Zacarías Manuel de la Rocha (born January 12, 1970 in Long Beach, California) is a rapper, musician, poet, and activist best known as the vocalist and lyricist of Rage Against the Machine.

Zacarías Manuel de la Rocha (born January 12, 1970 in Long Beach, California) is a rapper, musician, poet and activist, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of Rage Against the Machine. In 1983, de la Rocha’s father Roberto (known as Beto)—a member of Los Four, the first Chicano art collective to be exhibited at a major museum (LACMA, 1974)—suffered a nervous breakdown and took his religious ideals to extremes. He destroyed his art, and, when de la Rocha visited him on the weekends,