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With local taste makers in Buenos Aires bringing the latest wave of cumbia rhythms back to fashionable dance floors, it is unusual that so little attention has been paid to artists hailing from spots where cumbia never went out of style. Enter El Hijo de la Cumbia, a bedroom producer who lays his head in the suburb of San Martín. While kids in his neighborhood attend weekend bailantas with bland traditional cumbias and local hip-hoperos get down to cumbia villera, El Hijo de la Cumbia has quietly been pushing the genre in a bold new direction. Virtually unknown in Buenos Aires, this producer (who also goes by the moniker Chimango Selektah) has been making inroads with Mexican cumbieros who discovered his unique beats online. After scratching out a living by making other artists sound good, El Hijo de la Cumbia is now releasing an album of his own.
What distinguishes El Hijo de la Cumbia from other fledgling cumbia acts is the sheer quality of his production. Where other artists rely on simplistic loops and dirty lyrics, his work is textured and almost entirely instrumental. Even complex songs sound and feel organic. Although his music is sample based and digitally produced, El Hijo de la Cumbia clearly prefers the sounds of actual people playing actual instruments. Drawing heavily from vintage Mexican and Colombian cumbia sounds, the music is anchored by a wide array of drums and percussive elements. Many tracks also sport a distinctly psychedelic flair; “La Mara Tomaza” and “Cumbia de Los Barrios” would make as much sense as part of a 1960s movie score as they do on the dance floor. The aptly-named “La Cumbia Es un Tango,” already pushing boundaries as a tango/ cumbia hybrid, ups the ante by incorporating an eerie Spaghetti Western whistle. Although El Hijo de la Cumbia’s sound clearly pays homage to classic cumbia and psychedelic days gone by, the music remains distinctly modern. Vocal samples are sliced and diced into everything from ghostly whispers to staccato crescendos. Halfway through “Tú, Tú, Quien Eres,” the lazy cumbia beat morphs into a breakneck drum n’ bass track. Hip-hop scratching packs club banger and album standout “Soy El Control” while other cuts feature elements of dancehall and other Afro-Latin beats. - WHATS UP BUENOS AIRES
Chimango Selektah, a.k.a El Hijo de la Cumbia (The Son of Cumbia), is a San Martín (Buenos Aires, Argentina) resident with the power to make people who want to have fun get up on their feet and dance.
El Hijo de la Cumbia started his musical career in 1996. From that moment on, he took part in several Argentine Cumbia music bands. In 2000, he started listening to other musical genres originating in ghettos from all across the world, such as Reggae, Dancehall, Hip Hop, Jazz, Dub, etc.
Very much influenced by Colombian Cumbia music, he then decided to experiment by mixing Colombian rhythms with African ones and new styles.
Known as a Sonidero producer for Mexican and American bands, he has worked in the most important Mexican and US music scenes. There, he made his remixes and concoctions, which were back in the day quite peculiar. For instance, his mixes may feature Andrés Landero (as far as many people are concerned, the father of Cumbia music) on 100% Jamaican or hip-hop tracks, with a clear inclination towards dub.
El Hijo de la Cumbia aims at showing that all African rhythms can be respectfully mixed, that music overcomes all language barriers, and that music is not there for us to simply dance and listen to, but also for us to let our imagination fly and feel free.
Press - El Hijo de la Cumbia //// Freestyle de Ritmos
by Shawn Reynaldo - WUBA by Shawn Reynaldo
Discography
FREESTYLE DE RITMOS
BASILISCO RECORDS
2008
Photos
Bio
In 1996, at the age of 12, Gómez made his first performances on stage in Argentina, where he played for well-known tropical bands which he toured throughout the country with.
At the age of 16, he began to produce his own band and met DJ Taz. At that time, he was influenced by other music genres like the dancehall, Reggae Roots, Dub, Rap that were not massively listened to.
His search for his own music style and new tools to express it moved him away from stage and led him to work with music mixture and edition.
As editor and music producer, he became involved with cumbia sonidera in Mexico and worked for important groups like ....Pesadilla, Maravilla, Kien, Super Changos and La Contra..... Due to these artists, he got into the new genre and cumbia in Mexico, New York and L.A.
A Colombian cumbia collector living in New York gave him his artist name when he called Gómez “El Hijo de la Cumbia” (Cumbia’s son)
“FreeStyle de Ritmos” was his first album, whose songs were intended to create something different, like all the music influences and feelings that inspired him.
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