This is a critical analysis of the music of the Puerto Rican new song movement placed within the cultural and political dynamics of Puerto Rican society. Its focus is the relationship between popular music and cultural politics using the music of the new song movement as a case study. The study is a discourse analysis of a sample of song texts that elucidates the elements and characteristics that define the new song's discourse as an oppositional one. In addition, this study explores possible reasons why that oppositional discourse did not interpellate larger segments of the popular classes, or why it did not become a hegemonic discourse. This inquiry places the song texts in the context of the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States in order to study the sample using a combination of theoretical perspectives. The study draws from Latin American approaches to the analysis of popular culture, from Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony and from various interpretations of Puerto Rican cultural identity. It also studies the texts' articulation of a pro-independence ideology as a key aspect of its oppositional discourse. This analysis sheds light on the relationship between popular culture, cultural identity and nationalism in Puerto Rico. The discourse analysis showed that the Puerto Rican new song movement created a discourse in opposition to the dominant political, economic, military and cultural discourses articulating Puerto Rican society during the 1970's and early 1980's. The discourse of the new song movement was anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist, anti-militarist and advocated Puerto Rico's independence. In its song texts the movement reflected its subscription to several oppositional discourses articulated by pro-independence groups in Puerto Rico. The music of the new song movement served as a form of resistance to the conditions of colonialism in Puerto Rico.