Bubbling Cause Trouble

Cola Y Su Grupo Di Tambu - Mi Moreno (from Musica Crioyo di Corsow)

The first Afro-Curacaoan song and dance is of as much importance to bubbling's creation as turntables and raggamuffin. DJs such as Moortje cite tambu as the backbone of the rhythm, though it differs from reggaeton's Dem Bow. The music can be both secular or religious, and went on to become a huge part of the island's culture after the abolition of Dutch slavery. Much like the fuss going on in the Netherlands in the 90s, its sound was influenced by other Caribbean music and there are actually other forms of tambu elsewhere in places where "Marooned" communities existed (or still exist). I have documents from Jamaica, Trinidad, and the other ABC Islands that prove this, but your are most likely to still hear tambu to this day at celebrations in Willemstad. I didn't immediately hear the connection between the two, but upon matching the tempos you can clearly tell how embedded it is. Unfortunately the recording industry isn't really pressed to document this stuff, and there isn't even much in the grant money pimpin' libraries of Smithsonian Folkways, Ocora ect. Luckily there are some nice record collectors out there that like to share their finds with us, one of which was nice enough to rip these amazing Cola y Su Grupo tracks. There is actually a fair amount of videos on Youtube as well.

A very in depth article on tambu can be found here, with all the information you might ever need.

In This Bitch

De Schuurman ft Jandro - Nu Ga je Danse

Trance bubbling in under three minutes from one of my favorite underage DJs in the Netherlands. I'm gonna go ahead and side with this stuff over most "Dutch house". What can I say, I love these drums, and this is still as ravey as Moombah but way scarier.

320 for all you DJ dorks too.

Shanty Tech Ceremonies

Samo Sound Boy - The Bandit (from The Bandit EP 2010)

Begging for a late pass on this monster, and what the fuck is in the water out in L.A. these days? Or rather, what the fuck are they blowing on out there? I think the California supply got tainted by an error in the space program because the smoke clouds are ultraviolet. This brings together the three elements of successful music to me. Weird, banging, and beautiful and it can't make up it's own damn mind. Like a shortwave recording of all the best stations at once. The Bandit EP brings precision splicing on the world heat club DNA: gold teeth picking up the signal on some vacant, glassed-in mesa, sound systems spilling drinks, gargling sirens, tentacle couture. I fully agree.

Se Me Mimi Meme

Flexman - Dill Dill Dill

Limb By Limb is one of the staple dancehall tracks of early bubbling along with anything on the Bam Bam, Murder She Wrote, or Fever Pitch riddims. It's shown up on like every 90s mixtape I've heard and the words Dill Dill Dill are littered throughout battle tracks. It chops up so nicely, almost tailor-made for the genre. I guess Cutty came through to a DJ Moortje show in Rotterdam back in the day only to get mad at the DJ for playing his song too fast. Pitching things up can be risky territory so it's understandable, but this is still a classic. If your not an audiophile this is a good transition from dancehall chunes to getting the dance floor weird, but unfortunately for those of you who are I only have this at a lower bit rate. Since it's such a straight forward remix it really wouldn't be too complicated to make your own version anyways.

...And Jump

DJ Daycard - Hole Up And Jump

Lift Up Yuh Leg And Trample on the Mars Antilles.

Turn Up The Bass (pt 2)

Silvio Ecomo & DJ Chuckie - Moobah (Afrojack remix) (Starfoxxx juke remix 2010)

A remix of a remix of that Dutch house track that's been getting a lot of attention lately, this time around by Chicago's own Starfoxxx. The degrees of separation between music are disappearing faster than I ever thought imaginable. I joked about dreams of kids in Suriname making juke a few months back, but that Anti-G track I posted made that one pretty much come true. And on the opposite end we have this. The only thing is that club promoters and drunk dance patrons basically gave up here, so don't expect it to be played locally. However it's already been spun by France's Booty Call Crew, so kudos to all you out in Europe once again.

Major Taser

Anti-G - Full Up 2008

This dude did EVERYTHING wrong. He's like the Antichrist of Dutch House. Fuck your rave music for a moment and sink into this sinister son of a bitch the same way you would a Wiley beat and clap along like your in Chicago. It's unfortunately hard to come across much in the vein of ghetto bubbeling grime house but this is the centerpiece of it. I have a bit of trouble believing this is over two years old, because it fits right in with 2011. No lasers, just smoke machines and dance floor beat downs that end in somebody getting shanked with a broken bottle.

Slackk - Eski House Mix

DOWNLOAD (archive.org link)

Fantastic mix detailing Wiley synth stabs making babies with Caribbean drumming, conceived to the sweet tones of Ginuwine. I've never been able to keep up with England, the place where music nerds actually seem to be the same people that actually care. It's really exciting to me how much bubbling exists within, for it makes my obsession with it feel like one that actually might be relevant after all.

Another bomb dropped on me by the club terrorists over at Lower End Spasm.

Nederreggeton

It's often hard to find something so lyrically driven as hip-hop interesting when you don't speak the language, but Immorales found solutions. Comprised of six rappers and producers part of the Dutch Antilles diaspora who's music could be accurately described as Nederreggaeton, they are by all means unashamed of where they come from and you could say they "put it on for their cities". Performances taking place during frequent trips to Curacao on family visits are spoken in Papiamento, while the Netherlands rap game is Dutch. Their love for reggaeton results in songs sung in Spanish as "Los Immorales" when the audience is right, in part due to member I $ Ki's maternal Venezuelan roots. Talk about reading the crowd, these guys will speak to you in your mother tongue and even change their name to make you feel comfortable. Similar to the K-Liber bubbling in a rub-a-dub style philosophy, these guys pull together all aspects of culture within their scattered diaspora to form a comprehensible international hip-hop group. "People here can not relate to this music because they have not grown up with it" says member Pimpi, but we know that this is nether fact or fiction around these parts.

Read an article about them here if you can speak Dutch or use Google Translator.

Whos Down?

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Normal My Ass

Normal Nada - Batida Afro (from Kuduro Kolekta 2009)

This one is just ridiculous, even for Normal standards. You might be familiar with his homegrown Kizomba rendered too awkward to fuck to, but this one takes Bubbling back to Africa with a few stops in Chicago and Portugal. He went TOO FAR. Very little evidence of Kuduro, don't be fooled. I have nothing else to say, words don't do it justice.

Moombahton

Dave Nada Moombahton Edits

I'm into these. While the description of them doesn't seem to mention the word Bubbling, they definitely are about 70% "Dutch House" anyways. I'm psyched that somebody is having fun with pitch control like this 20 years later. Especially since it happened as a risk taken in the moment at a party almost the same way reggae accidentally got sped up. Sort of like the inside-out version of the Curacao variety. And I love this story:

I probably shouldn’t tell this story, but here goes. Lo ciento Tia Sona! My little cousin Jean-Pierre is a huge Nadastrom fan and he’s about to graduate from high school. Him and his boy Mike are notorious for throwing these wild skipping parties. For those that don’t know, “skipping parties” are when you throw a house party mid school day and you tell all your friends that morning, and everyone who knows about the party skips school to go wild out. Word of mouth only too, no internet/paper trail. Anyhow, around their homecoming last fall they asked if I could DJ one of their skipping parties, and I, being the supportive/bad seed cousin that I am, agreed. They had a beat up system, but like 329439 speakers all over Mike’s basement so it sounded huge. They told me it would last about an hour because cops usually bust it up. The house/neighborhood was right by the woods so it was convenient to bounce and hide if need be. Anyhow, so here we are at Mike’s empty house around 11:30AM and everything is set up. Kids start pouring in around noon and the music starts. Mike and JP are dropping bachata and moving into reggaeton. This shit was getting crazy. Twenty minutes in and the place is PACKED, all Latin kids and everyone is fuuuucked up. Haha! I was gettin mad nervous (oldest dude there) and JP was like, “Yo you gotta go on soon primo!” and I’m thinking, fuck I cant play house/techno shit, I’ll get jumped. So I had the idea of slowing down some of the tropical/Dutch house stuff I had on CDs. Afrojack’s “Moombah Remix” being the biggest tune, I said fuck it and turned that shit down to 108 bpm. JP told all his people about me so bamas started cheering when I went on. And that’s when shit popped the fuck off. The minute that T-t-t-t-turn up the bass! part came in and dropped the place went insane! I played it all the way til the end and then did the same to Sidney Samson’s “Riverside” and EVERYONE is yelling the “Riverside motherfucker!” part and shit was just too much. I was losin’ it and told myself, I need to make some edits of this shit! And thus, Moombahton was born. Long story short, neighbors complained a good 15 minutes into my set and threatened to call the cops. Half the party started to bounce and then a few minutes later Mike yells, “Cops on the way!” and like clockwork this party was done. All in about an hour. I parked down the street and drove both my cousin JP and Mike back to school so they could catch the end of their classes as if nothing ever happened.

Read more at the Fader.

Come To Me

Lorna - Papito Ven A Mi ( DJ Da Dream Bubbling Rmx )

My choice of picture might not be so empowering to women, but I'd rather leave that discussion up to other people better at talking about such. I just think this track bangs, which is more my area. Those ravey Bubbling House synths work just as well with Dem Bow as they do Bam Bam it seems. Reggaeton remixes are anything but rare but this one is very successful.

Be My Hero Be My Knight

Funky S Ft.Yuki Hsu - Ding Don (Bubbling Remix)

Taiwanese pop bubbling, ya dig.

Weird Mixtape(s) Vol 2

Follow this thread through the Dutch version of Myspace and you will find not one, but about 40 old bubbling mixtapes. It's important you hear these shitty cassette and vinyl rips to understand the genre, and it's fortunate that these still exist. Many Bubbling tapes were confiscated and destroyed by the government in Curacao due to political protests (see MC Pester), and even in The Netherlands bubbling was banned from clubs and bars. Most of the Megaupload links still work, the others usually don't. Enjoy the sped up dancehall brought to you by DJ Moortje, DJ Memmie, DJ Reflex, DJ Pac...

Viben

K-Liber - Liber Nan So ke Kome

These guys are my favorite non-U.S. Hip-Hop group for a number of reasons. The first being that I have become a slave to Bubbling/Bubbeling/Bobbeling. The second being how successful they are able to mesh it with their craft, like DJ Moortje was their DJ Screw. And it's not just rap in another language too lost in translation for me to fully understand, but really in its own league of "rapping" in the same way Dancehall and Reggaeton are well, sort of Hip-Hop. Curacao is a different island, and while it was bitten by the raggamuffin bug along with the rest of the Caribbean it comes with its own set of rules. This is why K-Liber are able to place on pop charts in the Netherlands, and in this case able to pull off straight up Tambu as a reminder of where they come from. A pop group making references to the root, modern national pride not far off from certain Jamaicans trying to link Daggering to Kumina. A further investigation into the idea that "it's all hip-hop" to quote Toy Selectah, and to me both strengthening the legitimacy of non-U.S. hip-hop as well as further distancing it from such.

Free Your Slaves And Your Ass Will Follow

Tambu plays a large part in the roots of much of the music of the Dutch Antilles as mentioned by the likes of DJ Moortje and can't be ignored by those of us who love movement of the hips. Much like Batuko in Cape Verde and other dances done by displaced Africans, it was forbidden by European Slave traders due to it's "risque" nature, labeled as heathen and remained in secrecy for hundreds of years. The story of cultures condemned due to ass shaking can be told a number of ways (more on the 200+ year old history of Juke/Jit later) but since we've been talking about Bubbling a lot this video seemed totally appropriate. My collection of this stuff is small but growing, Grupo Zojojo being the top dogs so far. I recommend spending time on Youtube checking out some of the performances, which are more than worth watching.

Weird Mixtapes Vol 1

Since countless instances of philosophizing the mixtape have occurred before, I'm not going to add anything to the pile. Instead, I'm going to make it a regular feature over here to talk about the hidden gems I've collected from secret Youtube links, Datpiff, and street CD-Rs. The ritual of digging through all this shit is one that makes music fun for me, and probably the reason I'm content about the lack of solid albums in the world today. Hopefully I'm finding some stuff your not, but if you got something you want to talk about send it, I like getting emails.


Munchi - Baltimore Club Promo 2009

"Weird" isn't really the word to describe most Baltimore Club, but it works when we're talking about the complicated relationship it has with the Netherlands. As strange as Bubbling is to begin with, it's even stranger when your trying to make Bmore anthems with the Murder She Wrote Riddim. The title of 20 year old Dominican born, Rotterdam raised Munchi's demo is a bit deceiving, because I don't think Dutch Pop remixes will get you a gig in Maryland. Maybe in a parallel universe where people pop and lock while doing the Crazy Leg, but we live in a world where the Wu-Tang and the Dutty Wine sit on ether side of Watagatapitusberry. Your usually supposed to pick a side but the young producer's culture clashes push the kind of buttons we love to talk about around here. An outsider with a passion who gives back almost as much as he takes, these tracks are like classic Unruly records holding hands with Mr Moortje and the friendship they have is pretty damn cute.

DOWNLOAD

Drop Bombs Like Hiroshima

Reflex DJ - Death Row Bubbling Battle Mix

While were still on the subject...

Weird The Club Up

Unknown DJ - Bubbling Battle Loop Mix

Bubbling battle tracks can be a scary swamp to trudge through, and you will step in plenty of shit along the way. Cramming 10 songs into 5 minutes while pulling them up and down like taffy is no easy task. The hardest part is making them not sound ridiculously corny, and tracks are often full of lame sound effects, muscle flexing, and sometimes even fucking South Park samples (I have a great track that's ruined by just that). A bad taste similar to the one Breakcore always leaves in my mouth. Yet sometimes, it all falls into the right place. This is one of those miniature DJ mixes that makes my obsession worth it and I can forget about all the incredibly dated turntable masturbation that I've put me ears through. A perfect battle track and like the best, an incredibly weird one too. Tiny guitars and a ghost organ lead into DJ Class' Tear The Club Up(!!!) and we are happy. From what I can tell, Baltimore Club isn't so rare in these parts and as strange a phenomenon as Bubbling is to begin with I'm not even surprised. There might be some kid in Suriname baking up some Juke for all I know (I can dream can't I? I mean they fuck with Paul Johnson). It's all one big mutated diaspora due to Dutch Slavery that has it's roots planted in Turkish raves, Jamaican cartoon chase footwork competitions, and the Mad Decent Website.

Edit: The DJ says his name at the end but I can't make it out very well. Maybe you can.