The poor know how to get down. In yet another case of the
impoverished and downtrodden leading the way, digital cumbia is
one of the latest musical forms to bubble up from the ghettos, this
time from the shantytowns of Argentina. Brought to the world by way of
Buenos Aires’s Zizek crew, the originally Colombian folk music
is now being integrated with modern club music and techniques,
resulting in a sound that’s distinctly Argentine but acutely
world-wise.
Cumbia itself is already a mélange of world influences, with
African, Amerindian, and Spanish roots. While traditional Argentine
cumbia maintained popularity in rural areas, cumbia villera urbanized the form, with faster beats and darker lyrical themes, as
both the genre and its fans were becoming more ghettoized in the
wake of Argentina’s economic missteps. (Short version: The banking
system collapsed, leading to the expected state of civil unrest, which
was then described in the music, which the upper class then denounced).
Electronic music and hiphop joined the pot of influences. Digital
cumbia (or neo-cumbia) takes that to more extreme ends as even more of
a catchall, capturing reggaeton, dubstep, and whatever else works to
get the dance floor moving.
Zizek Urban Beats Club is one of the premier club nights for this
updated take on cumbia. The weekly pulls from a rotating roster of DJs
and draws a crowd of thousands, understandably getting the seal of
approval from Philadelphia’s Diplo, who’s already helped to bring
Brazil’s baile funk to American audiences. While focused on
their own events and touring schedule, the Zizek crew members also run
their own label, ZZK Records, putting their productions,
collaborations, and mixtapes out for the world’s consumption.
It’s in those mixtapes that you get the best sense of Zizek’s
approach. Villa Diamante (perhaps the most famous of the crew)
starts out his latest mixtape with heavy 808 hits of American hiphop
before dropping the cumbia backbeat, then dipping into reggaeton and
dancehall, along with some M.I.A. and Jay-Z. Styles
constantly switch places, with familiar American beats sometimes
backing cumbia lyrics, sometimes the other way around. Chancha
Vía Circuito on the other hand, keeps things more minimal,
stripping away vocals entirely for the bulk of his mixtape, instead
focusing on melding cumbia with IDM and dub textures.
Ironically, it’s the crew’s American that sticks the closest to
Argentina, as San Francisco’s Oro11 mostly avoids layering
American music into his mixtape. Other than the inclusion of Crime
Mob, his edition instead sounds very traditional—danceable
without the need for much embellishment.
It’s that diversity that places the Zizek crew in such high demand.
The members may take influences from everywhere, but in the end,
they’re just going above and beyond in liberating their music from the
ghetto. 