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Zizek Urban Beats Club

Flying High On The Digital South American Dance Music Scene

For three years now, Buenos Aires has been home to a cycle which, through dance and new rhythms, has been heating up the city’s Thursday nights. In an irreverent fashion, Zizek Urban Beats Club has mixed the name of a Slovenian post-modern philosopher with the most advanced music emerging from the south of the south. DJs Villa Diamante, Nim and El G are the guys responsible for lighting the fuse to ensure that every week something fresh, exotic and catching explodes on the dance-floor.

“Zizek is basically a freestyle dance club where you can hear hip hop, reggaeton, cumbia (a form of popular South American dance music), electronic and folklore but which isn’t defined by any genre in particular,” says Villa Diamante, the largest representative of Argentine mash-up. The nights bring cohesion to a scene which has been growing and seen artists such as Fauna, Marcelo Fabian, Sonido Martinez, Fantasma, Oro 11, Iszen, Spektre, Daniel Mirkin Frois, Sucio and many more.

Nim makes room for his kilometre-long dreadlocks as he recalls the genesis of the label which he also shares with his partners: “ZZK Records happened because we saw that when you went to these nights, you were likely to find that around 70% of the music was local, totally new and original pieces which until then hadn’t been recorded.”

The cold freezes the street dogs while the dancers begin to make a space in front of the Voodoo Motel, on the outskirts of the Palermo neighbourhood. It’s the pre- Roskilde Festival (Denmark) rehearsal, where Zizek were playing this year. Some of the dancers pivot around the Dub Room, maintained by Lucas Luisao and his Army of Dub, but the majority of them are preparing the floor for the set of King Coya, aka Gaby Kerpel (alma mater of the sound of Fuerza Bruta and De La Guarda).

Two years ago they celebrated their anniversary by inviting along Diplo, a producer well known for headhunting third world talent. “He came to play and when he went he put together ‘Soy Cumbia’, a mix-tape with Zizek written all over it,” remembers Diamante with an air of amazement. This year the group made a massive impression at the Coachella Festival (California) and during the summer toured Europe with their syncopated rhythms.

With the dance-floor surfing the crest of the evening, Fauna appeared, delivering a powerful sermon with their jungle, alien cumbias, hypnotising the first row of foreigners, who jumped and moved their butts to music of the duo on stage. Immediately, so that the whole place continued to think with their feet, El G took over with a set involving digital cumbia and its derivatives.

The rehearsal sounds danceable and mean like a bastard, which is how the zizeks like it.

Diamante completes the list of not-to-be-missed artists: “I think Fauna, Chancha Via Circuito, El Remolon and King Coya, because they’re the ones already releasing records; we totally believe in what they’re doing. Then there’s Tremor, El Trip Selector, Frikstailers, Marcelo Fabian, Fantasma, Dale Duro, and us.” This year see the completion of three years of pure dance and they are looking forward to another party with a guest international artist. Meanwhile, the three-headed Slovenian will continue to grow with the certainty of having found a musical treasure which will keep the majority of new music lovers wide awake.