Toy Selectah have a new video made in Bogotá.  Really cool to see Bogotá with some good music in it!   It’s a strange place for me, travelling across the country, music is everywhere except in that city.  While walking on the street, it was quite rare to heard something from, bar, resto, cars, people…

Anyway, check this out!

Ok, it’s a long time since my last post! A lot of stuff was going alongside. in my life (masala, dj, travel and the bad: work…) and  I’m quite happy to have a breath and write a little something on la Congona.

So I’ve been in New York to DJ for the party of Los Destellos and while doing some preparation for this peruvian cumbia night, I’ve just founded this new release of Vampisoul: Cumbia Beat Volume 1 (yes volume 1, so it means at least a number 2?!!) released earlier in may.  Again, just like the excellent Afrosound of Colombia, you are getting probably one of the best compilation of chicha with an amazing sound quality.

Like vampisoul explains:

The metamorphosis of cumbia turns it into a genre that seems to voraciously cannibalize acoustic traditions and modern technologies. There wasn’t an innovation that tropical guitarists didn’t add to their sound: delay, fuzz tone, overdrive, wahwah, reverb, modulating effects typical of rock bands are assimilated into a stunning sonic cocktail.

In this context, cumbia reached the top of the charts in popularity. Cumbia replaced rock as the urban sound. The groups would slowly develop an ethnic sensibility inspired by native Shipibo motifs and an astonishing and bewitching sound that seemed to drink from all the mysteries, secrets and myths of the jungle.

So, trust me, buy it and after listening to this compilation, you will love this psychadelic surf guitar in cumbia.   For sure it will be on my mp3 player on my next trip to Peru and Bolivia in 3 weeks!

Here’s a little regalo that I had in my stuff.

Los Mirlos – Cabalgando con Ella

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And again, if you want more of it, go and download Sonido Martines’s mix “Un sonámbulo en la Amazonia Peruana” on this blog here!

Brand new video from the unstoppable El Hijo de la Cumbia! La Mara Tomaza. Includes a floating Andres Landero head! 100% Congona approved.

if you are reading this blog, you know who they are. Lescano delivers madness guaranteed. If you don’t know, check my article on cumbia for The Fader.

Black Mandingo is back!

My friend Black sent to me a month ago the latest compilation of his remix and mashup.  I’m a bit late on this one and I want to apologize for this!  I had, just like dj/Rupture, computer problems and my available time just shrink to the minimum available!

By chance I had this compilation to listen to it.  I’m really happy to share this one.  I really like the flavor of his remix and mashups.  I was already with the Alto mixtape (download here) that he release  a year ago.  He also got his Fauna remix on zizek here!

Listen to Eazy e cumbia mashup, reggaeton modulado and the heavybass!

Download BLACK IS BACK here

Después de una exitosa presentación en el Zócalo de la ciudad de México el pasado mes de marzo,
frente a mas de 30.000 personas y un tour por el viejo continente, presentadonse en diversos festivales Europeos durante Junio y Julio, vuelve “El Hijo de la Cumbia” a tierras aztecas durante todo el mes de septiembre, presentando su material “Freestyle de ritmos” y que mejor inicio de este gran tour queen el Auditorio nacional, al lado de “Celso Piña” este 3 de Septiembre!!

El Hijo de la Cumbia is running things! Check above for his 10-day Mexico tour, starting tomorrow with el jefe, Celso Pina @ the Auditorio Nacional!!!!!! needless to say, this party will be crazy.

and his debut album, Freestyle de Ritmos, is available in the usual spots, like Boomkat, eMusic, Turntable Lab, and iTunes everywhere…

Tune in Mudd Up! with DJ Rupture tonight at 7PM, as Roberto Ernesto Gyemant aka DJ Beto, the man responsible for putting together those wonderful volumes of 1960s and ’70s “cumbia tropical & calypso funk” from Panama, joins me to talk and share some incredible music. He had a curatorial hand in Soundway Records Panama compilations and the Colombia! Golden Age of Discos Fuentes as well. Deep compilations with informative liner notes, the real deal…

We (Lamin & I) have been fascinated with the music of Panama ever since our visit from Wayne Marshall and Raquel Z Rivera, editors of the Reggaeton book, broke down Panama’s relationship to Jamaica with some deadly tunes and erudite commentary. (Missed it? It’s streaming here. Subscribe to the Mudd Up! podcast if you want downloadable versions of my weekly show: , Mudd Up! RSS.

Listen, get involved, throw in comments, phone in questions. Again, tonight @ 7PM.

For a warmup, check Beto’s mix of hard-to-find musica costeña Colombiana and tipica Panameña, streaming here.

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And if that’s not enough, here’s great CD rip of old school cumbias – although you might not guess it from the cover art featuring two cyber chicks (one in cowhide) and a tiny monkey sporting a baseball cap. [via]

Scratchy gems include a Vietnam-themed war/love song with a call-and-response chorus.

Descarga Sonidera

2 weeks ago I was mixing some cumbia at the party for the album release of my friends psychotropical orchestra here in Montréal and I was talking with the lead of the group who’s from Mexico. We had an interesting discussion about cumbia and sonideros.

He told me about la peregrinacion (pilgrimage) sonidera were all the sonideros across america converge to the church on one day for a special mass and party. Just like almost any peregrinacion in the mexican culture, La virgen de guadalupe is the center of the day and if you have the chance to participate, the best place to follow la pergrinacion is in la Basílica de Guadalupe in Mexico DF. There’s one in couple of city in the us also (I.E. Los Angeles). Anything that can protect the sonideros for the year to come is a good thing!

Here a good video from the famous mexican Grupo Kual where you can see what happening.

“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.

cumbia romantica para políticos nulos (gracias miss pirata!)

& the original in case you don’t recognize the magic touch of Angeles Azules: