Musica Argentina

Music music music! I definitely came down here looking to do some digging and investigating into the music scene here (inspired in part by a certain favorite Argentine DJ, El Papa Chango) and a few people have asked what I've come up with.

And I'm sorry to say that the short answer is ... not really much. Or rather, not like I had hoped.

OK, first of all ... the El Papa Chango thing ... dude is known for super ill latin hip hop and reggaeton type beats and I had thought/assumed that a lot of it would be Argentinian hip hop or the like. And ... far as I've seen in my very limited digging ... I kinda doubt a lot of the stuff he plays is Argentinian. There doesn't seem to be much of a hip hop scene here ... it's pretty minimal ... and the stuff they play in the clubs here (according to Esteban) is generally standard mainstream American hip hop. I didn't find much in terms of Argentinian hip hop.

Esteban changed his location on his MySpace to Buenos Aires and he was immediately the #10 independent hip hop artist in Argentina (based on page views and song plays). Not that he doesn't deserve to be top 10 ... but it kinda is evidence of a lack of a lot of hip hop stuff here.

I went to the club that Diplo plays at when he's here ... ZIZEK at the Niceto Club ... and went to their cumbia/hop/breakbeat kinda night, and peeped the DJs that play there. Villa Diamonte ... Daleduro ... etc. They mix homemade midtempo breakbeats with latin cumbia folk music (of Colombian origin). I found it to be ... kinda ... whatever. Cheap, poorly executed and fad-ish. I think the Nortec Collective in Tijuana do a much more interesting and polished job with mixing street folk music with really slammin' techno. The Niceto guys are definitely doing something, but it wasn't that interesting to me and kinda tended to lack a certain something (bass) that I've been kinda spoiled on. And it just plods, to put it bluntly. And as far as foaming at the mouth latin club music ... the Caribbean and Brazil are just way hotter and turning out way hotter music. When Diplo did a first podcast from Buenos Aires he focused on immigrant Dominicans and Cubans and what they listened to. His recent visit (and podcast) detailed the cumbia electronica movement ... (for more info: http://whatsupbuenosaires.com/WHATSUP_FINAL/press_xlr8r.html) ... (you can find Diplo's podcast linked on the Zizek site: (http://www.whatsupbuenosaires.com/zizek/) if you want to check the sound ... but ... yeah. Daleduro admits in the XLR8R interview that cumbia-tronica is more of a response to what he calls the "MIA Phenomenon" ... of turning to rebel music from the 3rd world for inspiration. Well ... here that means trying to make something out of cumbia ... and ... yeah. Yer not missing much. I think mixing tango with electronica would be a much better idea. And they do that, but I haven't taken the time to listen to that yet.

Back to the El Papa Chango sound ... (drumroll) ... bottom line is that I think basically he's playing general latin hip hop from sources all over the latin diaspora, possibly mixed with more acid basscrunk type stuff from the usual suspects in the West Coast bass scene ... and possibly some stuff from Argentina that only he knows about ... but I found a couple of his signature tracks in my digging and they weren't Argentinian. They were Spanish or Puerto Rican or whatever.

The thing you gotta understand is that ... latin hip hop doesn't get published or pushed or played on the radio or generally distributed in the United States cuz the lyrics are in Spanish (and their websites and MySpace's and promotional materials as well). And there's a lot of amazing latin hip hop and reggaeton (reggae/dancehall in Spanish) ... out there from all over the world (and that's not even counting the TON of stuff from Brazil). I think we just generally miss it. So ... there's your call to action. There's some anthems, you just gotta find them.

As far as the general club scene in Buenos Aires ... there's a couple of clubs that play hip hop, but it's radio/mainstream stuff. The other clubs ... from what I've heard it's mostly 80s and pop and 80s-ish house and disco/euro house and Euro techno. The European influence is strong here. And the Guns and Roses influence is entirely too strong here as well.

And then there's the issues of cigarette smoke, treble, strobe lights and ... shall we say ... a very half hearted approach to dancing among the locals. Cue the bored supermodels. Suffice to say that I gave up on the club scene pretty quickly, I'm sorry to report. We saw some cool places ... but ... yeah. I came to the clubbing capital of Latin America and it mainly reinforced how good we have it where we live. Seriously. I saw nothing here that compares with some of the stuff we do and that we enjoy around the West Coast. Yes there's big expensive clubs here but the level of consciousness ... production and innovation ... seemed kind of lacking. Then you add the mafia ownership aspects and ... yeah. Whatever. I'm not really interested in the same old program. Basically the only things that I can say I liked about the scene here was that (a) the places stay open all night (and into the morning) and (b) lots of people go out a lot. And there was some good techno, though only 2 places we went had subwoofers worth a shit.

I need to confess that my dig quickly became entirely half hearted and not comprehensive at all ... so I don't consider myself an expert ... so ... insert caveat here. I gave up pretty quickly. But I did do a fair bit of reading and hit some of the supposedly hippest spots.

But it's not all bad news. First ... I finished a new mix CD that I had started just before I left. And I have another two in the hopper ... one minimal and progressive techno dilly ... and ... um ... well, I don't know how to say this without embarassing myself but I'm working on a jazz and soul mix inspired by and for the new wave of new mommies in our community. Sunday Morning with Baby or some shit. This I can't explain, but it's gonna be beautiful and will hopefully harness the power of music to put smiles on some babies. This is not, however, a concession of any kind on my part, but I will say ... nice work! to all the new parents out there. Big up!



And speaking of jazz ... in the absence of any good clubbing, we turned our attention to some quality jazz clubs here and heard some really nice music. There's also a couple of really great jazz record stores here (and CDs cost only US$8-10) so I've been grabbing up some really nice folkish jazz and especially Brazillian jazz that I've been just totally loving. And of course I've been collecting other stuff as well via the interweb, as always.

So yeah ... overall it's been a bit of a hit-miss kind of trip, and I didn't get as much work done as I would have wanted to but I did get some stuff done and I have a pile of new stuff that I totally love and I have a new mix coming out for the drool set so it's all good.

I can't wait to get back. Y'all that can gotta come to the party on 2/29 and hear some bass. All your favorites are playin' and this Vibesquad cat is wicked as well.