Started in July, didn’t get finalized until late summer, but mixes are like any work of art — never completed. Keep those windows open, because some of these get selected by what’s coming out of car stereos when I’m walking my dog.
1. Wale, Jeremih, Rick Ross – That Way
2. A.R. Kane – Urvaasi
3. Xuman – Koty Koty
4. Erick Rincon – Intentalo
5. LV feat Okmalumkoolkat – Boomslang
6. DJ Cleo – B.O.B.
7. French Fries – Laquisha
8. Antony Santos – Vete (Uproot Andy Mix)
9. Joswa in da House – Ella Quiere Cualto
10. Vybez Kartel – Yuh Love
11. Wiley – Numbers In Action
12. Drake – I’m On One
13. DJ Nehpets – 6 Foot 7 Remix
14. Boylan & J-Roc – Letz Rock
15. Sissy Nobby – Lay Me Down
16. Cassius – I <3 U So (NO OLD MAN RAPPING VERSION)
Prancehall has a sarcastic post on Armenian rapper Kro, who, like many Armenians, is based at least partially out of L.A. That explains dude’s hackneyed Tupac style. As I’ve said before, most Armenian rap is pretty weak, especially lyrically, and Kro, who raps in broken English, is no exception.
Much better is Erevanski’s remix (in Armenian!) of “Lollipop,” named after the Chupa Chup brand of lollipops:
I think the Armenians could do big things with Autotune.
Well, this ought to get some crossover buzz for cumbia… maybe even catch some gringo ears (“Gasolina” taught us much about the cruciality of cognates).
The cute, hip, knowing style for some reason reminds me of “hipster hop” like Chicago’s Cool Kids. A kind of middle class art-student aspirational aesthetic going on here, conceptual and stylish, a strategic use of (white) punk-rock signifiers to mark a remove from the streets and the barrios. The “backlash” (are we all required to have consensus on likes/dislikes so that we can put it all in a coherent timeline of hype-backlash-acceptance?) against hipster hop seems class-related to me, and I’ll have to do some more digging (and slow translating) to figure out where Amandititita fits into all this.
Weird white liberal angst notwithstanding, a good video, and a song I hope to hear in my neighborhood soon.
While vacationing in the Dominican Republic over MLK weekend, I had one of those unique exchanges in which I attempt to purchase a CD of unknown provenance in the vain hopes I will stumble upon some weird hybrid music from the global postmodern. Typically these exchanges are conducted with no more than 70% comprehension by either party, terms such as “hip hop” and “bass” are bandied about, and I get some watered down bhangra or generic reggae for my troubles. This time I lucked out with Super Mambo Supremo 2008, an unlabeled CD-R with an inkjet printout of Heidi Klum next to the Domincan flag’s coat of arms, containing 19 tracks of the sound burning up the Dominican streets — mambo, also known as merengue de calle.
As is typical of such genres, names are often cribbed inappropriately from elsewhere, as the music sounds very little like mambo, at least according to my limited understanding, although “street merengue” does a much better job. The tracks are stripped-down merengue rhythms (most sound right off a Casio’s “Latin” presets), with high tempos, dirty rapped lyrics, and an occasional reggaeton rhythm thrown in for good measure. Also typical for these genres (reggaeton, bachata, cumbia, and funk carioca have similar trajectories), the older and more elevated classes of Dominican society scorned this music until popular pressure became insurmountable; now mambo artists play rallies for major presidential candidates.
Omega is the mamboista tan grande, with a distinctive gravelly voice very reminiscent of Tego Calderon. Apparently he’s so successful he can afford an entire merengue backing band, although you’d never know it from the sound. Have this many musicians ever made a sound so minimal?
Music videos (with typical girls+jewels+cars+money hip-hop imagery — par for the course) are rather the exception — I had far more luck on YouTube finding live performances on low-budget TV shows. One of the biggest hits of the genre is Galgo Mambo’s “El Viajero,” which means “the traveller” — I believe a reference to how Galgo gets around, not, unfortunately, to the rampant sex tourism in the DR:
Love that 80s soft rock intro, a staple of the Dominican radio. Raphael, our taxi driver, preferred it to anything else.
And it’s not exclusively a boy’s club, although the ladies of Unidad Key certainly need to work on their stage presence:
Mambo’s even got its preferred producer/remixer, DJ Ricky, who produced the track “No Era Por Ahi” on Tego’s latest album, El Abayarde Contra Ataca.
Sonically, mambo reminds me more of the tinny hyperrhythmic sound of Angolan kuduro than Caribbean hip hop styles, although there aren’t any links that I know of, other than Iberian-colonialism-meets-black-diaspora:
And now for links!
Blog (en espanol) about merengue in La Republica Dominicana: Merengue Mundo
Thread on a Dominican messageboard about merengue de calle (en ingles!): DR1 Forums
Posted by Gavin Mueller 
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