Rodrigo loves nature. He just doesn’t like public displays of nature. Email him.