LA CONGONA NEW CUMBIA

“You can call it neo-cumbia or mash-up, but from my point of view it’s all hip-hop.”

insightful, killer interview with Toy Selectah over at Remezcla. At some point we’ll both be in NYC at the same time and an epic radio show appearance will result, but until then -

excerpt

Remezcla: How did the whole neo-cumbia phenomenon start?
Toy Selectah: Híjole güey, it was very spontaneous. We all started getting deep into MySpace. I think it’s still barely starting. Definitely that vinyl release we made with Sistema Local when Chico Sonido moved to Los Angeles was a stepping-stone for the whole movement, it had the first cumbia mash-ups like the one with Missy Elliot and the “Milkshake” song.

RE: That was in 2005, right?
TS: Yes, around 2004 or 2005. It was then when Sonido Martínez (from Argentina) showed up online and right after that, all the rest started to come out.

RE: I think that neo-cumbia happens because of this new Latin American generation that grew up surrounded with cumbia as the dominant lower-class dance music but they see it from a hip-hop perspective. The whole concept of music recycling; this is something that couldn’t have happened 15 years earlier.
TS: Exactly. This is the hip-hop creativity but it’s not happening only with cumbia, it’s happening with all other modern music styles, rock, pop, electronica… You can call it neo-cumbia or mash-up, but from my point of view it’s all hip-hop.

RE: Another distinctive characteristic of this movement is that it mostly developed online, thanks to MySpace, some blogs and free MP3s. There are almost no official releases available.
TS: That’s why I say that this is barely starting and I think it’s gonna be huge! Every time I release a new remix, there are 160 DJs I know that if I send them the track, they will be playing it the next day.

RE: But people hear that at the club and they want to buy the song and it’s not available anywhere.
TS: Right! So they have to come back next week to the gig to listen to it again. That’s how the whole reggaetón thing started with DJ Playero before the record labels got interested in. Now Sonidero Nacional will be releasing a compilation of remixes through Universal.

This entry is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.