Chopped and screwed south of the border
Please welcome Current Comedy's Josh Heller, moonlighting here with a mini-lesson about an unexpected musical discovery...
Amoeba Records has a cool video series called What's In My Bag. I stumbled upon it when I was looking for one of my favorite artists, Mexican Institute of Sound. MIS (or IMS en Español) is a sampled based artist akin to DJ Shadow or The Avalanches. Camilo Lara (the man behind MIS) splits his time between performances and heading up the record label EMI Mexico.
In this rendition of What's in My Bag, Lara picked up some rebajadas, a form of music I had not been familiar with. Rebajadas are cumbia tracks slowed to a molasses pace. Cumbias are known for their upbeat danceability, rebajadas are the same singles, but played way slower. Imagine taking a 45 single, and then playing it at 33 1/3 RPM. Not only does the speed decrease, but the pitch lowers. It's low-end music. A Latin dub.
Rebajadas became popular in Monterrey, Mexico, which has an internationally recognized music scene. Since the '60s the city has been known for Norteño and other regional Mexican music. In the '90s the city gained famed for its alternative rock scene.
Now I'm going to go out on a limb. Bear with me because I think it might work. Monterrey is 400 miles from Houston. Musically Houston is not known for much except their rap scene (and I guess ZZ Top.) An important feature of Houston rap is the chopped and screwed style of playing records at half their speed. This is a good primer on the history of the Houston rap scene:
DJ Screw pioneered the style of playing records slowly. He enjoyed the sound because it emulated the way he felt when he was hitting the sizzurp. (Sizzurp or Purple Drank is a beverage consisting of Sprite and prescription-grade cough syrup. The concoction of codeine, promethazine, and high fructose corn syrup—can you guess the active ingredient?—proverbially fucks your shit up.)
The slow, low drawl of these records marked the Houston rap scene. The mass appeal of this sound probably suggests that there are more factors at play than just presuming everyone is drinking cough syrup. Perhaps its popularity has to do with the weather. Rapper Bun-B suggests that the music reflects the "slowed down laid back chill southern vibe." Houston writer Lance Scott Walker proposes that music (along with the drugs) reflect "Houston is a big sprawling slow hot city" with "9 months of summer."
This seems like a very similar environment to where rebajadas came from.
And the rebajada seems to be growing in popularity outside of Monterrey. South American artist Sonido Martines and Boston-based DJ /rupture have incorporated the sound into mixes. Dr Auratheft even has an excellent rebajada mix on his blog and gives a more obvious explanation: "Early low-key/ghetto cumbia gigs in Mexico would use really shitty/dysfunctional turntables, not only slowing down but also fluctuating."
So perhaps my theory about creating music to emulate the slow-placed borderland lifestyle is trumped by malfunctioning technology. Either way, rebajadas are a sound that at first seemed silly, but now have a hypnotizing bassline that keeps drawing me back.
Amoeba Records has a cool video series called What's In My Bag. I stumbled upon it when I was looking for one of my favorite artists, Mexican Institute of Sound. MIS (or IMS en Español) is a sampled based artist akin to DJ Shadow or The Avalanches. Camilo Lara (the man behind MIS) splits his time between performances and heading up the record label EMI Mexico.
In this rendition of What's in My Bag, Lara picked up some rebajadas, a form of music I had not been familiar with. Rebajadas are cumbia tracks slowed to a molasses pace. Cumbias are known for their upbeat danceability, rebajadas are the same singles, but played way slower. Imagine taking a 45 single, and then playing it at 33 1/3 RPM. Not only does the speed decrease, but the pitch lowers. It's low-end music. A Latin dub.
Rebajadas became popular in Monterrey, Mexico, which has an internationally recognized music scene. Since the '60s the city has been known for Norteño and other regional Mexican music. In the '90s the city gained famed for its alternative rock scene.
Now I'm going to go out on a limb. Bear with me because I think it might work. Monterrey is 400 miles from Houston. Musically Houston is not known for much except their rap scene (and I guess ZZ Top.) An important feature of Houston rap is the chopped and screwed style of playing records at half their speed. This is a good primer on the history of the Houston rap scene:
DJ Screw pioneered the style of playing records slowly. He enjoyed the sound because it emulated the way he felt when he was hitting the sizzurp. (Sizzurp or Purple Drank is a beverage consisting of Sprite and prescription-grade cough syrup. The concoction of codeine, promethazine, and high fructose corn syrup—can you guess the active ingredient?—proverbially fucks your shit up.)
The slow, low drawl of these records marked the Houston rap scene. The mass appeal of this sound probably suggests that there are more factors at play than just presuming everyone is drinking cough syrup. Perhaps its popularity has to do with the weather. Rapper Bun-B suggests that the music reflects the "slowed down laid back chill southern vibe." Houston writer Lance Scott Walker proposes that music (along with the drugs) reflect "Houston is a big sprawling slow hot city" with "9 months of summer."
This seems like a very similar environment to where rebajadas came from.
And the rebajada seems to be growing in popularity outside of Monterrey. South American artist Sonido Martines and Boston-based DJ /rupture have incorporated the sound into mixes. Dr Auratheft even has an excellent rebajada mix on his blog and gives a more obvious explanation: "Early low-key/ghetto cumbia gigs in Mexico would use really shitty/dysfunctional turntables, not only slowing down but also fluctuating."
So perhaps my theory about creating music to emulate the slow-placed borderland lifestyle is trumped by malfunctioning technology. Either way, rebajadas are a sound that at first seemed silly, but now have a hypnotizing bassline that keeps drawing me back.
