A mixtape can be many things, but one thing is for sure, a mixtape is more than just random songs put in a particular order. It’s about recontextualizing sounds, giving them a new meaning (sometimes very different from the original) by setting them side by side, or juxtaposed in ingenious ways with others. Best thing about mixtapes, most of them are FREE (!), and they’re a great way to discover new music. In this column, Juan Data gives you a worthy one every week.
DJ: Aztek 732
MIXTAPE: Mixtape Aztek 732 Pt. 1
If I had to choose just one mixtape of all the ones we published on this column, this one with go down as the ultimate mezcolanza. Mexico DF’s Aztek 732 gives the word “mix” a whole new meaning and mixes in his recipe the most random unexpected ingredients you could ever imagine. This hour long mixtape will take you to so many places and leave you wondering “hey, wait, how did we got there?” Because if somebody has a total lack of musical prejudice that’s this guy, he’ll throw in the mix anything that pleases him at the moment and somehow manage to make it match.
Don’t let the intro deceive you, it sounds like the intro for a steamy mixtape to get in on with your loved one (though it’s actually dubbed from the gangster flick Blood In, Blood Out). But soon after a couple of cheesy R&B tracks, he starts switching directions and goes into commercial rap, then reggae (both in Spanish and English), some telenovela Latin pop, a few mashups, and some irredeemable clichés (Caifanes‘ “La Negra Tomasa”). By the time it hits drum-n-bass’ super fast tempo it doesn’t even surprise you any more, this guy can mix whatever in his set, even the über-cheesy 80’s classic “Africa” by Toto.
It’s like listening to somebody else’s iPod in shuffle mode but with perfectly beat-matched transitions between tracks; plus some vocal drops by a sensual female reminding us that we are listening to the one and only Aztek 732 in the mix, as if anybody else could do that!