Las Cafeteras are known for carrying on the tradition of son jarocho as a tool of resistance in the context of their East Los Angeles home. With urban folk songs that reflect modern Chicano life, they seek to be a positive focal point for building community. Their participatory sets, where percussion often comes from dancing feet on the tarima, are anything but sleepy. Still, with scary clown Donald Trump running on a nakedly racist anti-immigrant platform, times like these call for something just a little more motivational – something like their new EP of dance remixes.
The Las Cafeteras Remixed project started when Yukicito, a member of LA DJ/producer collective La Junta Soundsystem and fan of Las Cafeteras, remixed their mujerista ballad “Mujer Soy” for International Women’s Day. Following the release of the remix for “Mujer Soy” via a magnificent intersectional feminist video, they have come out with a full collaboration with La Junta (Glen Redd, Yukicito, and degruvme), featuring dancefloor-ready versions of songs from Las Cafeteras’ 2012 album, It’s Time. The EP is out in time to accompany them on their Roots Remixed Fall tour, where they are asking audiences: “What would you do if you were president?”
On It’s Time, Las Cafeteras took Mexican folk standard “La Bamba” and turned it into the bold, rhythmic Chicano protest song “La Bamba Rebelde.” It has since become the opening theme for the Telemundo novela Bajo el Mismo Cielo, about the struggles of a man in living undocumented in Los Angeles. The lyrics state defiantly in Spanish, “I don’t believe in borders/I will cross.” The remix by degruvme gives it a hip-swinging Brazilian folktronic flavor. Take that, every Republican candidate.
Oakland audiences can catch them at two special Halloween shows. See below fow more details:
