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Exotic Rhythm is more than music.
Sometimes I feel like they’re confused
and they have not understood what mine brought,
a fresh sound that was taken from the river,
don’t say reggaeton to him so he won’t get you into trouble
Alexis Play says in Here it is like this, a song he made in collaboration with Los Dioses del Ritmo, one of the most recognized groups of exotic rhythm and who took on the task of spreading it around the world.
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–This first was a dance movement that was called exotic dance. There were groups in each neighborhood and they danced to mixes, because the exotic rhythm was born like that, making mixes of other songs for the dancers. I don’t know when exactly, but there are records of songs from 2011, 2012, says Malcolm, ‘La Meaya’, the ‘King of the Winds’, member and founder of the Gods of Rhythm.
–How it became a genre…
–The DJ groups were playing those mixes from the clubs, because let’s say, if there was a song by J Balvin, from Guayacán, from Grupo Niche… they made their own exotic version, that’s how they created the sound. The influencers They also began to make content about the mixes and that became very viral… even the gossip that circulated was put together in the mixes because the DJs were very attached, to be honest.
–What role did The Gods of Rhythm come to play…
–When we and other artists who were growing arrived, and the Chooco Check (2019) by Luis Eduardo Acústico, that made everyone aware of what this genre could be. That year we released the first song called Give me palms.
The Gods of Rhythm started in 2019. Luigi Boy wrote to La Meaya on Facebook, telling her that he wanted to make music. They did not know each other before, from Quibdó, but the two had come to study in Medellín and La Meaya had a home studio where she had already been working on exotic rhythms with producer Kevin Vega. Luigi arrived there and later La Florezta, the trumpeter, arrived.
They made the first song, Give me palmsand what they did was give more structure to the exotic rhythm, make it a song, add verses, rapping, choirs and wind instruments, La Meaya on the Saxophone and La Florezta on the trumpet.
–Many people liked the formula of rapping and playing instruments over the rhythm, which is a fusion of Latin, Chocoan, Caribbean and American music, that is the exotic rhythm. Seeing that he liked it, we made two more songs: Exotic Rhythm and Atomic bombwith that we positioned ourselves in the region and started playing.
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In 2020 they released another three –Cacholandia, Alo Michael (Rico Rico) and Katherinenext to maestro Dino Manuelle from Rancho Apart–, and a year later one of those, Hello Michaelwent viral with a dance challenge on Tik Tok that spread around the world and reached millions of accounts even in China, India, Japan and different countries in Africa.
Virality, which is now synonymous with success, brought a lot of attention and interest to the Gods of Rhythm, including a record label that came with promises, but ended up in tremendous problems that slowed down its development and that they barely managed to completely resolve in January of this year. anus.
But not everything was so problematic. With the virality they began to make themselves known in the media, and they met Tostao, from ChocQuibTown. He invited them to the music camp for his album Exotic Pal Mundo, Vol. 1, in which he wanted to collaborate with the most recognized artists of the exotic rhythm. With Tostao they made The light, which was the first single from that album. And with Alexis Play they did Here it is like thiswhich are included on the disk Afrocolombia which Alexis Play launched last year.
Shortly after they performed at South by Southwest, in Texas, United States, and last year they released his first album 2070, where they fused the exotic rhythm with a lot of other rhythms. Its name reflects its intentions and its enthusiasm: the exotic rhythm is the future.
–We have the talent and the influences, but we had not had the opportunity to show it, but now with social networks we can do it. The exotic rhythm is a movement that comes with its dancing, its slang, its singing, its aesthetics. If you go to Quibdó, everywhere you hear exotic rhythms, in every neighborhood there is a group dancing, they include it in schools and social projects.
Keeping the proportions, the exotic rhythm shares certain similarities with the emergence and development of hip hop: it was born in the street, in the parties, it was built together, in a marginalized community that seeks in music to express itself in its own way. . That’s why he talks about everything, about partying, about love, about sexuality, about problems…
Because the exotic rhythm has a fundamental principle: makes what comes from outside its own. That’s how DJs started in the clubs, making their own versions of the songs, and to that appropriation they added the traditional sound, the local stories, their ways of naming, and what has resulted is a music that has everything but not It looks like nothing else, authentic, with a genuine and contagious joy, a rarity. The future? We’ll see.
–We want to break into the industry with our own sound. We are going to make people enjoy. Our vision has always been tasty, enjoyable. This is a kind of joy, of happiness. We are going to make clean content, to identify our niches, because a long time ago there was no movement that integrated a complete culture, like we are doing with all Chocoanos worldwide, says La Meaya.
The rhythm of The Gods
This year, Los Dioses del Ritmo have released three songs: Miguel’s cats, Suck and claim and Sweetness. They have several more to release, some in collaboration with other artists, and they hope to go on tour for the rest of the year. The plan is to take the exotic rhythm around the world, make it known, heard and danced to. The purpose is to make exotic rhythms the most popular and desired music. May the world move to the rhythm of the exotic.
If you want to know the rhythm through Los Dioses, Malcolm Mena Ayala, ‘La Meaya’ recommends these songs:
1. Alo Michael (Rico, Rico)
2. Cacholandia
3. The light ft Tostao
4. Here it is like this ft Alexis Play
5. Sweetness
