Pico Culture #03 - Mysterious records (Colombia)

In order to maintain exclusivity of tracks played on each pico (and thus gain loyalty of the public who has to go to the party to listen to specific exclusive hits), it was common to tear away or paint the label sothat no one could read the original track. The result is some really unique beautiful pieces, but also some unidentified hits (everyone knows the song but no one knows who was the artist, so the track is only known by his spanish surname). That's the case with the following 7" played by the pico El Dragon, but originally from the famous pico El Coreano.

Pico Culture #02 - MIX /// Terapia Africana Mix (A selection of pico african hits)

From the 70s, while the soundsystem culture was developing, more and more african records arrived on the colombian coast due to increasing commercial exchanges between international harbors.

Some african songs became hits, african styles being surnamed: nova for highlife tracks, rastrillo for kenyan tracks... It was such a big success for the youth of Cartagena and Baranquilla that even each popular song received his own surname. Also several tracks have been bootlegged in terapia/champeta  compilations (which leads to find improbable records including a pure benga followed by an awful 80s techno), and not always credited the original artist/title, but just the local surname known by everybody.

Pico Culture #01 - Introducing "El Pico"

A very interesting cultural aspect on the colombian caribbean coast, particularly in Cartagena and Baranquilla  is the Pico Culture. A Pico is a soundsystem that usually plays vinyls (very loud!) during weekends. It developed on the coast from the 60s and evolved up to now with different influences during each decade. The caribbean coast has always been for Colombia the "front door" for other countries, so Baranquilla as principal harbor, received influences (and records) from all around the caribbean and also from Africa. As result, big proportion of the music played is african vinyls from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zaire, Angola (some DJs play 100% african music). But the selection can also be very diverse (cumbia, gaita, guaguanco, pachanga, tumbele, calypso, reggae... ), demonstrating importance of this crossroad within black atlantic interconnections. In parallel, it also developed a local style played on the soundsystems, initially called "Terapia" then "Champeta". Althoug corresponding more to a "80s sound" (including effects and new technical possibilities), it reveals amazing soukous influences which contributed to a kind of renewing of the african consciousness in popular areas of Cartagena and Baranquilla.

Synchro Rythmic Ecclectic Language (Black Atlantic jazz from France, 70s)

(SONG RECORDS SR 04).

This atypical afro-caribean jazzfunk band includes great musicians as George Edouard Nouel (keyboard), Louis Xavier (bass), Jo Maka (sax). A really groovy blend of influences...

Mangalha - The biggest vinyls collection in Angola

Jose Henrique Ribeiro, famous in Luanda as "Mangalha", comes back in this interview on his vinyl collector experiences in Angola.

He begun to collect and spin records from the late 60s, following angolan music evolution and influences from abroad. He had up to 26 000 LPs, shaking angolan dancefloors during 40 years.

It is said in Luanda that when somone wants to organise a party with low budget for food and drink, he needs to choose Mangalha as DJs sothat the guests only care about dancing...

We can also observ here that preserving a country's cultural heritage assumes a political character as sometimes confused with resisting to external influences, in this case white portuguese colonists