Perspectives on New Wave Cumbia | norient.com 7 Oct 2021 06:12:57 Perspectives on New Wave Cumbia by Moses Iten Since the beginning of the 21st century «new wave cumbia» has been growing as an independent club culture simultaneously in several parts of the world. Innovative producers have reinvented the dance music-style cumbia and thus produced countless new subgenres. The common ground: they mix traditional Latin American cumbia-rhythms with rough electronic sounds. An insider perspective on a rapid evolution. From the Norient book Out of the Absurdity of Life (see and order here). https://norient.com/stories/new-wave-cumbia Page 1 of 15 Perspectives on New Wave Cumbia | norient.com 7 Oct 2021 06:12:58 Dreams are made of being at the right place at the right time and in early June 2007 I happened to arrive in Tijuana, Mexico. Tijuana had been proclaimed a new cultural Mecca by the US magazine Newsweek, largely due to the output of a group of artists called Nortec Collective and inadvertently spawned a new scene – a movement – called nor-tec (Mexican norteno folk music and techno). In 2001, the release of the compilation album Nortec Collective: The Tijuana Sessions Vol.1 (Palm Pictures) catapulted Tijuana from its reputation of being a sleazy, drug-crime infested Mexico/US border town to the frontline of hipness. Instantly it was hailed as a laboratory for artists exploring the clash of worlds: haves and have-nots, consumption and its leftovers, South meeting North, developed vs. underdeveloped nations, technology vs. folklore. After having hosted some of the first parties in Australia featuring members of the Nortec Collective back in 2005 and 2006, the connection was made. In the following year I travelled to Tijuana with a crew of Australian artists and friends in order to participate in a series of cultural events featuring several dozens borderland artists part of the nor-tec scene. Local underground DJ Chucuchu made an indelible impression on all of us for mixing club tracks with cumbia straight from Mexican ghetto laboratories. These songs had all the energy of the classic Colombian Discos Fuentes recordings that make absolutely everyone dance, but sounded like they had been melted down and re-cast in the shape of a rocket that is blasted into outer space. It sounded so fresh, so vital and even more importantly to me, it felt dirtier and rawer than the Nortec Collective sound which I also loved. Returning from Tijuana, I spent some months scouting experimental cumbia from the psychedelic Amazon to urban Buenos Aires. I had to acquire those tunes mainly by downloading and ripping, as most of the sounds I was after had no official release. Then I started contacting many of the artists personally and asked them to send me their music directly. https://norient.com/stories/new-wave-cumbia Page 2 of 15 Perspectives on New Wave Cumbia | norient.com 7 Oct 2021 06:12:58 I could never get enough of these tunes and got such a strong response from the dance floor that it was time to produce my own cumbia sounds. With the necessity of creating music that I couldn’t find enough of, I teamed up with my two musician friends Thomas «Soup» Campbell and Carlos Parraga to form the project Cumbia Cosmonauts and throughout our very first sessions we wrote the song Cumbianauts Incoming. Cumbia Is a Bomb with a Century Long Fuse «Cumbia is a bomb with a century long fuse» proclaimed the intro to an article by Jace Clayton (a.k.a. DJ /rupture) on the contemporary cumbia scene of Buenos Aires in the July/August 2008 issue of the hip New York magazine The Fader. Originating from Colombia, cumbia is a fusion of indigenous folk music combined with African and European musical culture. It had already been reinvented several times since leaving its birthplace, but this time it was different, something was causing cumbia to blow up all over the world – not just in Latin America. «Digital Cumbia», «Nu-Cumbia» or «Nueva Cumbia» were some of the labels for this phenomenon – the next big thing? Much of the hype was coming from Argentina. As well as running whatsupbuenosaires.com (a directory of all the hippest cultural happenings in his adopted city), US-born Grant C. Dull was also directly involved by running the weekly Zizek club nights with fellow DJs Villa Diamante and Nim. Started up in 2007, in what Clayton described as a «safe club in the upscale Palermo Soho district – where both ‹real› blacks like myself and ‹los negros’› from the villa (slum) receive nasty looks in restaurants», the strong concept of Zizek being a laboratory for mixing, mashing up and remixing hip club music (hip-hop, house etc.) with the despised local variant of cumbia, became like a magnet for like-minded DJs and producers. Two Californian DJs were also part of the early line-ups at Zizek: Oro11 (a.k.a. Gavin Burnett) and Shawn Reynaldo «who moved to Buenos Aires and found themselves swimming in a sea of experimental cumbia mayhem. After hooking up in the Buenos Aires DJ circuit, the boys quickly realized that many of the local cumbia sounds were never going to be properly released.» Back in California, the Bersa Discos label and the first vinyl-only release was launched in March 2008 featuring El Hijo de la Cumbia and Daleduro. These 12 tunes on black vinyl caught in its grooves the momentum of what had become a movement. https://norient.com/stories/new-wave-cumbia Page 3 of 15 Perspectives on New Wave Cumbia | norient.com 7 Oct 2021 06:12:58 Almost simultaneously, the Zizek club night launched the ZZK record label to release the compilation ZZK Sound Vol.1 – Cumbia Digital. «In just a years’ time Zizek has been converted to Buenos Aires’ laboratory of dance, creating a scene of producers who reinterpret cumbia (as well as other Latin sounds) using technology and the resources of electronic music», read the sleeve notes. «This compilation is another step forward in consolidating this rich emerging scene and legitimizing this new hybrid and bastard genre we are calling ‹Digital Cumbia›.» «When they ask me what type of music I play, I say bastard pop. It’s not hip- hop, not electronica, not cumbia. It’s more of a way of dealing with the music», Diego Bulacio (a.k.a. Villa Diamante) explained to Clayton. «When we started Zizek a year and a half ago, we debated whether or not to put ‹cumbia› on the flyer.» But Villa Diamante – whose DJ name means «Diamond Slum» – realized, that with a polish – or in his case a mash-up – the raw cumbia sounds from the «villas» (slums) of Buenos Aires would travel far. Cumbia Is the Most Recent Mutation https://norient.com/stories/new-wave-cumbia Page 4 of 15 Perspectives on New Wave Cumbia | norient.com 7 Oct 2021 06:12:58 Like all over Latin America, cumbia began establishing itself in Argentina as soon as recorded music and touring bands started being exported from the original source of Colombia, but it is the most recent mutation which made the biggest impact: cumbia villera (ghetto cumbia) which was born during Argentina‘s most recent economic meltdown (1999–2002). Pablo Lescano is credited with almost single-handedly inventing cumbia villera, due to the enormous success as frontman of the band Damas Gratis. But according to international cumbia ambassador Toy Selectah, two other men were also extremely important in creating the potent new cumbia villera sound. One man is DJ Taz who helped producing instrumental tracks for Lescano called danzas and the other was Fidel Nadal contributing with important elements of reggae production. Video not available anymore. Essentially a danza is an attempt to turn classic Colombian rhythms into beats utilizing the production software Fruity Loops. Although sounding much simpler, the danzas lose none of the vitality and spirit of the original Colombian source material. DJ Taz went on to teach his danza and dub production aesthetics to the up-and-coming cumbia producers DJ Negro and El Hijo de la Cumbia, who Toy Selectah believes, are the true representatives of the new cumbia spirit. Only years later would I discover that some of those anonymous songs I had collected in Tijuana and made me want to become a cumbia producer, were actually these danza songs from Buenos Aires. The Zizek crew invited ghetto hero Pablo Lescano to be part of their club nights, much to the chagrin of the genteel neighbourhood. Whilst cumbia had been present for a long time in Argentina, now as cumbia villera, it had become the official soundtrack for the poor urban masses. «Lescano injected real talk about drugs, girls and crime with the slang of the villa. At the same time, his unsettling keyboard style – all edgy play and multiple voice shifts per song – captured the queasy excitement of a ‹pibe’s› night out», writes an inspired Clayton, relishing the chance to hang out with the megastar Lescano during his time in Buenos Aires. «Bands like Damas Gratis have turned to electronic toys and pushed aside intelligent music to stab us with lively rhythms and ghastly lyrics» writes Ariel Goldsinger in feigned elitist disgust. «This effervescent popular expression makes uncomfortable all those who anesthetize with second-hand hopes and media tricks.» Musically cumbia villera is indeed cheap, blocky and punctuated with «throw your hands in the air» to levels of exhaustion. Goldsinger goes on to say that it’s exactly this pushing aside of the status quo that «creates a space for comprehension.» https://norient.com/stories/new-wave-cumbia Page 5 of 15 Perspectives on New Wave Cumbia | norient.com 7 Oct 2021 06:12:58 Like gangsta rap in the USA becoming a big part of listening habits far away from the ghettos that originally inspired it, this space of comprehension has been so successful in Argentina that these days «the most spoiled kids are playing cumbia villera.