MEANWHILE, BACK IN NEW YORK

Toy Selectah is a man of many producerly hats. From masterminding Celso Pina’s crossover megahit “Cumbia Sobre el Rio” to pushing the (somewhat defunct) Machete reggaeton/Spanish-language hiphop label a few years back, to his latest 130bpm Mirlos edit on Bersa Discos and free remix album

I’m still too busy in Barcelona to post new audio, but New York can listen to Toy live tomorrow (@ Santos Party house with Dutty Artz family).

Or win tickets to the show on my radio show tonite. I’ve prerecorded the music and Lamin Fofana will be holding it down on the mic.

I upped this tune over at La Congona a few weeks ago – Toy remixing Santogold in a cumbia-gone-doubletime style. Around the corner from where I live they now sell “BROOKLYN WE GO HARD” t-shirts. Reach!

[audio:http://lacongona.com/mp3/Shove%20It%20(Cumbia%20Remix).mp3]

Santogold vs Toy Selectah – Shove It (cumbia remix)

CINCO DE MAYO / REGGAETON RADIO

cincodemayo

[“Happy Cinco de Mayo” from Tray]

Head to La Congona for my Cinco de Mayo special, 6 cumbias 4 May 5th!

+

On Wednesday, May 6th, 7-8PM EST, Raquel Z. Rivera and Wayne & Wax, co-editors of the new ‘Reggaeton’ book, will be joining me live in studio for Mudd Up! radio (WFMU 91.1 FM NYC, streaming worldwide, no te lo pierdas!) !

From Panamanians to Playeros to post-DemBoleros, they’ll be spinning rarities alongside discussion of the genre’s complex roots and current possibilities.

+

on Flickrlandia, Logan Mills reimagines Wu Tang LP artwork as Blue Note classics:

odb

[Logan Mills Wu Tang redesign]

 

tical

[Logan Mills Wu Tang redesign]

ANTES MUERTA QUE SENCILLA

juliana

Arabasque flamenco-mambo from the Dominican Republic based on a Eurovision-winning kids’ song from Spain. (Hearing a grown woman sing it removes the pedophilic overtones of the original… I’d rather be dead than plain)

[audio:Juliana___Antes_Muerta_Que_Sencilla.mp3]

Juliana O’Neal – Antes Muerta Que Sencilla

+ + +

The latest episode of XLR8R TV follows me as I dig for cumbia in San Francisco’s Mission. Video starts with a horrible ad, but the rest is fun:

75% CUMBIA

cumbia is the spice

Apparently at the end of the DUNE series the protagonist (Leo Atreides II) has inhaled so much spice that he’s no longer human or even a mytho-dynast, but has transformed into a huge sandworm (presumably with telepathic powers). The worms are spice, spice is the worm. Dune is a crazy book, I could barely finish it, much less move on to the 5 or 6 other ones.

Point is, if cumbia is the spice i feel i may be approaching sandworm status — a long round in Tepito ‘barrio bravo’ in Mexico City followed by a few pre-Postopolis days in downtown Los Angeles in the shops here. The twin poles of best contemporary cumbia production, in other words…. I’ve been traveling for the last three or four weeks, and look fwd to return home, sit down, and properly listen… Also picked up some great promising books in D.F., but that’s another post.

Last night’s radio show is about 75% cumbia, 10% tribal guarachero, 15% unreleased material from friends…

Here are 3 breakout cumbia tunes from it.

Celso Pina also versioned this one. I can’t resist typing the lyrics in all caps. AMOR! AMOR ROMANTICO! AMOR DE CUMBIA!

[audio:http://lacongona.com/mp3/CHICO CERVANTES – CUMBIA DE LA PAZ.MP3]

Chico Cervantes – Cumbia de la Paz

love the female vox here. bittersweet love tune.

[audio:http://lacongona.com/mp3/MeOlvidaras.mp3]

Grupo Adixion – Porque Te vas

[audio:http://lacongona.com/mp3/Bailando Cumbia.mp3]

Grupo Kual – Bailando Cumbia

and this last one, a classic — Manu Chao bit this one hard; those male backing voices actually sound like him singing!

[audio:http://lacongona.com/mp3/AURITA CASTILLO Y SU CONJUNTO – CHAMBACU.MP3]

Aurita Castillo y Su Conjunto – Chambacu

NYC SONIDERA

cumbiaGer5

La Congona continues serving your cumbia needs (check my recent post on Tepito & the Superflex book), but MuddUp! wouldn’t be the same if i didn’t post up some jams here too.

Here’s an excellent NYC sonidero track. It’s basically a big advertisement enhanced by ill synths and that stomping sampled beat.

[audio:Formula5_LaCumbiaMaestra.mp3]

Formula 5 – La Cumbia Maestra

+ + +

I’m really into La Vagancia and their vibe – dark dark dark. This song is about… The collapse of love across distance. Dwindling remittances from folks working in foreign countries (nearly 24 billion was sent home to Mexico by workers in America last year!).

Bleak realism, crisp percussion, minor notes stuck in the throat. “Urban cumbia… from town to city”

LA-VAGANCIA2-004

y de la plata que el mando ya no queda nada / “and now nothing’s left of that money he sent”

[audio:LaVagancia-La_Historia_de_Linda_y_Roberto.mp3]

La Vagancia – La Historia de Linda y Roberto

K-K-K-UMBIA

[Vampi terraza foto by Sonido Martines]

here by popular request… an hourlong mix of cumbia. this is like my BBC session, proper full audio, with some edits and the vocal drops removed, etc. Harlem mixtape discface-printing CD-r slimline case style.

$8 includes shipping in the US, $11 includes overseas shipping. PayPal. On sale here this week only.

choose shipping location

SOUNDCLOUD + SONIDERA

dear producer people, if you want to send me tracks, use this:

Send Rupture yr tune

I can’t tell if SoundCloud is gonna start charging me or not, but I’ll put it up for now. The first tune I received is great, will play on the radio tonite. Optimism pervades.

and in other news, our Cumbia blog, La Congona New Cumbia, continues. Here’s a quick map of Sunset Park Brooklyn’s taquerias + cumbia stores.

Benoit from Montreal has started writing! He just upped a great mix of new sonidera. We DJed together recently and he was pulling out some impressive jams… Brother is in deep! very glad to have Benoit on board. Listen up y disfrutalo.

PITCH IMPERFECT & THE GEKO JONES SHOW

the flip side of auto-tune’s robo-correction is bad/out-of-tune singing, as timeless at auto-tune is new. (I find both performance styles quite compelling, to be honest.) Cumbia Sonidera is filled with folks who just can’t hit those notes – and sing anyway! How can you not appreciate that?

I posted a version of this song a few months ago, by Grupo Ginnsu. This is the Kumbia Sonicos’ pitch-imperfect rendition (debe ser guapo dice R!):

[audio:Cumbia de los Patos.mp3]

Kumbia Sonicos – Cumbia de los Patos

one of my favorite cumbia sonidera subgenres is the injured lover jam. You hurt my heart, she sings (in-tune).

[audio:Tu Heriste Mi Corazon.mp3]

Majeza – Tu Herista Mi Corazon

+ + +

geko jones

on today’s radio show – “Latin/Caribbean music expert & DJ Geko Jones will be joining Rupture. The Colombian-Puerto Rican digger will share with us some of his latest finds from the cutting edge of tropical soundsystem and street music culture, from Mexican tribal guarachero to freshly made ragga-bass mutations and Afro-Colombian soul gems. A deep live mix from Geko Jones — ¡¡No te lo pierdas!!”

if yr in NYC, catch Mr Geko Jones (Que Cojones) live @ APT tomorrow – FREE – holding it down w/ Uproot Andy:

J.R. MATASANOS Y SUS MANOS CARTERISTAS

my hour-long cumbia mix for Rob Da Bank’s BBC Radio 1 show went out a couple hours ago and will be streamable for a week. PERFECT THING TO HEAT US UP, mixed in freezing New York. Modesty aside, you’ll be hard pressed to find a hotter hour of free cumbia heat floating around…

andres

Go here then click on ‘Listen to Rob Da Bank & Friends show’ and forward til an hour in.
Or try this direct link to the BBC player. Incidentally, the first tune I play after the intro chat w/ Rob is Pesadilla’s version of La Pava Congona

+ + +

Too much sound? Susan Sontag on The Aesthetics of Silence. via Audio Poverty’s blog , AP being a conference-event happening in Berlin Feb 6-8. I will play music one day and chat with Kodwo Eshun (More Brilliant Than the Neologismachine) & Brian (Awesome Tapes from You Know Where) the next.

also: “According to a new study by Will Page, chief economist of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, who is also the guy behind the economic modelling for Radiohead’s In Rainbows album, more than 10 million of the 13 million music tracks available on the internet failed to find a single buyer last year.”