Dengue Dengue Dengue!
The highly contagious duo of Rafael Pereira and RBMA grad Felipe Salmon, better known as Dengue Dengue Dengue!, have brought a new level of tropical madness to the cumbia world, fusing modern production savvy with traditional rhythms. Hailing from Lima, their early tracks caught the ears of bloggers and DJs around the world but it wasn’t until their 2012 debut album, La Alianza Profana, that they really received worldwide recognition. Together with the Auxiliar Collective, they have cornered the market in neon tropical bass exports.
In their 2014 Red Bull Music Academy about humorous visuals, the duo talked cumbia, psychedelic masks, ayahuasca ceremonies, and more.
Hosted by Nick Dwyer Hello. All right. I guess we’re good to go, ladies and gentlemen. I’m really,
really happy to introduce our next guests for a number of reasons. One of those
reasons is the fact is that they hail from a city called Lima, which the
capital city of Peru, which I think for so many people around the world, for
so many years, there’s a lot of really bad misconceptions about the music of
Peru, thanks in part to those guy in the ponchos that play that the pan pipes
outside many tourist traps around the world. When in actual fact, Peru has got
an incredible music culture. It’s been, for the last four, five, six decades,
really amazing stuff, so over the course of the next little while, we’ll get
to hear a little bit of this music. I think another reason why we’re happy to
introduce them to you all is, I think when you come from a city like Lima and other
Latin American cities or Asiatic states or African cities, a lot of people in
this room come from cities and countries where it’s easy to feel a connection
to the global music scene. But for a lot of people that live in some more far-
flung exotic destinations, even with the Internet, you still feel a
disconnection. And these guys somehow over the last couple of years have
managed to connect themselves right nicely with the global music scene. So we’ll
find out a little bit about that. And lastly, this is another one of those
interesting situations where someone who was once sitting where you’re sitting
is now sitting here. Felipe was a Audience Member at the Academy only, about what? Four
or five years ago? Felipe Six years ago. Nick Dwyer Six years ago, that’s right. Barcelona. Felipe In Barcelona. Nick Dwyer Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from Lima, Peru, please put your hands
together for Rafael and Felipe from Dengue Dengue Dengue!. [applause] So good to have you guys with us, and we’re talking about... So you guys
played at Unit the other night, and we were having a chat about the fact that
this is the first time that you guys have been in Asia. You basically got half
an hour’s sleep after playing in Beijing and then you’re playing in Tokyo. And
we were saying that for two young dudes making music in Lima, Peru, you don’t
ever think that this is a possibility. Felipe Not at all, man. It’s like far from… You can try to want… Maybe you can go to
South America or around, but to Asia, it’s like a dream, you know? Rafael Yeah, and it all happened really fast, so we’re kind of like… Felipe We’re trying to cope with the experience now. Nick Dwyer We’ll listen to a track really, really soon. But musically, you guys mix up
the rich musical heritage of your country. Obviously, the Latin American
rhythm of Cumbia, but with the beats and the bass of global electronic music.
But what underpins it is Cumbia. At the heart of it all is your interpretation
and your evolution on Cumbia. Cumbia has existed for more than a century,
coming on nearly a century and a half, two centuries, but in the last ten
years, Cumbia as a style of music, it’s been all around Latin America for so
many years, but in the last ten years has started to find itself around the
world. And that’s the other thing; did you ever, ever think that you’d be in
places like Beijing and people are dancing to Cumbia? Felipe It’s really crazy. I can find connections between that traditional music of
maybe, like, scales, between China and Peru. So maybe that’s a little bit
familiar. But again, I didn’t expect it, so good a reaction of them. Nick Dwyer What do you guys put it down to? You’re talking about a style of music that
has existed in a continent for so long, but now all around the world, not just
people enjoying Cumbia, but you’ve got producers from around the world,
producers from Australia and Norway, making Cumbia. It’s become so global.
What do you put down the recent global success of Cumbia to? Rafael I think people are trying to explore rhythms all over now. They are looking
for the next thing all the time. So I think Cumbia is just appealing because
it’s so easy to dance, so if you want to play in a club or in a gig like that,
Cumbia is like a beat that everybody can just move their body to. Felipe You can make a parallel between different music. Like you can mix it with dub
really well because of the rhythm. You can really match it, so it’s easy to
mix, it’s easy to dance. I think it’s the perfect combo. Nick Dwyer I’m sure a lot of people in this audience that are familiar with the music of
Cumbia, but there’s maybe a few that don’t know some Cumbia. So let’s, shall we kick
it off from something from you guys? Felipe Okay. Nick Dwyer Yeah, something off the recent EP or the album? Something that just showcases
that great rhythm of Cumbia. Felipe Okay, this “Don Marcial” from our first album, La Alianza Profana, that was
out in 2012 in our label Auxiliar. (music: Dengue Dengue Dengue! – “Don Marcial”) [applause] Felipe Thank you very much. Nick Dwyer That’s Dengue Dengue Dengue!, and that track was called? Rafael “Don Marcial.” Nick Dwyer Right, right, right. I think, while we’re kind of kicking off with talking
about the whole Cumbia side of things, I think we ought to get a little bit of
a history on Cumbia. As we were talking about before, it’s a style of music
that’s been around for a long, long time, and there’s lots of myths and
legends about how Cumbia began, but your take on it; how did Cumbia come to
find itself as a musical force in Latin America? Felipe For us, well, it’s been there all the time. Like every time you go into a bus
or go to the market or whatever, you hear Cumbia all the time, or salsa, or
these kind of tropical rhythms. For us, it came this time, like it was... You
think about the Peruvian cuisine going out to the world, you know, so the
local music became like, a thing in the pop culture as well. We started working that
way, and we suddenly went to… But we didn’t really grab the feeling of this
until we get to this festival in Argentina. We went with Rafael to this place
in Mar del Plata, and we heard these guys from ZZK Records from Argentina,
and we went to this party of ZZK. And it was amazing. We were really amazed
by this sound in a club, with electronic music mixed all together. So when we
came back to Lima, we started DJing some tracks of them, and we suddenly just
got together and did some tracks and everything, and started producing as
well. And we came up with Dengue that way, you know? Nick Dwyer Is it very much a case, were your parents were force-feeding you Cumbia, and
your grandparents and their parents for so many centuries, it’s just Cumbia,
Cumbia, every time you’re at a wedding, it’s Cumbia. Any time you’re anywhere,
it’s Cumbia. Felipe Everywhere, man. Nick Dwyer There’s a Cumbia for all occasions. Do you get to a point when you’re a
teenager, and you’re just like, “No more Cumbia”? Felipe Yeah, it was like that. Rafael Totally, sort of like a love-hate relationship, you know, because anyway, most
of the Cumbia you hear in the radio is not really good, you know? Felipe Yeah. Rafael To find the really good stuff, you have to really dig. And what is funny is
that most of the diggers are not really people from Peru. It’s people that
came from Europe or from the US, and they found those tracks, and they
released those tracks in other countries. And that’s how we heard most of
them. So it was like, it came back. It cycled back to Lima. Felipe You know this couple of albums called The Roots of Chicha? Nick Dwyer Yes. Felipe That was very important for us, and we started digging that way because of
these albums. Nick Dwyer I tell you what, let’s talk a bit about Chicha, because it’s very important
music for Peru. But before that, just to kind of get a little bit of the
history of actual Cumbia. Cumbia is a style of music that began really in
Colombia and the coastal regions of Colombia. Around about the ‘40s and ‘50s,
it found its way to Bogota, the capital, and then from there, it started
spreading to other cities and then eventually found itself in Lima, I think in
the early part of the ‘60s. But can we hear now a kind of classic Colombian
Cumbia track. Felipe Yes, this is Sexteto Tabala that is from a Palenque rhythm. It is like Afro-
Colombian mixed. Nick Dwyer At this point in time, this track is what? 1950s? Felipe I think this is a new recording, but the actual track is from the ‘50s. Nick Dwyer Right, and so at this point in time, what are the building blocks of a Cumbia
track? What are the ingredients that make a tune a Cumbia? Felipe I think it wasn’t called Cumbia at that time. It was called Porro, maybe. It was
mostly only a drum track with some voices on top, like chants, and that’s it. Nick Dwyer Let’s have a listen. (music: Sexteto Tabala – unknown) Felipe Well, and that goes on and on like six minutes. They just record it and
suddenly they’re like, “Let’s stop.” Nick Dwyer Yeah, it’s like a jam session. Felipe Yeah. Nick Dwyer That’s from Colombia? Felipe Yeah, that’s from Colombia, from Palenque. Nick Dwyer I’m sorry, is that the name of a place, a region? Felipe I think, it’s... I’m not, well… Nick Dwyer ...a musicologist. Felipe Yeah, but I know it’s from a region, and it was the African people that was
living there, and started doing this. It was mostly African rhythms. Nick Dwyer The word cumbé, I think it comes from Guinea, or it’s a West African word,
right? Felipe I think so, yes. Nick Dwyer What are the lyrics dealing with? What’s being sung about in those
lyrics? Felipe They’re telling something about the Queen of the Gardens, so it’s something
about like Mother Earth, I think. Nick Dwyer So the word you said before, Chicha. Felipe Yeah, but I just want to play another thing that is like after that, and it
starts to… This accordion was inserted in the music, and this is more, I
think, for the ‘60s, and it started making the real sound of Cumbia. Nick Dwyer I’ll never forget that story, I’m sure it’s just a myth, but the shipwrecked
ship full of accordions that hit a rock, and all these accordions washed up on
the shore. Felipe That’s the legend. This is Aurita Castillo y su Conjunto. (music: Aurita Castillo y su Conjunto – “Chambacu”) Nick Dwyer So again, what was that? Felipe That was “Chambacu” from Aurita Castillo y su Conjunto, and this is a Cumbia
track from the late ‘60s. Nick Dwyer So that right there, that’s a great example of what is very instantly
recognizable as what globally people know as the Cumbia rhythm. I guess that’s
a good point to say, what are the ingredients of that Cumbia rhythm? What are
the instruments there? What defines something as a Cumbia track, in that sense? Rafael I think the most recognizable instrument is the guacharaca. Felipe Yeah, like the guiro, you know? Rafael Which makes the shaker like “chik-chika-chik-chika-chik.” That’s what everyone
recognizes. Felipe Yeah, and well the percussion as well, that Cumbia sound. Rafael And is the case of Colombia, the accordion. No, it’s really important. But
that’s what varies a lot in South America. Cumbia has gone [around] most of the
countries in South America, but each country has its own take on Cumbia. For
example, in Peru, we don’t use the accordion. We use the electric guitar. For
example, in Argentina, they use synthesizers, or in Mexico, they pitch down
the music and slow it down really like a stoner way. Felipe That’s called Sonidero. Rafael Yeah. Nick Dwyer Someone from Buenos Aires once described to me this, like what Cumbia as a
feeling was, the rhythm was… They’ve got really slow trains that go from the
barrios, the slums, the favelas of Buenos Aires, that transport everyone to
work. They described that the tempo of Cumbia was the train, these old trains,
that are all run down, slowing moving, getting everyone to work. Obviously, throughout
Latin America, I’m sure that feeling changes. For you guys, what is the
feeling of the Cumbia rhythm? Felipe I don’t know. It’s like a party feeling. It just marks the rhythm that you can
dance to. I don’t know how to explain it... It’s just inside of us, I think. Rafael In the case of Peru, it has a really strong psychedelic ingredient. Felipe Yeah, mixed with surf rock and psychedelic rock from the ‘60s. This Colombian
music was mixed with this, and that’s how we came with the psychedelic Cumbia. Rafael The Colombian beat came down to Peru by the jungle, and in those times, around
the ‘60s and ‘70s, there was a big petrol, oil… Nick Dwyer Velasco? Rafael Yeah, Velaso, yeah. So all the big companies came to the jungle, and with
those companies came people from the US and Europe, and they brought electric
guitars and synthesizers and stuff. Felipe You can find old Moogs stranded there in the jungle and stuff like that. Rafael So that’s how. Nick Dwyer That’s one of the things that I really wanted to focus on was this really
incredible music that’s come from Peru, especially in the ‘60s. I think it’s a
good thing to point out now, Peru is really interesting as a country because
there’s some really incredibly different terrains in Peru. Obviously, it’s an
Andean state, and you’ve got a completely different culture in the Andean side
of Peru, and then you’ve got the Amazonian side. I think like 15% of Peru is the
Amazon rainforest, right? Felipe Yeah. Nick Dwyer Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about this. What are those different cultures,
the Amazonian culture and the Andean culture, and what did they… ‘Cause these
guys were starting to come into Lima in the ‘60s and bring that in as well,
right? Felipe Yeah, I think we can hear a little bit, and we’re going to get more of the
vibe. I think the music from the jungle, it’s more psychedelic because there’s
a lot of… Rafael It’s mainly instrumental too, and it’s happier. Felipe Yeah, you know about the shamans in the jungle? Nick Dwyer Ayahuasca. Felipe The Ayahuasca thing, so I think it’s more going into that way. Nick Dwyer Let’s talk a bit about that really soon but hear this track. So this track is
from the ‘60s? Felipe Yeah, this track is called, it’s late ‘60s. It’s called “La Danza del
Petrolero.” It’s just about like, petrol. [laughs] Nick Dwyer To give us an idea, what are the lyrics about? Felipe There’s no lyrics, it’s just instrumental. Nick Dwyer Just instrumental, okay. Rafael It has some little lyrics but just as the title of the track. Nick Dwyer Yeah. (music: Los Mirlos – “La Danza del Petrolero”) Felipe So there, he’s just saying, “This is the dance of the petrol man, the king of
the black gold.” Nick Dwyer Right, right, right. That was, there was all of a sudden a massive influx of
Americans and foreigners trying to get a piece of Peru’s natural resources. Felipe Yeah. Nick Dwyer It’s interesting you said that. With those guys, American and British rock
music came in as an influence. Guitars arrived, and it was being mixed up with
Cumbias to make what became known as Chicha. At the same time, were locals
listening to a lot of British and American music? Or just appropriating the
instruments into Cumbia? Felipe Probably, yes. Mostly in Lima, I think. And the Chicha became a rhythm because
there was this kind of Cumbia from the Amazon, and it was mixed with rock, and
some of the Andean influence that was – all the people from the Andes were
coming to Lima at that time because there was more money there. It became a
really centralized country from there on. Nick Dwyer So Chicha, Chicha essentially was one of… It was this moment in time where a music genre
that was very much Peru’s, right? It was very much Peru’s own style of music.
It’s named after a drink, the Chicha drink. Tell us a little bit about Chicha,
and historically, what was Chicha the drink, and what did Chicha music mean to
Peruvians at the time? Rafael Yeah, Chicha comes from chicha de jora, which is a drink made of… Felipe You have corn brewed, and you keep it, I think, one week until it ferments,
and you have the alcohol. Rafael It’s really hardcore. Nick Dwyer What would happen to me if I drunk a couple of bottles of Chicha? Felipe Bottles? Rafael Bottles, woah. Felipe Usually, it’s served in a big glass like this with ice on top, and it seems like dirty water. It’s brownish. Nick Dwyer It translates to fire water, right? Is that the literal translation of Chicha? Felipe I think the Chicha was the pot they used for the… Nick Dwyer How bad is my hangover going to be if I have…? Felipe That’s terrible. Nick Dwyer Right. Felipe But it’s really good. It looks a little bit weird, but the taste is nice. Nick Dwyer Okay, so another thing that you mentioned before is with the Amazon and the
psychedelic influence. Of course, everyone knows someone who’s at some kind of
house party somewhere who plans to go to the Amazon to do an Ayahuasca
ceremony, or maybe in some cases knows someone who has actually done it.
Ayahuasca, it must be noted, that the ceremony comes from Peru, right? What
kind of role does it play? How is Ayahuasca and shamanism and this side of
things, how is it regarded in Peruvian society? Rafael For a long time, it was taken like something… Felipe Taboo. Rafael Like a taboo, mm-hmm [affirmative]. Lately, I think people are starting to
rescue those ways of life, and I think now it’s very much accepted. Nick Dwyer Maybe, again, I’m sure a lot of people in this audience know what Ayahuasca
is, but there might be some that don’t. Talk us through Ayahuasca, the
ceremony. What region in Peru does it originate from, and how is it regarded
in popular culture? Rafael Well, it’s a root. It’s a mixture of roots from the jungle of Peru and Brazil. Felipe Leaves as well, like Chacaruna and Ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is the root, and
Chacaruna is the leaf from another plant that makes the psychoactive... Like,
hits you. Nick Dwyer People will go into the ceremony, and in three days they’ll have a very
spiritual and crazy experience? Rafael Yeah, actually it depends a lot in which part of the jungle you are. For
example, in Brazil, they take it really mild, and they drink it all the time.
They don’t stop drinking it, but just in a really mild mixture. They dance in
groups, and it’s about doing it in a whole community thing. In Peru, it’s more
like you take just a little small glass but really strong, and you have a
shaman, which will just help you guide your trip. He’s not telling you what to
do or how to experience it. He will just take care of you, and if he feels
like you’re not having a good time, he will just sing to you. He will just, I
don’t know, carry the thing with music, which is awesome. Nick Dwyer How did this part of culture have an impact on the music at the time? Were a
lot of these artists, theses Chicha artists going and seeing a shaman, going
through this experience? Felipe It’s different because in the Andes, that I think is more the influence of the
Chicha, they do different stuff. It’s another culture. They use shamans as
well, but they don’t take psychoactives that much. It’s more about
spirituality and respect for the earthly gods. But for the people of the
jungle and the psychedelic Cumbia, I think it was very important. Nick Dwyer Especially around this time in the ‘60s, but then moving forward in the ‘70s
and especially the ‘80s, Lima became really overpopulated. I think it almost
doubled in population from three million to about six million because all of a
sudden, a lot of people coming from the jungle, a lot of people coming from
the Andean side of Peru. How were these different cultures respected in Lima?
They’d come to the big city… Rafael Actually, when this thing changes from the ‘70s to the ‘80s and Chicha was
born, the word Chicha was actually a really bad word. Nick Dwyer Like a derogatory expression? Rafael Exactly. You could use it as just something like, “Oh, this is Chicha.” Like
something really kitsch and bad. And those people were not really well-taken
in Lima. They were all there, but people would just say, “Oh no, this is
Chicha people. We don’t like them.” I think now that is changing a lot. Felipe Well, it’s a lot of classism and racism everywhere in the world, and it’s
because of this centralism that the city has. Lima now is very big, but it’s
the same way as before, and it’s growing and growing every time. We have like
maybe 40 million people now, and it’s more than half of the country, entirely
in the capital. Nick Dwyer For you guys, you mentioned before, you grew up with Cumbias and all this and
almost in a way rejected it. You had a moment at a party in Buenos Aires where
you started hearing what other people were doing with Cumbias, and then you
started digging deep, and you’ve been digging deep back into the music of
Peru. For you guys, now that you’ve been researching, finding all this music,
what do you love about both cultures, the Amazonian side of Peruvian
jungle that you’ve discovered yourself, and the Andean side? What do you love
about that and what it brings to the culture of Peru on a whole? Felipe Well, I love mostly, if you go to the jungle, the people is very happy and
joyful, and they like to party a lot. In the Andean side, it’s very quiet and
respectful. So I think I like a little bit of everything. The people on the
coast is more relaxed and chilled out. Nick Dwyer Do you guys travel there regularly, to both regions? Felipe I used to travel a lot when I was a bit younger. I had a lot of time. But now
it’s a little bit hard. Sometimes, we play abroad from Lima. Rafael But not very much actually. Peru is very centralized in Lima, so these not
really a place to have gigs around in other cities. That’s really difficult,
and that’s something we really want to change. Him and some other friends were
trying to make some festivals outside Lima to help that change. Nick Dwyer The track that you played before, the “Petrol Man,” would you say that’s a
good example of the Andean influence, or is that more...? Felipe That was more about the Amazonian. Nick Dwyer Okay, have we got something with more of an Andean influence? Felipe Yeah, we want to play Los Shapis. That is kind of the creators of Chicha. Nick Dwyer He’s quite a charismatic, small man. Rafael Chapulin. Nick Dwyer Yeah. Felipe A very special guy. Nick Dwyer A tiny guy with the biggest personality in Peru. (music: Los Shapis – unknown) So one more time, that was a track by… Felipe Los Shapis. Nick Dwyer And they’re still performing today? Rafael Yeah. Felipe Yeah, they are performing a lot, actually, and they play all over the country. Nick Dwyer So, we’ve kind of like come from the ‘60s and through the ‘70s and the rise of
Chicha. Felipe This is more like for late ‘70s or ‘80s, I think. Nick Dwyer Which is kind of a pretty interesting time for Peru. Globally, Peru was getting
headlines for all the wrong reasons. There was a lot of terrorism. There was
like an internal conflict. There was a group called the Shining Path. Without
getting too political, can you just give us an idea of the landscape of Peru
throughout the ‘80s and the impact that that had on music? Felipe I think it was like a class war between the worker class and the upper class, but
they had that wrong actually, because they were bombing everyone. I also got my
house bombed. And... Nobody died, but it was terrible for us, a big loss. Nick Dwyer This is a pretty everyday reality for people. You go out shopping, just random
houses. It wasn’t like they were that organized. Felipe Yeah, they were saying, “OK, this is high-class people, let’s bomb them.” Rafael We had blackouts almost every day, and almost all of the people that came to
Lima, they came to Lima because of that. It was really difficult for them to
be in the Andes, mainly with all the terrorism that was going on there. Nick Dwyer They were recruiting people from every town. Rafael They would go from town to town to recruit people, so either you’re with them
or you die. Felipe Yeah, and, well, the army was the same. It was very hardcore because they were
thinking that everyone was a terrorist, so they were killing people for
nothing. It was like a civil war. Nick Dwyer What kind of impact did that have on music? What happened to Peruvian music
during this time? Rafael I think that’s how maybe Chicha was created, because before, when the Cumbia
Masonica was the thing, it was mainly instrumental. And then when Chicha came,
the lyrics started coming, and they were mostly about suffering and very
melancholic. Because there was so much trouble around the country that they
needed to express that in some way. So I think Chicha was really important for
that. Nick Dwyer Have you got an example of another track to play that kind of marks this period? Felipe This is Grupo Celeste. It was the first band of Chacalon that is like one of
the biggest names in Chicha. (music: Grupo Celeste – “Como un Ave”) Rafael I think this song is definitely talking about love, but it also relates, of
what we were just talking, that it’s saying, “I am like a bird, I am looking for a
nest.” Felipe Yeah, and he’s lost in the way. Nick Dwyer During this whole time, this kind of incredibly tumultuous social times, you
were both really young. When did things start to get easier in Lima? And I
guess my next question is when you guys finally got to the age where you were
going out and experiencing the city, and experiencing music. When did this
happen? Felipe I think this was maybe during ’96, or ’97, you know? Because before it was… Nick Dwyer We’re talking 16 years of intense civil unrest. Felipe Yes. But it’s actually still a bit dangerous, and it’s like you can’t take
your equipment out with a backpack because you’re probably going to get robbed. So you have to take care of that. Now, with tourism and everything, it’s coming a bit better. Nick Dwyer For you guys, as you know, you’re 16, you’re 17 years old. I don’t know if
you’re using fake IDs to get into clubs or whatever back then, if you needed
to or not, but paint us a picture of the Lima that you guys found as you were
just starting to really get into music. Rafael Well, Lima’s always been, I think, behind the whole music thing. When we were
around 17 or 18, it was maybe the ‘90s, no? Felipe Yeah. Felipe And people were listening to music from the ‘70s. Felipe Yeah, and then, when during that, all the music from the ‘90s was heard in the
2000s, and you’re like ten years of gap. Rafael But that gap is closing, you know. Nick Dwyer Okay, so you’re 16, 17 years old, and you’re on a dancefloor, dancing to music. When you were that age, what were the big tracks? Felipe Mostly ‘80s music, I think. It was ‘80s music playing all over the radio until
now. Music from the ‘80s. You’d have like only radios from music from the ‘80s
and that’s it, stuff like that. I used to listen to a lot of punk rock music,
like Bad Religion and groups from the States. Rafael Yeah, mainly, the biggest influence in Peruvian music from outside, it
comes from the US, I think. And also, well, Latin pop, now. Nick Dwyer What was the moment, you think, for Lima where the first foundations of an
underground electronic music thing started to happen? Was there a pivotal club
night? Was there a radio show? When would you say the first seeds were planted
in Lima? Felipe Well, the first time I went to an electronic party was ’96, I think, and there
were maybe 100 people, and there was a club called Loboda. They used to play
lots of really tribal house and stuff like that. It went on, and now they have
a really strong electronic scene, mostly deep house and like that kind of
stuff. Four on the floor, you know? But there wasn’t really an underground
experimental scene, it was little, just a few people making music. Nick Dwyer By this stage, you’re 16, 17. You are listening to punk rock. Are you hating
Cumbia at this stage? Is it still in that hate phase of the relationship? Felipe Not hating it, because I used to like Los Shapis, but my mom was telling me,
“If you don’t hear the music, that’s bad.” I was like, “But why?” Then, when I
was into punk rock, I was away from that. Nick Dwyer What was the moment for you both individually? First of all, how long have you
two guys known each other for? Rafael Maybe eight, nine years? Felipe Eight to ten years. Nick Dwyer Right, right, right. So individually, before you guys actually met each other,
what was that moment where for you where, as young dudes growing up in Lima, you’re
like, “I want to contribute to music. I want to start making music. I want to
start DJing?” When did these sorts of things start to happen? Felipe For me, since I was maybe 12 I started playing guitar and drums, so I had two
or three ones at the same time with some friends. We all knew each other. We
were making bands. But when I was like 16, I discovered, I bought a computer, and I
discovered Fruity Loops. So I started from there, from ’98 until now, making
electronic music. Rafael Yeah, and for me, I always wanted to make music and contribute, but I never
really learned how to play an instrument. So when I discovered a computer
around 2000, it really changed my life to be able to make music with the
computer. Maybe I didn’t have the ability to compose, but I could just find
the beats, and it was really like a changed game for me. Nick Dwyer For the both of you, were you very much, at that point, did you feel connected
to a scene? Was there a scene in Lima that you thought you were kind of
contributing to, or were you very much on your own behind your computer just
making music? Felipe It was a bit hard. I didn’t think I was going to become a DJ or anything, but
it just came along. I started DJing some tracks that I used to play, I used to
make. Then, I become a DJ, and I’m a part of an electronic scene. But I didn’t
think... To be like that. Rafael I felt actually a bit disconnected. It was like a big-room house thing going
on, so I just didn’t feel it. Nick Dwyer You said eight or nine years ago, you guys met for the first time. It must be
noted at this point that Dengue Dengue Dengue! only started, what, four years
ago? Felipe [nods] Four years. Nick Dwyer So I guess, how did you guys meet? First impressions of each other? Rafael Because of this, we didn’t feel connected to the scene that was going on, we
gathered together with him and other friends and created a collective so we
can start doing parties and trying to do our own thing. That’s how we met. We
met through another friend, which is a producer, and we became friends. Felipe He was making parties in this really underground space. And we met there and
started making some like, techno parties. And he was doing more like drum & bass
parties, and then we got together and made that collective. Nick Dwyer What was the name of the collective? And I guess, in the early stages, once you... ‘Cause it wasn’t just you two, there were
a whole lot of other like-minded individuals... What was it that you guys were trying to do? What were you trying to create in Lima that didn’t exist already? Rafael Well, the collective is called Auxiliar. We only had, as I said, like big-room
house parties, so we wanted to bring other kind of beats to the city. And it
was kind of difficult. In the party that we met, we would maybe run the party
for two years, and we had 20, 30 people showing up. So it was really easy to
meet everyone there. Nick Dwyer I guess during this time, obviously, the Internet is an established thing by
this stage. But, in a city like Lima... For all of us we take it so much for granted when we live in a New
York or a London or any European city where you can see some of your favorite
artists all the time. I mean, I’m from a city called Auckland in New Zealand,
so it was much less frequently that you’d get big artists touring through. But
in a city like Lima, is it difficult to create and maintain a scene and get
people to come to your city to perform? Rafael Well, yeah, it’s super difficult. We’ve been doing it for like eight years, and we
still struggle a lot with getting people to show up to a party unless it’s
some really huge name. But when we started to do this tropical thing, you know, it
relates a lot to the people there, so that changed a lot. That was really
changed a lot. We have parties now with 1000, 1500 people showing. But we
still do the other parties. We still do the drum & bass thing or the bass,
no? Well, it’s evolving, not really drum & bass now, but it’s evolving.
But we still do that. We do the tropical thing. We get the money from there,
and that’s the way we do the other thing because we need to push the scene. Nick Dwyer And pre-Dengue Dengue Dengue!, you both produced music, under your own artist
names. Zolcan Breaker? Felipe Yes, Zolcan Breaker. Nick Dwyer And MacUmba? Rafael Yes. Nick Dwyer Okay, tell us about the individuals. Who was Zolcan Breaker? What kind of
thing did he do? Who was MacUmba? Felipe Zolcan was more like kind of experimental drum & bass, but very melodic. I
was very influenced at that time by maybe Aphex Twin or µ-Ziq, kind of. It
was very mellow and sentimental, so it’s very different from now, you know? Rafael And for me, around 2000, I moved to London, so I was really into the whole
drum & bass, and bass stuff, so I was kind of doing that with MacUmba. And
I also like a lot the IDM thing, like Aphex Twin. So we really tried to do
tracks like that. Nick Dwyer I guess, you know, you’ve known each other already at this point for about
four years, and all of a sudden, you’re like, “Well, why don’t we just do it
together?” And Dengue Dengue Dengue! is born. Let’s listen to a track right
now. Maybe something off the album, or an earlier Dengue track. Rafael Okay. This is “Dumbia Murdahs” from the La Alianza Profana album. (music: Dengue Dengue Dengue! – “Dumbia Murdahs”) [applause] Nick Dwyer So that’s Dengue Dengue Dengue!, and that track is called...? Felipe It’s “Dumbia Murdahs.” Nick Dwyer So one of the earliest tracks that you guys wrote together? Felipe One of them, yes, and this was inspired in dub music, and it’s called “Dumbia”
because it’s dub and Cumbia. Nick Dwyer So what brought on the project? You’d already been friends for a long time.
You’d been making music, but what was that moment when you were like, “Right,
let’s do this together, let’s do this thing.” And what was, again, what was it
that you wanted to achieve with this project? Rafael As Felipe said a while ago, we went with his project Zolcan Breaker, I was with him at
the time doing actually visuals for the project. Nick Dwyer You were doing visuals? Rafael Yeah. Nick Dwyer Oh, nice. Rafael So we went to Argentina to play in a festival there, and in that festival we
saw the ZZK guys, Chancha Vía Circuito and El Remolón. And we were impressed
on how they were doing this mixture between the Cumbia traditional thing with
club music. Because before that, we heard Señor Coconut, which he did this
thing several hears before, but not in a club environment. So it was the first
time that we saw it in a club environment, and we were like, “Wow, we need to
do something like this, but with our own thing.” So we went back to Lima, and
in Lima it was just the time that he was looking for a place to live and me
too, so we found an apartment and said, “Let’s move together.” So we moved
together. And since we were living together, it just made sense to make a
project. Nick Dwyer It’s kind of funny. I had, I guess, a very similar experience to you guys
about four years ago, four or five years ago. I was in Buenos Aires, and I was
in a club called Niceto, being at the ZZK clubnight. And what blew me away
was, you know, Cumbia’s not the fastest tempo in the world. But to see a
roomful of people just so completely vibing with such electricity to such a
slow tempo, it was something really special. For you guys, describe that
experience, the first time you heard that, the music they were doing, what they were
doing differently with the tempo and the vibe of the crowd. Felipe Yeah, that was something. We were used to, for at least me, we were used to
listening to drum & bass and jungle and really high-tempo stuff, and this
was like, “OK!” Going back to the roots, with electronics as well. This was
more dubby, more slowed down, as well as the Cumbia. Cumbia in Argentina is
slower than the Cumbia in Peru as well, so it was really interesting. Like,
“OK, so you can really have more space and put more stuff in there.” It’s
really cool. Nick Dwyer Shall we listen to something else? Felipe Yeah, erm... Nick Dwyer Actually, should we watch something else because I think it must be noted that
you started this project, but it wasn’t just a musical project. One of the
great things about Dengue Dengue Dengue! is that there is very strong visual
aesthetic to what you guys do as well, and it would be great to… Is this the
live video? Rafael No, this is the first… Nick Dwyer The music video? Yeah, yeah, okay, cool. What is the name of this track? Rafael “Simiolo.” Nick Dwyer Okay. (video: Dengue Dengue Dengue! – “Simiolo”) [applause] Did the shaman have to sing to you during the trip? Or did it end out alright? Felipe It’s kind of a trippy environment. Nick Dwyer One of those things, I remember when I saw that video for the first time. I
always feel really bad saying this thing, because you feel like you’re being
so ridiculously patronizing when you say it, but seeing that video for the
first time, it made you go, “Oh my god, wow! This is what Peruvian artists are
doing.” It was just like the music was incredible, but the video really
incredible, great idea, really well executed, and it makes you go, “Oh wow,
there’s a scene. There’s thing happening.” Which is a bad, stupid way to think,
but you know what I mean. It was really impressive. And I guess for you guys,
how important was it from the get-go that the way you, the video side of
things, the way that you market yourselves through that, how important was it
to make it sure it was of a certain quality? Felipe Well, for us it was the most important thing to have a video and to have
something to give away to people for knowing you, and to have the idea of the
visual aspect of the project. I think without the video, we could not make
what we have achieved now. Nick Dwyer How important was that video for you as a business card? Rafael It was definitely, maybe the most important thing we’ve ever done. Felipe The most expensive thing. It wasn’t that expensive, but for us, it was very
expensive. Nick Dwyer At the same time, when you think about everything that’s happened over the
last year, well, two years since that video has come out, and when you think
about festival fees and tour fees, would you say that investing in a video
like that has been worth it for you? Rafael Oh, totally worth it. Felipe Totally worth it, man. Rafael We did it because of that, we were thinking that we needed to… It’s our
business card. Nick Dwyer Am I allowed to ask what kind of budget you make a music video like that with? Rafael I think that video was around $7000. Felipe Dollars. Rafael But, I mean, everybody was doing that for free. The director... Felipe The costumer. Rafael The cameraman... We just spent $7000 doing for costumes and renting some stuff.
But almost everyone was working for free there. Nick Dwyer Whose concept was it? Do you guys come up with all the concepts, or you know,
you’ve got a team of people around you that help you with the visual side of
things? Rafael I think it was us and [Mikael Stornfelt] the director. You know, the director played a
big role there. Actually, this video is like a stripped down version of
another video that we wanted to do, but maybe it would have cost $30,000 or
$40,000. Nick Dwyer What was the original concept? Rafael It was a whole story, and almost all of the, how you say? The characters in
the video are the characters from the story. We just couldn’t do the story, so
we said, “Okay, let’s just put them one after the other and try to make some
sense of it.” Nick Dwyer And I guess, at this point in time, so before this video came out, it must be
noted that you put out the album yourselves. The first album, which that track
was taken off, put out by yourself, what’s happening at this point in time?
Did you feel like it was easy? Was it easy putting out an album by yourselves? Felipe I think never. It’s never easy, at least in Lima. We had the label for quite a
time at this point, but we were releasing only as a net label, free stuff,
Zolcan Breaker albums and other stuff from our friends. Nick Dwyer You said it was hard. Just give us an idea of what is the music industry like
in Lima? Does a music industry actually exist, and what are the difficulties
being an artist trying to release music in Lima? Rafael Yeah, I mean, it’s really difficult. In no way were we thinking about getting the radio or
stuff like that. No, we were just thinking we need to release the album. So
luckily, we had the collective, which made a platform for us to do the record.
I think that’s the most important thing, is that we were doing the collective.
Which I think without it we wouldn’t be able to release the video or the album
or almost anything. Felipe Yeah, you need a platform to present your stuff, because the industry there is
like only focused on pop culture and more tropical pop music, and that’s it,
no more. So a rock artist as well and every different kind of music has to
make the platform themselves. Nick Dwyer Exactly what we were talking about at the very beginning when I introduced you
guys... What I think is really incredible about your guys’ story is this whole
feeling of, when you live in Lima, when you grow up in Peru, you feel so
disconnected. And even with the Internet now, yeah, of course everyone’s more
connected than ever before, but meeting someone face-to-face, sitting down,
having a beer, doing all those kind of things still goes so much further. And
you can still feel so, so disconnected, and there’s a number of people in this
audience who come from very far-off countries and can feel disconnected.
Putting that album out by yourselves, coming up with a great concept for a
video, shooting and making a great video. What were the next steps that you
guys took? How did you all of a sudden go from, you’ve got this great product,
but all of a sudden you managed to get it out there and get a lot of people’s
attention? Felipe Well, we started working with a booker, an agency that is from France, but
they are based in Lima because they do a festival in the jungle once a year,
and a few other stuff in the city. So that’s very important to us to start
working with them so that we can go and tour and everything, just because of
that. They are making all the connections for the festivals and everything.
Without that, I think it would be almost impossible for us. Rafael I think, also the parties that we run in Lima played a big role there, because
we started to make the party, and it started to grow and grow and grow, and
suddenly we were having emails from people from all the parts of the world
saying, “Hey, I want to play in your party.” That meant that some people were
checking it out. Nick Dwyer Tell us a bit about... Well, we’ve got a video, actually, but I’d love to know a bit about your
parties. How often do you do your parties? What can I expect at your party if
I’m going there for the first time? What’s the vibe like? Felipe Well, at first, they were a bit small, maybe 300 or 400 people, and then
suddenly… Rafael Which at that time, felt like a lot. Felipe It was a lot. And we started making that, and suddenly, the next party was
500, and the next party was 800, and suddenly, we said like, “Okay, we have to
move to a big club.” So the next party was 1000 and, you know, started growing
and growing. I think the vibe there was really nice, no fights at all.
Everyone was, a lot of drinking going on. Rafael The great thing about this party is that it unites two scenes that were really
far away before, the tropical scene and the electronic scene. Before we
started to do this party with all the people, I think most of the electronic
people that liked electronic music were like, “No, no, that’s tropical music.
I really don’t want to do nothing with it,” and the same thing from the other
side. When we started doing this party, we could see all of those people
together. That was maybe one of the greatest things. Felipe Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nick Dwyer Now, as a byproduct of that, are there a number of producers in Lima that have
found themselves on the dancefloor at your parties, have been inspired and are
now doing their own experimentations and bringing those two worlds together? Felipe Yeah, I think there were a lot of people doing the same thing at the same
time, and it’s very cool, because each one will have his own take on it. It’s very
interesting to hear all that in the same party. Because we work with these
guys, because it’s not too much projects going on, maybe like five or six, and
I think that’s the main cool thing about the music of the parties. Nick Dwyer Where does it fit into Lima today? Lima in 2014, obviously you’ve given us a
bit of a context for how Lima’s been historically, but yeah, Lima right now.
What’s it like to be going out, to be making music in Lima? Rafael Yeah, I think it’s great time to be there in Lima, no? It’s the first time we
have an actual scene that is ours, so that feeling, it’s all over the place.
The crowd are feeling it, the producers are feeling it. So we just feel the
creativity in the air there. There’s maybe, like Felipe said, maybe at the
beginning there were just five or six producers going, but now there are lots
of little kids trying to do it as well. Nick Dwyer Should we watch the video from Lima, the party video? Felipe Yeah, this is like a short video about the parties and the scene. Okay. (video: Lima Cumbia documentary) [applause] Nick Dwyer So that’s, that’s the club night, right? That’s filmed at the, it happens once every two months, yeah? Felipe Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Nick Dwyer I think I’ve got to ask the question. The masks. They’re very cool, and anyone
that knows a little bit about Dengue Dengue Dengue!, the mask thing comes up.
Tell us about the masks, what do they represent, and how important has it been
for you guys to have that look as well? Rafael Well since we’ve been working together for eight years, we already had other projects
going on. So for us, it was a way to make a difference between those projects
and Dengue. So it was not Felipe or Rafael. It was just Dengue. Because even
most of our friends didn’t know it was us at the beginning. We just put the
mask, and they were like, “Who are those guys?” Which was great. Another thing
about using the masks was that we wanted to maybe represent, in our own way,
the parties that were going on around Peru, the typical parties. So they wear
masks, and they are very colorful, and I think for this project in particular,
it just made sense to be playful. Nick Dwyer So the masks, in terms of the colors, the designs in them, they’ve got
connection to Peruvian historical culture? Rafael Some of them. Felipe Well, the neon colors are used a lot in the Chicha movement, and they use the
big, like posters, and they are printed in three colors that are like pink,
green, and yellow, neon. That’s like kind of a relation we make. Nick Dwyer I don’t know if you’ve actually, any of the reasons behind it were along this
line of thinking, but how important do you think it is in this day and age,
especially with the way social medial works, to have something a little bit
different? Anyone that’s been to a Dengue concert performance will know that
as soon as you guys jump on, you’re getting far more Instagram shares than the
dude in the t-shirt before you, you know? Was that something you thought
about? That people love to...? Felipe Yeah, I don’t know. When you have a mask on, you become someone
else, you know? And people like it very much because you don’t have this quiet dude
mixing their like… [imitates DJ] You know? You have some crazy guy like, “Whaa,” [pumps fist in the air] going crazy
there, and... So I think that’s cool for the audience. Rafael Yeah, and as you said, it helped us make a difference between us, other
projects that we also have and also other projects from other people. Nick Dwyer I think we should hear something. We’re going to throw it out to you guys
very, very soon, got time for a few more things. Recently, just a few months
back, you released an EP on
Branko, who is actually
here RBMA, his label Enchufuda. How did that come about releasing that EP and
then linking with João [Barbosa]? Rafael Well, it was great. At the beginning, we heard this Boiler Room thing that
they did with Buraka, which they introduced this Zouk Bass thing, and we were like, “Wow,
man, what’s that?” We wanted to have our own take on that, mix it a little bit
with a Cumbia, because the tempos are quite similar. So we did a track called
“La Cumba,” and just at the time they asked us for a track for the series they
have, and we sent that track. They liked it, so from then on, we just felt
comfortable with them. They are a great team. So we said, “Yeah, OK, let’s
release an EP with you guys.” Nick Dwyer It’s kind of interesting in this day and age, anything that is rhythm-based
music, rhythm-based club music that comes from South America, Africa, or the
Caribbean, it’s all... There’s this term, tropical bass, or global bass. [laughs] How do you guys
feel about everything being sandwiched under the one umbrella term? Rafael Sometimes it applies well, but sometimes it’s just... I don’t know, it’s just weird. Because I mean
sometimes we are doing some Cumbia or Zouk thing, but sometimes we’re just
thinking about the techno side, or... So I don’t know, maybe sometimes it
doesn’t really capture the whole thing, I think. I don’t know, there’s no other way to
describe it, I think, so we just need to use that. Nick Dwyer Felipe? The term? You don’t mind it? Felipe What? Nick Dwyer It being everything, everyone being kind of put under “tropical bass.” Felipe The thing is that now, I think, it’s like we don’t even do Cumbia anymore. [laughs]
It’s just like our take on roots of music and tropical music, at first from
South America, but now we also like stuff from Africa, so that’s what we’re
talking... We’re traveling a lot now, so we just like to be influenced by
everything we’re listening to or, be in the street with different cultures and
maybe go to the market on Saturday and buying some weird vegetables or whatever... Being influenced by that, I think, has changed a lot what our take on music. Nick Dwyer In the last six months to a year, musically, what have been the biggest kind
of new inspirations that have come as a byproduct of traveling, would you say? Felipe Yeah. Rafael African music. Felipe African music, I think, because we just make this connection between the roots
of South American music, and it was mixed a lot with African music because of
the colonies that were there. They were bringing slaves from Africa at that
time. And then the slaves were free, and with all this came a lot of music
from Senegal and different parts of Africa. It’s really interesting. In Lima,
there was this huge movement during the ‘50s called Criollo music as well that
is influenced in African music mixed with Spanish that was the colonizers at
that time. I just want to play a little bit of that, because it’s really
something. Nick Dwyer So Criollo music. Music of Criollo. Felipe Criollo music. (music: Arturo “Zambo” Cavero – unknown) Rafael Okay, so with this rhythm, which is based on this wooden box, which you sit
down on it and play it like this [mimes playing], called Cajon. And also the donkey jaw, which has a really crunchy sound. Felipe Yeah, it’s like the bone of the jaw of the donkey that has the… Nick Dwyer Oh, a donkey jaw. Felipe Yeah, the teeth are still on, so that when you hit it they shake and make this
like, “Shh-shh-shh!”-kind of sound. Rafael So with that, with this one. Felipe So a sample of the same guys called Arturo “Zambo” Cavero. It was a big thing
on Criollo music. (music: Dengue Dengue Dengue! – unknown) Nick Dwyer Did you sample this? Is this one of yours? [music continues] Felipe It’s not mastered, so it’s… Nick Dwyer So that’s forthcoming. That’s something forthcoming from you guys. That’s not
been released yet. I’ll stop it here and pass it out to any questions.
What’s interesting is that in one way for you guys, going back to revisit old
Cumbias and music of Peru was in some way going full circle. But when you
think back to the history of Cumbia, it’s like going even more full circle. Felipe Yeah. Nick Dwyer And constantly exploring old rhythms, right? Experimentation and percussions. Felipe Also from electronics, like if we start liking another rhythm, were going to
try to mash it up with something. It always works. Nick Dwyer Has anyone got any questions? Audience Member Hi. Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Felipe Okay. Audience Member Thanks for coming. I was wondering where you source your drums. Do you play a
lot of live drums when you record tracks? Do you use a lot of samples? Felipe Sometimes we use a machine, but it’s really like programming, and I really
like 808 sounds, and I have this huge bag of every drum kit you can imagine,
so I just choose whatever goes better with the samples that I use. Audience Member I was thinking more about the samples though? Felipe Oh, the sampling. Audience Member The breaks and… Felipe Ah, sometimes we use stuff from old Cumbia, for example, or these old
recordings, but sometimes I just use the rhythm, and I reproduce it in an
electronic way, but I take the timing and everything from there. Audience Member Thank you. Felipe Thank you, man. Audience Member Hi. Felipe Hello. Audience Member Okay. I’m from Italy, and right now there are quite a lot of producers that
are making stuff really inspired by Latin rhythms, etcetera. What are your feelings
about somebody appropriating of your culture? Felipe Not at all... Rafael I think we love it. Felipe Yeah, we love that. I don’t feel like anyone is appropriating, because it’s a
mixture of a lot of stuff, so it’s not just ours. It comes from other places
as well. And yeah. I really like the Clap! Clap! It’s what we like. We like
this kind of take. Rafael We encourage people actually to do it. Audience Member I’m glad to hear that because I love Clap! Clap! I love Niños du Brasil. I’m
also making some kind of stuff like that, so better to know that. I’m allowed
to do stuff. Felipe Cool, man. That’s amazing. Audience Member Okay, sorry. I was really curious about the longer story, the longer version
of your video. I wonder if we could get like a little exclusive summary of the
story. Felipe Well, that’s what we could make for a day of filming. It wasn’t too much
material really. We have another one. Rafael The original story was, do you remember the guy that was playing the cowbell? Audience Member Yeah. Rafael Okay, so he was driving us to a party. He’s kind of like a bodyguard for us.
We get inside the party, and we have no faces, and we are in the party, and
for example, we’re trying to drink something, and because we don’t have a
mouth, it just spills down, or stuff like that. And then at some point, we
have a bag, and from that bag, we pull a mask, and when we put that mask on,
the whole place changes with the artwork of the mask. And we have like three
different masks. Felipe It was like five at the first time. Rafael Every time we change it, the whole thing changes with us. So imagine the
budget for that. Felipe Yeah, it was like a big party. It was a lot of people, so it was really hard
to get to that point. Rafael I think that at some day we will do it, I think. Felipe Yeah, we’ll make the complete version of it, like a short or something. Audience Member I hope to see that. Nick Dwyer Is that it? Rafael and Felipe, thank you so much for coming. Felipe Thank you guys. Rafael Thanks for having us. Felipe It’s really nice to be here again.