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In celebration of that and the amazing couple weeks that I’ve just had playing Central Park Summer Stage with Dutty Artz sistren Rita Indiana and Colombia’s Choquibtown, Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night’s Swing with Lisandro Mesa and Que Bajo?! with Bogota’s El Freaky Crew I’m feeling like sharing is caring.

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/g3kojones/Las_cuatro_palomas_remix_master.mp3]

Las Cuatro Palomas Remix by Geko Jones & DJ Reaganomics

 

NPR premiered this track a few days ago but here it is for download to the world. Built with my long time homie DJ Reaganomics this is a summer banger you can finish out the year with. I should note that I have been looking for a track ID on the vocalist so anyone that can give me a hard confirmation on any of the leads I have its appreciated.

 

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Heineken in collaboration with our friends at NY Remezcla, Dutty Artz, Peligrosa and a whole slew of homies are presenting this and  a series of shows  featuring artists like Tego Calderon, Zuzuka Poderosa, Maluca and a long roster of artists from july 13-130th at a secret gallery in soho..

Check the full calendar of events here and be sure to visit on July 16th when Peligrosa, Que Bajo?!, Moombahton Madness and friends tear down the place tropical style.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/25105103[/vimeo]

 

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[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/22968445[/vimeo]

I’ve been traveling to Colombia at regular intervals to present a new sound fusing folkloric Afro-Colombian rhythms with modern day electronic music production techniques that harmonize into a synthetic club sound rooted in tradition. Via the internet, the birthplace of Cumbia has become a source of inspiration to a number producers worldwide. Recently, we invited some of the top names in the scene to a bandcamp in Colombia and a filmmaker to document it.  We want to provide an insider view of the impact this music is having on the local scene and how a small network of globally minded producers are defying conventional standards of Latin club music.

We have a couple weeks to get this production costs for completing this project funded. To hear more about how you can help please visit http://www.indiegogo.com/Pico-de-Gallos

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NEXT THURSDAY MARCH 31ST

Que Bajo?! returns to NYC after touring Miami, Medellin, Barranquilla, Bogota, Cali, and SXSW… come hear exclusive new remixes from myself, Uproot Andy, DJ Orion, Toy Selectah, Isa GT and more and check out our guest DJ’s Venus X of the Ghe20 Gothik Party who just rocked the shit out of the fader fort at SXSW and Panchitron from the Peligrosa All Stars crew down in Texas. Pancho’s mixtape stayed in heavy rotation last month for Que Bajo?! fans
Thursday March 31
Le Poisson Rouge
158 Bleeker St
11pm -$10

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FDG_Xm39mY[/youtube]

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[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/18714859[/vimeo]

THURSDAY JAN 27th !!!!!!

QUE BAJO?! is back!!

It’s the return of the intergalactic gauchitos better known as Uproot Andy and Geko Jones. After a brief winter recess moon-walking across the globe and cooking up hotter than habanero remixes the Que Bajo?! party is back like a zombie Danny Trejo
On January 27th we welcome the Dutch-Dominican wonderkid DJ Munchi all the way from Rotterdam, Netherlands. Moombahton stylee from one of the scenes top notch DJ’s.

We have a couple of special surprises to announce as we get closer to the date but I wanna go ahead and introduce VJ Miixxy who will be controlling visuals for the evening.

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DJ Munchi (Netherlands, Dominican)

Resident DJs Uproot Andy and Geko Jones

Visuals by VJ Miixxy

Hosted by Jean Bernabe and Amylulita

Flyer Design by Talacha.Net

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Now you can enjoy Uproot Andy’s Huld Yuh Version inna dancehall style thanks to this DJ Serg Mashup of Brick n Lace’s Love is Wicked. Serg is homies with Los Rakas and as for Brick n Lace I’ve been a fan of these girls since I heard them on the Bionic Ras riddim from South Rakkas (speaking of which where the F is Dow Jones, we’re ready for the reload out here)

Now gwaan n get hype… Que Bajo is Back at Santos Party House on Jan 27th and you can come out and listen to this and other new remixes and QB exclusives all night.

download

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TUESDAY DEC 7th.

Its the official release of Jahdan Blakkamoore’s sophomore solo album Babylon’s Nightmare available now on itunes, boomkat and other fine stores. This album has been a long time coming and is the album that alot of his fans have been waiting for. Production by long time collaborator Andrew “Moon” Bain and friends of the Lustre Kings camp this one sees a rootsier side of Mr Blakkamoore. This Friday at Santos Party House we are celebrating the release of the album with a lil help from our friends.

Friday Dec 10 @ Santos Party House.

100 Lafayette st between Walker/White 7pm-11pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dugZntaKzIw[/youtube]

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Whenever I land in a new city, I go into town with three intentions.

*Find out if there is a really old and amazing music from the region.

*Find out what the locals are listening to at the pubs and clubs so I have an idea what my set should be like.

*Find something really new listen to.

Language barriers usually don’t usually impede this. You might go in with an idea of what you’re looking for but the skilled know not to expect anything. Just find something amazing.

Walk the streets with eyes and ears peeled. Somewhere some 14 year old kid that cut class today, came home early and is blasting a local mixtape so loud the whole neighborhood can hear it. On the metro, someone is rockin out their mp3 player so loud you can hear their headphones above the racket of the moving train. A restaurant owner from a foreign country is simultaneously playing the most amazing CD of music from his country to make his establishment feel like home. Music is everywhere and when its good, its usually loud.

I was walking around Oberkampf in Paris with Marie Maurin from Jacasseries Radio an area where a lot of the college kids go to get wasted for cheap and we ended up checking out a bar called International. We were just walking over to see what was playing because there’s always some live act going on in there but what we found heard from outside was amazing.  I’m talkin Konono no. 1 on acid.

The street outside was mobbed with with smokers. Gotta love that you can walk out the bar with your beer there. We pushed through the crowd to get closer to the music. I spent the next couple minutes trying to figure out if what was on the projection screen of the crowd downstairs was really happening or if it was a tape. There was a bearded man in a faded santa suit throwing popcorn at the crowd dancing downstairs. When I realized it was real time I told my friend I needed to push through and check out the basement.

Congopunq as a duo are a fairly odd pair of dudes to behold. Dr Kong is a towering 6’2 dude jumping up and down and pulling all manor of tricks out his suitcase. He is happy to make you crepes on stage or bang a kettle with a broomstick or stare at one person menacingly for the duration of a song. His performance interacts with the crowd and makes the show more participatory something I’ve been looking for in new acts to book.

Percussionist Cyril Atef performs in a custom made jock strap and sits behind the oddest drum kit I’ve ever seen assembled. A djimbe for a kick drum, a random collection of random shakers and percussive instruments gathered from around the globe all microphoned through a sample station to loop and stack beats. There is a roland or korg synth which also ran through the loop station and probably a couple pots and pans. He’ll stack a few loops to the beat add a synth line then proceed to rock out the amplified thumb piano for 15 minute jam sessions of improvised dancefloor mayhem.

This is them performing live in Haiti. Watch how the crowd goes from chanting for the local dancer Chi Chi Man to going totally mental for Congopunq’s jump up carnival vibes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEB_UBJOtfQ[/youtube]

Cyril, is the long-time percussionist for Mathieu Chedid (french megastar with the oddest haircut in the biz) and he’s also founded another project called Bumcello. He has been living in France for some 20 years now. I  sat down with him to talk about the new project at his apartment and from what I can tell he’s completely insane in the healthiest sense of the word.  Here’s the video for their single from the Candy Goodness album released on Crammed Discs. This guy should be rocking at tropical parties around the globe right now and no one seems to know about him. Promoters and Booking Agents… get on your P’s and Qs and BBM’s and twitter… I’ll be playing with him tonight at the same bar I met him at International 5/7 Rue Moret. Planning on bringing him to NYC soon so please hit me up if you wanna host them at your parties.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBXVf2XXS70[/youtube]0

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I got about 45 minutes warning that Los Gaitero de San Jacinto were performing in Paris the other night. The band has been active since AT LEAST 1940 so there’s only so many chances we’re gonna get to see them.  I was hanging with percussionist Cyril Atef when I got the text. We had been discussing the african origins of colombian music and instumentation while going through choons for almost an hour.  Him tagging along was merely a variation on a meme. I still have to download the video and flicks of the show from my camera but lemme go ahead and do a separate post to tell you about the opening act we walked in on,  a cumbia-fusion meets visual trio from Bogota called retroVISOR

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/11532341[/vimeo]

On rhythm section you have Camilo Giraldo Angel & Luis Alfonso Cruz laying down some free range samplodelic tripiness but it was the work of the VJ and concept director for the bands videos, Carmen Gil Vrolijk aka Carmen Electrik that really got me interested in their performance. Criminally brilliant with a side of smokin hot she’s chopping some well fruity slices of video mango that illustrate the flavor of these songs amazingly

she has degree in plastics

In the above tune, Chicha! she collaborated with a Estefanía Barreto & Juan Camilo Quiñones to create an 8 bit video that deals with native inhabitants being pushed out of their lands by big industry, a problem Colombia still faces today particularly with the damage being done from unearthing gold which releases mercury, cyanide and arsenic into the soil and water table. I’m waiting for my copy of their retroVISOR VJ Sessions DVD while doing my homework on what else she’s up to and trying to convince her to come out and session with me when I play in Bogota again

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swZzjs5joPA[/youtube]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/11273261[/vimeo]

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Pechiche = showing love + human exchange + comradery + laughter + sharing in a moment with friends + giving each other what you want with celebratory disregard + going hard at the party. It’s an energy my set has been reflecting lately and its very much a latin vibes ting. I’m happy to announce my first gigs in London this weekend longside Cal Jader/ DJ Arias/ and celebrating the release of Axel Krygier‘s album Pesebre with the man himself.

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Gotta love the fact that we’re moving past the studio and the night club, into a visual realm. Tropical Bass doubles down this week with two new music videos from a few of our favorite artists this year.

First up, Mexicans with Guns new video “Dame Lo” shot by System D-128 could possibly represent more elements of chicano culture than Danny Trejo’s tattoo collection.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/13786446[/vimeo]

and Uproot Andy’s remix of Los Rakas tune Abrazame gets the treatment and rakes in over 4000 views in just 1 day. BOOM!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyujRXZ2Gms[/youtube]

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At the epicenter of the island’s reggaeton scene stands a home studio in Carolina called Live Music. Home to recording artists Jowell y Randy, and several up and coming acts, Live Music is also the workspace of the island’s top rated producers. Man like DJ Blass (El Artesano), Mr Green and DJ Giann. I didn’t get to spend much time with Mr Green but I spent 4 sessions watching “El Artesano” in action and listening in on DJ Giann’s thoughts for the future of the genre, and I want to share some of that with you now.

I’ll start off with DJ Blass because let’s face it, the man is a living legend. He’s been in the scene since the reggaeton was a likkle yout we called  “underground” and helped the genre mature into the largest grossing latino music market of the decade. Over the years he has gained work credits with pretty much every artist in the genre from cats you’ve heard of like Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderon, Wisin y Yandel, & Jowell y Randy etc to foundation dudes like Don Chezina, Falo, Alberto Stylee you might wanna brush up on. His discography has the kinda swag that makes you want to believe even his abuelita’s gold chain bangs table.

I don’t know exactly when they started calling him El Artesano (the artisan) but watching Blass work in the studio I understood exactly how he earned the title. Its like watching Data from Star Trek work in Logic and Fruity. He’s a machine that knows the software and it’s shortcuts and plug-ins, inside out. You could walk out to smoke a cigarette and he’ll have had enough time to sketch out a dembow riddim that could be playing in clubs around the world in a matter of months, and he might save the session, or he might just close and delete. That’s just him killing time between sessions. Consider DJ Blass the Timbaland of his demographic. You might not know everything he’s responsible for but trust me he is largely responsible for changing the soundscape of the genre and what’s happening right now at Live Music is going to take things even further.

All that talk of “reggaeton all sounds the same” got a sharp rebuke 2008/09 with Jowell Y Randy’s smash  No Te Veo. Our friend Wayne Marshall, co-author of the official book on Reggaeton, explained exactly why this song was not your typical dembow and the importance of that is why I’m excited. Anything goes now. Blass and Giann have been workin on more soca sounding patterns in the 120 bpm range and what you can expect to hear down the road is stuff like this.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppbVPZCXfFA[/youtube]

I first heard this song a few weeks ago, at Que Bajo?! when our guest Toy Selectah was getting busy on decks, murdering the dancehall. I flat left a girl on the dancefloor to go ask him about it. That’s a serious tune man. Ol’ girl was fly.

Super secret ninja spy tip- Toy and blass have a collabo forthcoming which I’ve already heard both versions of and I can’t decide which one is my favorite song of the year but its defintely one of the two. fer realz.

Sitting in on the conversations between Toy and Blass was being a fly on the wall to both the history and future of urban latin radio. According to Blass there was a floppy disk with a grip of Sly and Robbie samples that went into a synth and became the corner stone for reggaeton. When I asked him who was big on roads to find out who should I be keeping an eye out for he told me about Omar Garcia’s album which is being recorded there and what I heard there in the lab is fiya.  Toy Selectah playing Blass moombaton and 3ball for the first time and Blass admitting he’d recently been fuckin about with some kuduro riddims and Randy Nota Loca chiming in that he was feeling everything he was hearing made me rest easy that the heads of state we’re united on embracing the larger sonic range and working together on tearing down the walls. DJ Giann, the lesser known but equally talented studio jockey played me some wicked choons that won’t be out for months but him more so than anyone in the camp has his ear toward a 130 reggaeton sound that’s going to cross over and bridge the gap.

Giann to me seems like he’s somehow the link. He produces reggaeton and both dembow and african speeds but he’s listening and partying to variations of house. With the grip of stuff we left him he’ll have a head start on whats gwarning and draw on influences that are going to take the studio in new directions. Not that they need any help making hits, as listening to the radio in Puerto Rico you’ll hear Live Music, DJ Blass and DJ Giann get shout outs roughly a third of the heavily rotated tracks you hear while driving. Turn on the TV while at the studio at the guy standing next to you could well be on screen which makes the place feel simultaneously like a paradox or the vortex of something good. A gateway to the future we’re trying to create.