The word mixtape has plenty of different interpretations. It used to be that mixtapes were actually DJ sets recorded on cassette tapes, but with the coming of the digital music age, the name remained the same, but the definition expanded. Nowadays, people call mixtapes many different things, some of which are not necessarily mixed and most of which were never taped. Here we try to cover them all. In this column, Juan Data gives you a worthy one every week.
DJ: María y José
MIXTAPE: World Wide Tribal Mix
Was I too naif to expect María y José to be a girl-boy DJ duo? I thought, aw, so cute, like Rodrigo & Gabriela but with turntables, I mean, laptops.
Man! That has to be the most rampant case of misleading artist’s names since Brazilian Girls. But while Brazilian Girls benefited from the millions of google-searches of babosos (myself included) looking for girls with big booties in tiny bikinis, María & José must be getting a lot of unintended hits from Spanish-speaking Christians looking for the story of Jesus’ terrestrial parents. I wonder what their reaction would be when instead they encounter this producer from Tijuana who also goes by the names of Antonio Jiménez and Tony Gallardo II (and was previously signing his work as Unsexy Nerd Ponies) and makes tribal guarachero mixtapes like the one here.
Full disclosure, I personally can’t stand the whole tribal guarachero thing, but I don’t think my opinion counts here: I’m not a teenager who would wear cowboy hats and super pointy boots with neon lights attached to them and be popping MDMA pills at an Aztek rave. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think this music was ever meant to please me, pass the initial curiosity for its inner kitsch value. But there are plenty of other cats out there who really dig this (ironically or otherwise) and have the endurance to dance at that pace for a 50 minute long set. If you’re one of them, then you’ll be like “holy mother (and father) of god!” because this mixtape is totally for you!
María y José World Wide Tribal Mix by María y José