It took a minute, but the most bad-ass & influential young cumbia producer is out & loose in Europe for the next 2 months.
El Hijo de la Cumbia got his start producing for big Mexican sonidero groups; I still find CDs out here in Brooklyn with his beats on them.
He’s since gone solo and when we played together in Mexico City is was pretty amazing, insane remixes and edits of his own bombs, plus all sort of deep-reach cumbia jams that had us kumbia nerds in jawdrop mode.
dates below. his debut album, Freestyle de Ritmos, is buyable @ spots like Turntable Lab, Boomkat, eMusic, and various iTunes…
EL HIJO DE LA CUMBIA – European tour (more dates TBA)
28 may – Integraliza Ourense, SPAIN
13 jun РG̦teborg SWEDEN Clandestino 16 jun РRebel Up! @ OT301 РAmsterdam NL
19 jun – Worm – Rotterdam NL
20 jun – Worm – Rotterdam NL
25 jun – München GERMANY ROTE SONNE
27 jun – Fusion Festival – Lärz – Germany
4 jul – Roskilde Copenhagen DENMARK
16 jul – Festival Tourcoing Plage – Tourcoing FRANCE
17 jul – La Nuit de Phonque meets Mash It Up! – Artheater – Cologne – Germany
New York Tropical is exactly a week from today! Check the flyer – we are designers, you already know. To get ready, I have put a podcast together containing mostly women voices over beats and sounds composed by men. I wasn’t specifically looking for female voices on male constructed instrumentals, it just happened most of the tracks I gather are refixes and songs with women voices recorded by gentlemen producers (I was tempted to call this Women… In The Vicinity Of Men. Thankfully, I settled on Mousso. We need some more gyals in here… too many man, too many, many man!
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I was going to post the tracklist a little later but we all know how Björk feels about writers not giving credits, so here it is –
This mix gets denser then pigs at a Smithfield subsidiary in Veracruz. Sonido Del Principe out of the Netherlands sent his New Summer Cumbia Mix over almost three weeks ago (is it five now?)- but better late then never. Some might not go in for the mashups and refix’s- but waking up on a Sunny day in hungary Hackney with the subs turned up this mix is a surefire winner.
entirely unrelated hoax image circa sars
With limited bandwidth- so grab from Mega Upload until I have a chance to up it to our servers…
Tracklist:
01. Chico Cervantes – Cumbia de la Paz
02. Tremor – Viajante (Cumbia Cosmonauts Remix)
03. El Hijo de la Cumbia – La Mara Dub (SDP edit)
04. El Remolon – Bolivia
05. Dj Panik – Like this like that
06. Fauna vs Grandmaster Flash vs SDP
07. El Norte vs SDP – Wu-umbia!
08. Sonido Del Principe – El Principe
09. El Hijo de la Cumbia – Bombon Asesino version
10. Vampiros Deejaay vs SDP – Sexy Rod Dub
11. Prince vs SDP – If I was your Girlfriend
12. Grupo Adixion – Porque te Vas
13. Dj Panik – Te Vez Buena
14. Sonido Del Principe – Cartagena
15. Dead Menems – Taliban del Amor (El Remolon rmx)
16. Jozefa Matia vs SDP – Cumbia Solede
17. Sonido Del Principe – Shake it
18. Zomby vs. SDP – Shake that strange Fruit
If you missed the insanity that was Demolition- Rob from Pollinate was dropping a sick Tribal Guarachero set to a very receptive crowd-Â you’ve got another chance to act like you know!
THE FADER kicks off their latest issue’s podcast mix with a summer single from Dutty Artz!
Go here to nab it and enjoy La Yegros’ slinky hit, “Trocitos de Madera” — I’m twisting the arm of my favorite Peruvian diseñadora as we speak, she’s finishing up artwork NOW which means the ‘Trocitos de Madera’ single will be available in a few weeks, with remixes by Matt Shadetek & I (crunk tropical), El Remolon (tropical minimal), and Marcelo Fabian (kinda insane IDM).
Until then, you can bump it alongside Salem (!), Jahdan Blakkamoore (!!) and others (?X?X?) in the Fader’s podcast.
No kidding! Thanks to all who came out to New York Tropical 5 to see Uproot Andy, Geko, me and Maluca. It was a lot of fun. Maluca killed it, super energy and the people loved it. Here are some pics from the night. This month we’ll be back at Glasslands on Friday May 29th doin’ it again, flier and info very soon.
We got a call from Disco Shawn from Bersa Discos/Tormenta Tropical and he’ll be throwing down with us at APT tomorrow longside Uproot Andy, myself and N-Ron Hubbard.
APT is located at 419 W 13th St between 9th and Washington. NO COVER
Now about 3 weeks back I got an email from Toy Selectah and he asked me to throw up his MEXMORE LP but I got distracted in getting ready for my vacation.
If you didn’t catch it on some of the other blogs by now then its my fault you haven’t heard this yet, and I take responsibility for not having given you the opportunity to look cooler just by telling your friends about it. Now when you tell them, you can also collect bonus points for telling them how they too can get their pura crema on right here inna NYC June 4th!!
Glad to finally get to sit down and write this post. Since I got back from my trip, it feels like we’ve been busier than ever. Sometimes a couple gigs a night, sometimes going off till 7am. Dutty Artz crew is in full force right now. And that force is global.
Altitude 2,640 M
04º 38′ N, 74º 05′ W
Major Exports: Flowers, Petroleum, dope music.
This is it. The cradle of afro-latin music. I check in to the hotel around 12:30am on a friday night/saturday morning but I learn that the bar scene in Bogota has been much regulated in the past couple years and the clubs now close around 2am. We decide to stay in for the night. Its raining and after the night I had on thursday at Que Bajo?! I could use the sleep. Lots planned for the rest of the week.
On Saturday morning, we drive just a couple blocks and the first thing I notice is the graffiti. Bogota is covered in colors. You find the intricately woven name tags but also styles that infuse indigenous art and that’s what really stands out.
We visit la Plaza Bolivar, get our bandeja paisa on and drive around the city a bit before getting dropped off at La Familia Ayara, my musical liaisons for the trip.
I meet Diana, an up and coming PR agent under an overpass and walk over to the LFA headquarters. She introduces me to Choco and Lil Chris. These kids are organized! Their office is my dream work space. They started off as Colombia’s first hip-hop clothing line but they’ve flourished over the past 11 years into a much larger non-profit enterprise working closely with UNICEF to use hip-hop as a platform for teaching workshops to di disadvantaged youts dem in afro-colombian villages throughout the country. I am standing in epicenter of Colombia’s urban music scene.
We enter the storefront where you can buy top quality mixtapes, original albums by local hip-hop, reggae and fusion acts plus hoodies, shirts, jeans, magazines, and of course, spray paint. It’s after hours and the store is closed but they show us around the space. Past the register there is a partitioned off computer bank with four work stations. This is where the forums for workshops are created.
Upstairs, another computer bank is where the administrative literature and emailing for funding goes down and the general business is managed.
There is another office for the Program Director who I meet only briefly as he is meeting about a trip to the Pacific coast this week to do some workshops and volunteer work . I’m impressed but this is still only half of the center. Next door to the store/HQ, the rec center where they host workshops for kids and are training an army of hip-hop soldiers to fight the revolution.
Familia Ayara luuuh da keedz! Monday through Friday they operate an after school program teaching kids break dancing, graffiti and forums on community issues ranging from teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and issues concerning race. I notice a collection of tasteful murals on huge murals stacked along the wall. Kazar explains were part of a city-wide gallery display highlighting their work in business throughout Bogota. These murals will be at a gallery in Toronto in May/June and could not be photographed.
Up one spiral staircase you find, Ayara Studios, where Choq Quib Town, Midras Queen and several other local acts have come to lay down the future of Colombia’s musical exports. Having recorded the whole of Buzzrock Warrior in a far less elaborate workspace I am happy to see the family is opening doors for like-minded artists that are trying to release music of substance. As a record label, LFA’s releases parallels their work in the community. They release conscientious urban music that fuses Colombia’s rich musical heritage and addresses issues relating to race and the community.
Bogota has an overwhelmingly white demographic. One doesn’t feel the racial tension at first because there just arent that many people of color in sight. The Afro-communities of Colombia are mostly relegated to the coast which has a lot to do with why the music is so good out there. I asked almost every cabbie, music store clerk and local that I had an exchange with where I could find cumbia or afro-colombian music in bogota and the overall consensus was that Bogota just isn’t feeling either. There is no radio station dedicated to cumbia. Kids listen to pop. They listen to Rock and Reggaeton. They listen to salsa and vallenato… but all that old time music, cumbia, bullerengue…. its all dead in Bogota. Ayara’s die-hard quest to keep those traditions alive by infusing them with modern technologies and working out there in rural Colombia to both volunteer and document and shine a light on the racial divide in Colombia.
After touring the facility we go to dinner with Choco, Diana and Chris who are all rapid-fire in answering my questions about the underground in Colombia. I hear about Voodoo Souljahs, Profetas and Midras Queen who works at the clothing store and is about to release her album, which was currently being mastered. (I got an early copy and standout choon is a latin dancehall number called Irreverente). I hear about several hip-hop and dub influenced acts but I’m trying to get in deeper. They offer up Mojarra Electrica y Bomba Estereo. Great stuff but rated PG in my book. I’m looking for a big wobbly monster that lives in a cave.
Throughout dinner I keep hearing the name Reeechard, the sound engineer that masters most of the labels music, helps them record and produces some great music. Their regard for him sits somewhere between generous man and patron saint. Richard Blair, better known as Sidestepper has lived in Colombia over a decade and I am witnessing the impact he has had on a generation of young Colombian musicians.
It wasn’t enough to make new Colombian music which resonated with these kids. It’s the fact that he works directly with them on their projects and contributes his time, skills and craft. The interview I had hoped to sit down with him for was conducted via email because I done up my phone creds and called a little late and missed my window. He was up early and had studio time reserved for 1pm. Man a Badman in my book. ( catch that interview here next week. )
Of all the local musicians I learn about the most chatted up and promising act on roads from Bogota is ChoqQuibTown. Choco tells me that historically, the Atlantic coast has always received a lot more attention for its musical contributions and what is innovative about CQT’s sound is that they are infusing the often overlooked Pacific Coast sounds like currulao and bunde and instruments, like the marimba with hip hop and dancehall synthetics . Some of you may have caught them rocking SXSW a few weeks ago and left there with a crush on MC/songstress Goyo. Their brand new album “Oro” drops this month. Their tune San Antonio is sittin pretty at 140 and ripe for the wobbly remix.
My hope, as I’m sure yours would be too was to find something beneath all the layers of boom-bap I knew I’d have to sift through. I’m asking Lil Chris and Choco where the Bogota bassheads at? I learn that Bogota isn’t really the hot spot for new music in Colombia. It has had a thriving Dub/Jungle scene for years but if you want the club banging hotness you need to go to the coast….. and beyond.
Lil Chris played me some crazy shit from Dj Buxxi off the ipod. There are two islands off the coast of Colombia, San Andres y Providencia and out there you can find a scene fusing dancehall, zouk and hip hop. Nearly all the MC’s I heard from out there toggle between spanish ragga, caribbean patois and creole. This tune was one of the many gems I picked up from my trip.
DJ Buxxi seems to be at the forefront of this sound producing for nearly all the big MC’s on the island which sits between Jamaica, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia. If our up on Los Rakas you’d be into most of the stuff he’s collaborated on. He comes down and records in Bogota about once a month to record with La Familia Ayara and is making a name for himself and his San Andres cohorts SA Finest, Hety y Zambo (zambo = sambo).
“its like the San Andres Ricky Blaze” – Uproot Andy
The rain came down aguacero style over the course of our dinner conversation. We called it a night jumped in a mini-cooper sized cab and head back to the telly. I spent the next couple days checking out landmarks and spending time with Pop Dukes and Mrs Jones.
The museum of gold makes you want to believe in El Dorado.
The Salt Cathedral which is still an active salt mine was an impressive human feat. They’ve gutted x amount of metric tons of salt out of a mountain for centuries and have left 14 cathedrals in the excavated caverns adorned with insane sculptures and collosal crosses.
We railed up to cloud level and took a couple shots of something akin to mamajuana from the Dominican Republic to ease the effects of gravity. The view from here is amazing. Bogota refuses to be condensed into the lens of a panoramic camara.
Mrs Jones on Higha Heights.
I get off my cloud and realized I haven’t acquired anywhere near enough music so Tuesday becomes my day for diggin. The pirate industry here is thorough. I enter San Victorino’s bootleg emporium. Roughly 40 booths all slangin MP3 CD’s and DVD’s. Next door a similar market full of just cellphone venders.
The Pirates Bay
There is a strange but orderly fashion to how the shopping districts are arranged. Four blocks straight of nothing but optical stores along Carrera 13 at Calle 7. Further down el expresso to meet DJ Blanko, I notice a few blocks of lechonera’s, Bogota’s roast pork district. There’s no time for food tho. I just missed a book release party about female MC’s in colombia because I’m hungry for more music.
If your looking for rare colombian vinyl... holla at my dude DJ Blanko.
I met DJ Blanko at his brand new shop which had just opened 23 days earlier. He tells me he’s one of the few tornamesistas (turntablists) in Bogota. Not alot of kids can afford turntables but alot of them want to learn so he hosts workshops there for kids and teaches junior deejays the ways of the samurai wiki-wki. He lets me look through the shop and I pick up a couple titles. He tells me he doesn’t want my money. I trade him a couple mixtapes. Blanko and his turntablist friends have been to almost every major city flea market and knook and crannie and are great diggers. For you hardcore vinyl heads write him in advance and he keeps a list of stuff he digs for out of towners.
I scour malls, and shopping districts for deep afro-colombian jams. I find Etelvina Martinez, Maria la Carmen, Peregoyo and Gualajo. AMAZINGGG stuff. If your into the Afro-colombian sound of the pacific coast be sure to go down for the Petronio Alvarez Festival.
At the hotel, I listen to the new digs and seriously contemplate extending my trip to go to the coast.
Email from Jean:
u have a gig on the last day u r in bogota in case u wanna play on the 15th
call them if u want
My week could not get any better. With the exception of La Cumbiamba Eneye, an ensemble that plays traditional folkloric music from Colombia that I often DJ with, I run the only afro-colombian remix party in New York city longside my partners Uproot Andy and Jean Bernabe. Now I get my chance to play our stuff in Bogota. I suss out Club Penthouse and its a new and happening spot in town. Wednesday night everyone said the place to be was Quiebra Canto but that was also the night of my gig. La vida es asi.
I got there early and found that I’d be using CDJ’s for the evening via serato. Not my fave but it ain’t gon’ make a difference once I’m on. I notice the kids at the club are wearing the same bright yellow jeans and teal t-shirts one would see in Williamsburg and I decide I can pretty much play and wear whatever I want.
When I come back to the club, the resident DJ is playing warmers. Orishas, Amparanoia, some latin dancehall cuts. He picks up the decibles for MIA’s Bamboo Banga and Crookers version of Day n’ Night. I’m feeling in my element and plotting my set when some next guy jumps on dex and yanks the steering wheel hard right and slams us into 90’s drum and bass for 20 minutes. I go downstairs to the salsa floor to get my head right. (I can still name the first three tunes dude played so any hardcore junglists tryna say Geko Jones is h8tin on D&B hold your heads, or come clash Dutty Artz and see how you make out)…
The promoter tells me there is a band that is going on before me which is perfect cuz I have to get my box in. I think if they played 8 songs four of them where Madonna covers. I’m not too into the kitsch thing but the crowd is eating this up. The sound guy tells me this is their last song. I come in with a dub plate… from the stage the promoter is waving like an air traffic controller. FALSE ALARM. I wheel and the band does one more …..
Bogota loves the cheeze factor but I gotta give it to the band they kept the crowd moving.
Finally….. its game time.
Hard and heavy tropical bass and digital cumbia hits Bogota.
1) I’m gonna be participating in a free afternoon talk @ The New School tomorrow, “What Was The Hipster?” I’ll be joined by Mark Grief, editor of n+1, and Christian Lorentzen of Harper’s. info
+ + +
2) US people — Soot’s rising star El Hijo de la Cumbia has the iTunes US Latin Single of the Week! Go Now to grab his “Soy El Control” hit for free. and feel free to grab the whole album while there….
Geko Jones was guest hosting Moglo Radio this week and he put together a beautiful hour of tropical travels. This is good for your in home personal dance parties, I know cause it was recorded in my Bed Stuy apartment and the place was jumping. For real, I was jumping. I got all amped and tried to have a cumbia cd delivered with our tacos, cause they do sell them at the restaurant, but alas the tacos arrived alone. Don’t worry though, I’ll try again next time, I’m determined to have cumbia delivered to my door.
In the meantime, grab the radio show below, put it on, and start practicing your moves for the next Que Bajo dance party on April 9th at APT, as well as every Thursday in April after that.
Also I wanna shout out Chief Boima who has two new productions featured in Geko’s mix, one of them in collaboration with Oro 11 under the name Banana Clipz. They’re both fire and Boima promises a trip out here in the summer so get familiar.
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Tracklist:
Filaw (Chief Boima rmx) – Issa Bagayogo
Bongo Jam- Crazy Cousins
Guata Guata- Dj Mouse
Serena Step- Hossam Ramsey
Num Deu Pra Creditá- Barbatuques
Borachera- Charly DJ
El Pescador (Uproot Andy remix) – Toto la Momposina
Mapale Sabroso – Cumbia Soledena
El Principe- Sonido del Principe
Kamphopo- The Very Best
Crisis (Banaclipz Bubustyle riddim)- Khady Black
Kawina-?
Ay paloma- La Reverenda (Geko Jones & Reaganomics Ay Kuduro rmx)
Drift Furioso- DJ Marfox
Lem Lem feat Sara- Ku Bo
Freight Dub- Stagga
Next up in the Dutty Artz Podcast series, La Nueva Guaracha, a great new mix from Geko Jones. If you stay up on this blog you know he and Dutty Artz amigo Uproot Andy have a party we call Que Bajo?! where they but a latin spin on the New York Tropical sound.
This is a snippet of the uptempo stuff Gex is playing around 2am at these parties. There’s also a quite a bit of glitched out and remixed cumbia, latin mashups, reggaeton and other sounds involved at the shows but we only have so much bandwidth. If you want to hear more be sure to pick up a copy the brand new Dutty Artz mixtape New York Tropical Vol 1 – Rupture vs Geko Jones available at the Glasslands party Friday March 27th.
Starting Thursday April 9th Que Bajo?! will be weekly at APT (409 W 13th St btw 9th ave/Washington in Madhattan)
stay chooned.
TRACKLIST:
Olha o Beijo – Joao Linho
La Vida Vale La Pena- Petrona Martinez
Canto de Tucanes- Pedro Tapias (El Kuduro Sabroson remix by Reaganomics)
Kuduro Esaboka- DJ Prako
Juana La Caribe- Petrona Martinez
Ay Paloma (Geko Jones mashup)- La Reverenda
Los Olivos- Los Palos de DR
El Botellon (Uproot Andy remix)- Grupo Naidy
so last year we were grinding and just the other day Shadetek & I sat down and counted: we’ve got 3 Dutty ARtz ALBUMS finished and done, and a bunch of other stuff, and another mix in the planning… so while 2008 was indeed nonstop hustle-time, this year most of those results will be unleashed.
for first fruits, check Rob Da Bank’s show this weekend, BBC Radio 1. I’m taking over the decks for an hourlong cumbia/new york tropical special, and will be debuting 2 tunes from the upcoming Jahdan Blakkamoore album, one an deep boom-knocker cooked up by Maga Bo (catch him holding it down w/ Sinden @ Fabric on Feb 6th!), and the other built by Matt, with Durrty Goodz tearing up the mic alongside JD. Cause that’s how it is.
