Toy Selectah: pura crema desde Monterrey

O guia de cultura latina e agenda novaiorquina Ny Remezcla, publicou recentemente uma entrevista muito boa com o mexicano Toy Selectah. A Cheetah já falou de Toy antes, mas como a sua mixtape pra Mad Decent passou em branco, a macaca resolveu juntar os dois aqui no blog.

A Cheetah reproduz abaixo algumas perguntas e respostas. O resto da entrevista com um dos caras mais fundamentais e talentosos da nova cumbia você lê aqui.

RE: 2004 was the year reggaetón crossed over to the gringo market with “Culo” and “Gasolina”.
TS: Yes, that was when the CEO at Universal decides to start this new label. I was the A&R and Gustavo López [now president of Fonovisa] was the president. Together we created the concept. Gustavo suggested the name Machete, in part because of Control (Machete) and also because in Puerto Rico machete means cock. So it was a very strong name. At first I didn’t want to be associated with the name but then Gustavo asked me “what’s the best thing that happened in your life?” Control Machete!

Re: How did the whole neo-cumbia phenomenon start?
TS: Híjole güey, it was very spontaneous. We all started getting deep into MySpace. I think it’s still barely starting. Definitely that vinyl release we made with Sistema Local when Chico Sonido moved to Los Angeles was a stepping-stone for the whole movement, it had the first cumbia mash-ups like the one with Missy Elliot and the “Milkshake” song.

RE: That was in 2005, right?
TS: Yes, around 2004 or 2005. It was then when Sonido Martínez (from Argentina) showed up online and right after that, all the rest started to come out.

RE: But Sonidero Nacional already existed.
TS: Oh yeah, of course. That started with [the collaboration on] Celso Piña’s “Cumbia Sobre El Río” That was the foundational song of the new cumbia. It was a very significant song because it had the roots  of traditional cumbia together with hip-hop and reggae. And it was a massive success. Even Pablo [Lescano, from Damas Gratis] says that’s the song that started it all. That was when everybody started adding powerful baselines to cumbia beats.

RE: “Cumbia Sobre El Río” was also the first international crossover cumbia song;  it appealed to the selective hip-hop and rock en español audiences as well as the traditional cumbia dancers.
TS: Absolutely. That’s when it was established the idea that a cumbia crossover was possible. It could be trendy and played on MTV while still being cumbia.

RE: I think that neo-cumbia happens because of this new Latin American generation that grew up surrounded with cumbia as the dominant lower-class dance music but they see it from a hip-hop perspective. The whole concept of music recycling; this is something that couldn’t have happened 15 years earlier.
TS: Exactly. This is the hip-hop creativity but it’s not happening only with cumbia, it’s happening with all other modern music styles, rock, pop, electronica… You can call it neo-cumbia or mash-up, but from my point of view it’s all hip-hop.

RE: There is this cycling phenomenon in the music industry where “first world” DJ’s and producers become infatuated with a certain “third world” rhythm and they start sampling it and remixing until the whole thing becomes a cliché and it burns out. Eight years ago it happened with bossa nova, a couple of years later it happened with tango, then with baile funk… Do you think the same thing will happen with cumbia?
TS: Look, I just took  Steph and Dave (Dewaele) from Soulwax to buy cumbia records. No doubt tomorrow there’s gonna be a track by them with some cumbia sample. And I wonder, is this good or not? But you know what? I’m not staying stuck in cumbia, I’ll keep on moving forward. By the time that happens I’ll be beyond that, experimenting with something else. I don’t know, maybe ravertón.

No site da Mad Decent você baixa essa mix com alguns dos remixes mais insanos envolvendo a cumbia. São experiências com Air, Devendra Banhart (um dos grandes hits da Cumbia!), Chromeo, Boys Noize, entre outros. É o que Toy costuma chamar de raverton!

E de bônus, mais duas pepitas também bastante tocadas na Cheetah.

Grupo  Igual – Rumba Cha Cha Cha (Toy Selectah Rmx)

Calle 13 feat. Café Tacuba – Nadie Como Tu (Toy Selectah Rmx)