Montevideo Mondays (XXI)
In this space we spoke a couple of times about the delicate production values of local hip hop in Montevideo. Maybe we can add at this very moment another fact: we are starting to find some good hits. This may be the case of Dostrescinco (in english “twothreefive” or “235”), a band that payed a lot of years finding its sound and now they seem to have found a direction and some names that can push their name forward.
At the end of the nineties, a couple of groups called El Peyote Asesino and Plátano Macho were the kings of the local scene, being the first uruguayan names that got into the MTV. Years later, some of their musicians became partners in a very different kind of music when they formed the well known Bajofondo. After them, a compilation called Oeste Pro Funk appeared with bands such as this one and latejapride, all of them eager to claim a position in local hip hop. While latejapride instantaneously got a career, Dostrescino moved in the emergent waters, some that seems to be changing.
While they´ve made some good efforts that catched some ears, it certainly can change things the fact that Socio, one of the most popular and pop biased singer-songwriters in the area, puts its gentle voice to Es hoy (It´s today) a song that moves slowly between an easy going funk sound and a pretty catchy riff that makes the whole thing work. Maybe the video is a little overloaded with some clichés of the genre, but its a minor sin now that Dostrescinco seem to have found a nice way to sound. “I don´t burn my head anymore other that for my songs”, sings one MC in the tune, which seems a good approach now that good things may come.
In one of those old tracks that I`ve heard in 2008, one of Dostrescinco MC´s rapped: “I hope that some day an MC educates”. They seem to be on that path also: “Es hoy” is a song mainly focused on positivism, fighting for what we don´t have and looking for new paths in life. That luminosity, direct approach and good taste are a sign that Montevideo may be already getting its second big hip hop band. But we can also identify a third one that is breaking the egg after lots of years of trying hard and with lots of talent…
And we can identify a third, one that also is making its way pushing their name in local stages with a more dance and more political approach. While they are still young, Portadores de Jip Jop are all attitude, display and also anger when they are in live mode; they are also totally independent and working on a new record while they perform everywhere, from bars to political reunions. They are saying the things that makes them full of rage, and they have the means to do it with grace and pace. The world can be theirs, and we´re ready to see them try to get big in the city.
Here´s their new video, an exciting mix of verses about social violence, the one that it´s not with fists and guns but may end in them.
