In-Correcto Captures the Sound of Contemporary Bogotá (original) (raw)
LABEL PROFILE In-Correcto Captures the Sound of Contemporary Bogotá By Richard Villegas · October 21, 2024 
It’s a balmy September afternoon at the Bogotá Music Market (BOmm) and the party is jumping. The weeklong conference has taken over the Delia Zapata Olivella National Center for the Arts, bringing together movers and shakers from across the music industry with rising Colombian artists eager to pitch their projects. A quick survey of the busy plaza reveals many international all-stars, from the head honchos of digital cumbia label ZZK to renowned KEXP DJ Albina Cabrera, and bookers from French electronic festival Nuits Sonores. Over to the side, there’s a merch tent with a DJ booth where spin doctors including Cerrero of Colombian roots behemoth Llorona Records and Daniel Michel of Afrobeat ensemble La BOA have the crowd bouncing to delicious, percussive tunes. Then the mood shifts to vintage cumbia, signaling that In-Correcto label head Santiago Álvarez has taken over the decks, prompting the crowd to run for beer refills before joining in some classic singalongs.
In fact, In-Correcto was one of the local cornerstones of the conference, hosting multiple DJ sets, showcasing artists such as Felipe Orjuela, Mau Gatiyo, and Santiago Navas, and ultimately, earning a reputation as the label most effective at capturing the essence of contemporary Bogotá. Since its founding in November 2015, the imprint and collective has strived to be an essential hub of homegrown talent, branching into visual arts, print media, and events. Every year, their anniversary concert series is the hottest ticket in the city, weaving buzzy local stars, surprise legends, and international guests from the realms of cumbia, rap, electronic, and folk music. These efforts have ingrained the label into the fabric of Colombian music and strengthened Latin American cultural networks while centering Bogotá as an essential regional player.
“We encompass multiple spectrums,” says Álvarez, speaking from the patio of La Yunta, a cultural center that is also the label’s base of operations. “In-Correcto is the portrait of a generation coalescing at a moment when culture in Bogotá is at its most potent and unified. For the past decade, people around the world have been talking about bands in our city and DJs pushing the boundaries of nightlife. This is a city of enormous internal migration, so lots of traditional music is also created here and shaped by our metropolitan idiosyncrasies.”
Álvarez first launched In-Correcto alongside editor Camila Cadavid as a quarterly arts and culture magazine, but it wouldn’t remain confined to print for long; a few months later, he reached out to Gregorio Hernández de Alba, aka dj+1, who’d performed at the magazine’s release party, asking him to help set up a discographic wing. Tapping a multitude of producer friends, the label’s first pressing was the electronic compilation El Sudaca Contraataca Vol I, which included early In-Correcto staples Santiago Navas and Los Niños Telepáticos, as well as established local projects De Juepuchas, Las Hermanas and Dany F. This was the first in a series of Sudaca compilations that reappropriated the pejorative term used by Europeans to describe South American immigrants, and underscored the intrinsic relationship between artist and territory.
Activism and subversive cheek are encoded into In-Correcto’s DNA. In May 2020, they released Cuarentemas: 31 cañonazos virales, a compilation stacked with demos and experimental ruminations to benefit their pool of artists in the early days of the pandemic. Later that year, they unveiled Estamos por la utopía: Sonidos de Emergencia contra el Estado Policial colombiano, another compilation responding to nationwide waves of civil unrest and police brutality that began in late 2019, with proceeds going to the human rights organization Temblores.
“We have strong political convictions, and we approach them from our corner of the world, which is culture,” adds Álvarez. “Latin America intersects with a plethora of genres, instruments, and social variables, so it’s not just about exulting where the music is made, but who it’s reaching. We’re fighting on all cultural fronts, and that’s part of a discourse that connects with people.”
Harnessing art as social dialogue has produced some of In-Correcto’s most successful breakouts. In 2020, singer-songwriter La Muchacha tapped into the mighty Latin American feminist movement with the anti-harassment anthem “No Me Toques Mal,” later echoing Colombia’s institutional discontent on the searing hit “No Azara.” Meanwhile, singers Briela Ojeda, Ana María Vahos, and cumbia group Conjunto Media Luna turned stories of environmentalism and land protection into mission statements on songs such as “Nariz con Raíz,” “Los Días,” and “En Este Mundo Y En Esta Tierra.”
But social consciousness is not synonymous with protest music. Many of In-Correcto’s artists riff on cultural iconography, too. Felipe Orjuela’s retro-skewing cumbia records evoke Bogotá’s unparalleled crate digging, while InDiazo’s debut EP ZO is a gritty tribute to the time honored tradition of MCs freestyling in city parks. The _bandola_-slinging troubadour Gato e’ Monte, meanwhile, achieved viral status with roaring, heartfelt odes to soccer players such as Millonarios’ Radamel Falcao (“Promesa de Monserrate”) and the team’s former center-back turned coach, Alberto Gamero (“El Poema de Su Greñero”). In an even broader exercise, the label commemorated the 70th birthday of the enormously influential singer-songwriter and Argentine rock icon Charly García with a compilation of 40 covers. “The goal was to put together 70,” remembers Álvarez with a chuckle, “but 40 was already crazy.”
In-Correcto have parlayed their goodwill with Bogotá’s fervent music fans into thrilling anniversary festivities catering to audiences in different corners of the city. Taking over venues like La Mecánica and Matik Matik in the Chapinero neighborhood, Ritmo Moderno in the downtown Candelaria district, and even Álvarez’s family-owned puppet theater, La Libélula Dorada, in Teusaquillo, the collective are deliberately decentralizing the indie circuit. Previous editions have welcomed a wide array of Latin American stars including Berlin-based Colombian avant-garde musician Lucrecia Dalt and Brazilian club dynamo Badsista. This year will be no different, with a mega lineup featuring cumbia icon and accordion master Carmelo Torres, Brazilian singer-songwriter Dora Morelembaum, conceptual Bogotá rapper El Kalvo, and Mexican electronic powerhouse Siete Catorce, as well as a host of in-house talent.
“Beyond the isolated successes there’s an entire universe of music waiting to be discovered,” says Álvarez, reflecting on his hopes for the music housed under the label. “If you got here because of Briela Ojeda, keep going until you reach Los Toscos and Peter Brötzman. Like walking through the jungle with a machete. This is also the thought process behind our anniversary shows because local fans understand we’re not only about money, and will bring cool, niche names like Juana Aguirre and Rosario Alfonso, whom you might not see at a major festival. Plus, it’s our birthday, and everyone loves a birthday party.”
Join the party below with a hand-picked selection of In-Correcto’s most emblematic releases.
Gato e’ Monte, Felipe Orjuela
Perhaps In-Correcto’s banner 2024 release, LA DOSIS MÁXIMA is the titanic union of Gato e’ Monte and Felipe Orjuela, who pushed beyond their comfort zones of cumbia and música llanera with anthemic hooks and daring genre blends from across the continent. The pair dives gleefully into Dominican merengue, Mexican rancheras, and Argentine cumbia villera, delivering a deadpan meditation on late-night stimulants for “Solo y Tu Si Bailando,” and raging through hungover supermarket runs on the punk-ified “Pal Mercado.” But so much of what makes these artists—and ultimately In-Correcto itself—great is their ability to play with local lore, whether saluting soccer legends on “Iguarán” or lighting up with friends in the city’s 420-friendly parks for “Cumbia Fumanchera.”
La Muchacha
La Muchacha, the larger-than-life alias of singer-songwriter Isabel Ramírez Ocampo, has entered the territory of folk heroes, not only genre-wise but as a resonant voice of the people. While her 2018 full-length Polen cast her as a soulful storyteller from the Antioquian countryside, 2020’s blistering Canciones crudas channeled the mounting frustrations of Colombian society that erupted in violent waves throughout the pandemic. Armed with her guitar and adorned with little more than claps and percussion from a Peruvian cajón, cuts like “Que me devuelvan la tierra” and “Los ríos” amplify the plight of land and water protectors across Colombia and much of Latin America. In a wry shift, “El favorcito” cuts down event organizers who reach out to artists peddling sophistries of exposure in exchange for unpaid labor, flaming them with a smile while echoing the gripes of an entire creative industry.
Briela Ojeda
Hailing from the southern municipality of Pasto, Briela Ojeda’s acoustic ruminations bloom like a verdant oasis in Bogotá’s gray urban sprawl. She is a frequent creative collaborator of La Muchacha—the two have toured together as well as launched joint project Las Mijas—but Ojeda’s 2021 debut album Templo Komodo solidified her as a poet in her own right meditating on the spiritual balance between humans and nature. “Buhoz” and “Nariz con Raíz” underscore this tight though increasingly neglected bond, while “Doña Justicia” is a moving, witchy ode to the passing down of ancestral wisdom.
Flash Amazonas
Binary Birds and Other Rubbish Surreal Things
Describing their sound as “a modern band emulating a ’90s band, emulating a ’60s band,” Flash Amazonas is an art pop duo composed of Colombian singer-songwriter Julián Mayorga and Japanese producer Ryota Miyake. The pair met in 2015 at a Red Bull Music Academy residency in Montreal, where they worked on a demo of a futuristic bolero which, four years later, blossomed into the zany, Motown-esque Binary Birds. Like Sparks on a beach holiday, the pair waltzes from surf rock to lounge-y cha-cha-cha, always with a wink and a devilishly catchy hook.
Santiago Navas
Electronic producer Santiago Navas poured a dizzying palette of rhythms into 2022’s La Ley del Juego, charting intersections between house, industrial, cumbia, and hip-hop sampling, with performance motifs stretching into modern dance and architecture. Though he enlisted soul singer Lalo Cortés for the trip-hop inflected “Esperando” and Felipe Orjuela’s zooming guacharaca and spacey synths for “Cumbia de Capital,” Navas soars alone on electro-acoustic glitch fest “Un Paso adelante.” Behind the scenes, he helms production on most of In-Correcto’s singer-songwriter projects, but this album is an excellent glimpse at the mind behind the immersive tunes.
Mau Gatiyo
In the infinite rabbit hole of Colombian traditional music, vallenato is the accordion-driven yin to cumbia’s more percussive yang. Mau Gatiyo first made a splash with 2023’s Baño Unisex LP, injecting accordion hooks with cheeky lyrics that bemoaned economic inflation and over-militarization. This year, vallenato’s mad scientist returned with Superpoderes, a delightfully wacky sci-fi epic cobbled together from samples of old records and documentaries, and spinning wild tales about characters who wake up as super-powered beings. No motif, instrument, or collaborator seems too far-fetched for Gatiyo, who weaves songs about teleportation and telekinesis out of booming tambor alegre and hastily recorded whistles. He tops it all off with gravely bars from rapper Mismo Perro and heavy dosing of psychedelic synths from Meridian Brothers’ Eblis Alvarez.
Lalo Cortés
Centering Afro-Colombian heritage in Bogotá’s wet and chilly streets, Lalo Cortés’ 2023 debut Re-Encuentro is a buttery swirl of jazz, R&B, and hip-hop. Melding the improvisational confidence of Esperanza Spalding (“Re-Encuentro”) with the throwback rap-singing of Aaliyah (“No Se Ve”), the result is a smokey journey through Cortes’ meditations on womanhood and ancestral reconnection. If your curiosity is piqued, make some time for her latest EP Yo no sé querer poquito, where she plunges into neo-soul and synth-forward ‘80s grooves.
Los Toscos & Peter Brötzman
La Vigilia de las flores (Lado flores)
The definition of a hidden treasure, this 2019 LP brought together musical academics Santiago Botero and Kike Mendoza (aka Los Toscos) with German free jazz icon Peter Brötzman for a wild, psychedelic ride. The project was born from a series of jam sessions at classic Bogotá venue Matik Matik, where they gradually roped in saxophonist Tony Malaby, bassist Tim Dahl, and trombonist Johannes Lauer, recording over a dozen tracks released across two albums. Veering into kraut, noise, and even Colombian gaita music, the result is an avant-garde gem that sounds like the instruments were played and stirred in a cauldron rather than recorded and mixed in a studio.
San Pedro Bonfim
A rare non-Colombian entry for the label, this dreamy collection of sardonic poetry and surrealist spoken word from Ecuadorian singer-songwriter San Pedro Bonfim arrived in September. Best known as the frontman of alt-pop band Lolabúm, Corazón de Guagua afforded Bonfim an opportunity to bask in DIY minimalism, infusing eerie torch song “De terciopelo negro” with Andean trio harmonies, and flooding the title track’s romantic longing with luminous samba percussion. Theatrical (“Máscara o espejo”) and often quite funny (“Putas pirañas”), the album has quickly achieved fan-favorite status.
dj+1
One of In-Correcto’s most enduring players is dj+1, the gauzy solo project of Gregorio Hernández de Alba, an electronic producer weaving ambient, downtempo, IDM, and the occasional chest thumper. His full-length debut, Conflicto e Interés, is designed to soundtrack long walks through the city, whizzing and whirring on “Felices,” and tapping eclectic producer Cero39 for the whimsical drum & bass of “I.N.M.” Balancing artistic output with his role within the label’s administrative branch, Hernández is also a central figure in the vinyl DJ collective Sonido IN alongside Santiago Álvarez and Felipe Orjuela, keeping Bogotános dancing to the cumbia and merengue classics that feel like home.