Music

Your Mix Fix: Funklore

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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: Funklore
MIXTAPE: Otro Exito

It’s time to go back to basics and feature a real mixtape, made with real vinyl records on real turntables, as opposed to the usual current digital mixtapes with MP3 and auto-synch.

Latin music on vinyl has been experiencing a renaissance of sorts in the last few years. On one hand you have a lot of modern Latin American artists who are pressing vinyl for the first time, or going back to this format after abandoning it at the peak of the CD revolution in 1992. On the other hand, you have all these Europe-based record labels that keep reissuing forgotten gems of old school Latin tropical music, and making them available for the first time outside of their respective countries of origin.

Conclusion: there is no better time than now to get a turntable and start your own vinyl collection! And you don’t even have to be Latino, or understand two consecutive words of Spanish. Just look at this guy Funklore – his real name is Tomasz Jurecki and he’s from freaking Poland! Over there he throws tropical music parties with his crew Estropical (because they’re from the wild wild east, get it?) and based on their mixtapes, I’ll say they kill it. In fact, I just got schooled by this guy; his session includes plenty of amazing Latin American shit I have never heard before. So, go forth and start digging!

Otro Exito by Funklore on Mixcloud