Tag: cumbia

Cumbia de mi Tierra Exhibit

Sonideros, cumbia, and art spaces share something in common: all three should be for the community. The Cumbia De Mi Tierra exhibit at Human Resources L.A. in Chinatown proved that point on its opening night, Saturday April 11.

The community packed the art space and volunteer organization, or rather human resource space (which is definitely a play on corporate terminology and ideology), for hours as they danced, vibed, and celebrated the cumbia sonidero scene with music and art.

Here is info of the exhibit, which will run through April, from an IG post promoting it:

Cumbia de mi Tierra is an art exhibit and installation that celebrates cumbia music from Mexico through ephemera, material culture, and art. 

In this exhibition we are promoting independent labels including Discos Dancing, Discos Room, and Discos Lambda released records of Mexican cumbia groups alongside bootleg compilations of South American cumbia. 

Curated by artist Gary Garay, the exhibit brings together collector Jose Hernández, photographer Stefan Ruiz, and artist Yair Sarmiento. Drawing on the extensive collection of Jose Hernández, Gary Garay tells a story of cumbia sonidera in Mexico through this archive. Consisting of flyers, posters, stickers, sonidero business cards, and cassette mixtapes and cassette recordings of specific bailes from the 1980s and 1990s Mexico City constitute a counter-history of print and graphic design. 

A dancer and record collector, Hernández is an organic archivist of the cumbia sonidero scene who grew up in Mexico City and in the 1980s and 1990s and built his massive collection around the various ephemera of the scene.

Garay documented, archived, and curated Jose Hernández’s vast collection—which had been spread between California and his mother’s house in Mexico City. Inspired by the collection, Garay’s new work amplifies details that matter to diggers—record label logos, album cover photographs of dancers and sonideros—by screen printing on materials such as silver, tarps, and brick.

Click through the slideshow below to see images from opening night:

cumbia_de_mi_tierra_exhibit_001

Ondatrópica : Colombian Supergroup Spans Generations Of Cumbia

Ondatrópica is a supergroup from Colombia that represents the face of cumbia, the traditional music of Colombia, today. The group is led by Mario Galeano of Frente Cumbiero and Will “Quantic” Holland who gathered more than 40 musicians, veterans and fresh-faces alike, in Disco Fuentes‘ recording studios for a weeks-long recording session that resulted in an amazing self-titled debut that covers the spectrum of cumbia (traditional, modern, international, etc.) from its golden age to the present day.

I had the privilege of interviewing Galeano and Quantic by e-mail for Remezcla and the absolute pleasure of watching Ondatrópica live at The Mayan Theater in L.A. with opening acts Very Be Careful, Buyepongo and Chicano Batman.

An excerpt from Q&A: Ondatrópica, Conquering the World with Cumbia:

Who came up with the idea of covering Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man?”

Q: Covering “Iron Man” was something that came out of thinking about doing versions of English songs. Naturally, we started thinking about Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. Out of Black Sabbath, we thought it’d be really cool to do a metal song, like a heavy rock song, especially because Colombia is so into Sabbath. There was “Paranoid” and a few other options, but “Iron Man” just seemed like the most useable for a banda. We always imagined a brass band playing that, and I think it came out to be more elegant than we imagined. We thought it was going to be quite drunk and the rum/ron wordplay just came out of being in the studio. I remember we had a bottle of rum at the time and it was just like a quick moment: “Hang on. I. Ron. Man.”

M: Yeah, it was just something very fresh that came out in the studio, as a lot of other things. We were not following a script or something that was prepared 100%. We were laughing, making jokes, playing around, and chilling out. These types of things happen in creative environments, like here in Discos Fuentes studio. I’m pretty sure “I. Ron. Man.” is one song Ozzy Osbourne didn’t imagine having it covered this way. We definitely have to show it to him, and have him drink some Colombian rum.

A few photos from their concert at The Mayan that I took for LA Weekly: