Cumbia’s 007

Meet Cero 39.

The son of a high level intelligence agent for the Colombian government, Cero grew up wanting to be James Bond. He was exposed early to all manor of high-end gadgets and has become a multi-faceted artist that incorporates ambient video edits, live art installation, and lively digi-doombia-passa-passa-champeta-y-mas sets that really create a great atmosphere for what he calls the Tropical Advanced sound in Colombia. Factor in the Max Headroom meets Cocheese fashion sense and Secret Agent Gel is gettin a serious run for his money in 2010.

Uproot Andy and I had a chance to get to know Cero 39 aka Sabrosongo while in Bogota for the Que Bajo?! tour this fall. He invited us to play his Santo Show monthly, a sonic sister party to ZZK, Tormenta Tropical and Que Bajo?! You can catch him playing to underground lockdown clubs full of swanky jetset Telemundo actresses, art galleries and clubs all over his native Colombia. His production incorporates cumbia, champeta, dub and synthy happiness. When last I spoke to him, he was working on a motion-censored cumbia installation for the museum in Medellin. I could explain but it would require diagrams, illustrations and schematics and my security clearance just isn’t that high yet.

Instead, download the brand new 2-sided mixtape below and get to know one of my favorite discoveries of 2009.

Vias Del Caribe Vol 2

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