It’s 3 a.m. at a rave in Bogotá, and in the main room of a dilapidated building, Sonicore is blasting the most earsplitting gabber I’ve ever convulsed to. In the secondary space, DJ-producer CIFFU is refracting pop samples through pounding, unrelenting techno, and while the whole ride is intense, it’s also very fun. The crowd is composed mostly of teens and early 20-somethings dressed like Tomasa del Real’s “combo de asesinas,” but a quick survey also reveals soccer jocks, preppy normies, drag queens, and other underground veterans. Booze and illicit substances are free flowing, and in cases of excessive hedonism, the security staff scoops up revelers and leads them to a re-hydration station to regain their wits. The compassionate harm reduction is almost as cutting edge as the bass-heavy music reverberating off the concrete walls.
On this particular night, I was out past my bedtime to catch Aleroj, co-founder of the electronic label MUAKK and one of the irreverent cornerstones of “uwuaracha,” also known by its more marketable, though polemic, genre tag, “Latin Core.” He eventually crept behind the decks and began warping merengue classics, reggaeton edits, and even villancicos over 140 bpm techno. It was hilarious and perverse, a complete re-configuring of sunny Latine anthems into nocturnal delirium, and the crowd hollered in approval with every new bonkers track selection. Two days prior, Aleroj showcased his tongue-in-cheek concoctions at the Bogotá Music Market (BOmm), an esteemed conference designed for industry networking and pitching emerging Colombian talent to international bookers, labels, and press. While many, including myself, remarked how unusual it was to see oddball rave among Colombia’s most exportable sounds, the reality is that Latin American club music has grown into the vanguard of the global dance floor.
“We’ve taken ownership of our roots and identity to not depend on the Global North,” Aleroj tells Remezcla. “Uwuaracha is the term CRRDR, 2AT, and myself use to describe our music, which some people also call Latin Core, and essentially melds Latin music with super fast rhythms like hardcore [or gabber] and drum & bass. Uwuaracha comes from guaracha, memes, anime, and Internet culture and explores this intersection of Latin American identity and rave.”
Aleroj likens the mutant sound of uwuaracha to the iridescence of an oily puddle, finding beauty and whimsy in messy genre bleeds. The 26-year-old DJ and producer also highlights the guiding principles of Putivuelta, a label and collective that popularized rhythms like guaracha and labala throughout Bogotá’s underground while fostering queer and trans inclusivity. “It’s been enormously inspiring playing in spaces of love and tolerance that aren’t super serious,” he adds. “Rave doesn’t have to be black and white; it can also be pink, and green, and blue.”
However, not everyone is on board with Aleroj’s colorful sense of clubbing. Last November, techno purists – bitingly referred to as tecnotombos or tecnofachos – lit up the Internet in outrage when Russian DJ Nina Kraviz mixed guaracha into her set while performing in Miami, FL. Deriding the crunchy EDM variant as tacky and low class, the backlash exposed Latin America’s perennial racism and classism, exacerbated by aspirational fans eager to align with European trends and aesthetics. What they ignored is that guaracha’s roots are rich and complex, extending back to 2010s Mexico and tribal guarachero juggernauts 3BallMTY. Upon arriving in Colombia, tribal hybridized with Venezuelan raptor house, a pummeling beat ushered by Caracas changa tuki icon DJ Babatr in the early 2000s. Today, guaracha plays everywhere, from public markets to Bogotá megaclub Theatron, and is synonymous with Top 40 thumpers like Dayvi and Victor Cárdenas’ “Baila Conmigo” and Farruko’s “Pepas.” It’s also the sound of unstoppable change.
“New generations aren’t buying into the narrative of classic techno anymore,” says María Mestiza, a Bogotá DJ and philosopher who cut her teeth at cult venues like Videoclub and buzzy parties Club Felinas and Mariposa. “Latin Club is a new paradigm of sounds and Latin American unity focusing on the context under which music is created rather than strict rhythmic labels. It’s about breaking with ‘spicy’ and ‘caliente’ stereotypes and saying that Latin American experiences can also be cold and sound like synthesizers. Just because we’re not making roots music, it’s no less South American.”
Back at BOmm, María Mestiza sat on a panel discussion on Latin Club alongside Berlin-based DJ and promoter Forastero of Entre Trópicos, Pierre Marie Ouillon of France’s Nuits Sonores Festival, and producer Japp Beats of the Baum Music School. Bangers from the conversation included Forastero’s critiques of Berlin DJs who get paid to “play our music but won’t hire us to play it,” while Mestiza added that “Experimental or syncopated rhythms are interpreted as countercultural and can translate to fewer gigs.” Another point of contention was the conceptual impreciseness of Latin Club, a catchall designed to encompass and market a vast spectrum of electronic genres but ultimately flattening diverse artistic perspectives into clichéd and tokenizing expectations.
Latin Club is a new paradigm of sounds and Latin American unity focusing on the context under which music is created rather than strict rhythmic labels. It’s about breaking with ‘spicy’ and ‘caliente’ stereotypes and saying that Latin American experiences can also be cold and sound like synthesizers.
“People in Berlin will often say to me, ‘You’re a weird Latina,’” says Gugol Maps, a DJ and sound engineer who recently launched the femme-exulting label Sisya in partnership with María Mestiza. “Context in art is everything, and my music explores Colombian identity post-the peace accords [of 2016]. Growing up on this continent, going to parties with our parents and listening to merengue, salsa, and cumbia, it expands the narrative of the music we’re creating beyond just techno. On the other hand, Berlin media platforms and academic institutions possess tremendous infrastructure that values culture, and electronic music in particular. So the goal is: aprender de allá y construir acá.”
Building is exactly what movers and shakers on our side of the world are doing. Producer Bclip and his imprint Paria Records are extrapolating on the jittery tropical sounds heard at picós across Colombia’s Caribbean Coast with jolts of house and drum & bass. Medellín label TraTraTrax not only preaches the gospel of techno at home and on global platforms like Boiler Room but also fortifies Latin America’s electronic music network with releases from Badsista (Brazil), Lechuga Zafiro (Uruguay), Tomás Urquieta (Chile), and PVSSY & Entrañas (Ecuador). Uwuaracha is climbing the ranks, too, with Aleroj riding the online outrage towards Nina Kraviz into co-producing her forthcoming album, while CRRDR’s relocation to Berlin has yielded buzzy collaborations with Nathy Peluso and MJ Nebreda. And that’s just the tip of the strobing iceberg.
“We contribute an ingredient of identity that’s been missing in this phenomenon of hard rhythms on the Internet,” says MUAKK co-founder 2AT, speaking from Helsinki at the tail-end of an 11-date European tour. His new album Kremayera epitomizes the melting pot of sounds mapping the future of Latin Club, melding post-punk and emo influences from his band Babelgam with the transgressive sensibilities of queer nightlife collectives Disco Inferno and House of Tupamaras – all fueled by hammering hardcore.
“Our music is related to what’s happening artistically in Europe, but also to what’s going on socially in Colombia and all of Latin America,” he adds. “Especially with scenes like ballroom, that had to fight for their place at the club. The social context of LTBGTQ+ groups who push and resist ends up influencing the masses. And that’s why you can walk down to Parque de los Hippies, in Chapinero, and hear hakken booming on the corner.”
