VivirLatino

This is not our usual VL musica review. As I’m sure you’ve noticed Maegan and I are surviving so much and our posts at VL have not been all that we wish them to be. I know that after I’m done grading 70 final exams I’ll be back to bringing you more reviews and updates on topics and issues impacting us all.

For now, I’d like to share an amazing interview with the transnational media-makers, DJ, activists, artists Maracuyeah!. Our good friend Hugo over at American Pupusa has a fantastic interview with the members of Maracuyeah! , DJ rAt and Mafe. When Hugo first shared with me some of their work I was already in love with their existence. He shared that their sound and creations come from our experiences (Hugo and I grew up in the same community in Maryland) of sending “mix tapes” back home to family of the music we listened to in the US. His explanation invoked so much nostalgia for me that it lead to some sort of resistance to listening to their sound.

I know it may sound odd, but there’s a level of joy and pain and bittersweet memories of those times in the late 80s and 90s for me when I was coming into my own consciousness of why I was away from everyone in my family besides my mother, father, and sister. However, Hugo’s interview has lead me back to Maracuyeah!’s musica mash-up and I’m thankful and hopeful I can attend one of their events when I visit for the holidays.

Here’s a bit of the interview that had me sold (again!) on Marachuyeah!’s cultural productions:

Maracuyeah! is a collective of transnational, global, local, DIY activists, artists, DJs, and music promoters presenting the “now” in upfront soundsystem/DJ culture in Washington D.C. They spin underground DJ music from Latin America – Cumbia Electronica, Tribal, Dembow, Tropical Bass, with dashes of old school Latino pop. Officially starting in March of 2011, Maracuyeah! also put on shows of local and international musicians such as Chancha Via Circuito, Permnet, Zuzuka Poderosa, and El Freaky, who bring innovative takes of contemporary Tropical music. Their sets and shows are mixed and jumbled together in a classic (cassette) mixtape style. And, the venues they play out in are purposeful and grounded in social consciousness.

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So you call it a movement, and you have a political grounding to it. How would you describe this movement? Movement is a big word.

DJ rAt: It is a big word… for me, I say movement because dancefloors are depoliticized and they are some of the most powerful spaces that we have, so more than Maracuyeah. I belong to another DJ collective called “Anthology of Booty” and like Mafe said, we work on radio together, and we have a project called “DJ Geek Out” all of that is being like ‘culture is political, our bodies are political, our identities are political, and social spaces. I think often, social spaces are depoliticized in a way that… they really deserve a lot more credit for bringing people together and crossing lines and building power.