© Laura Colomé
Not like we really needed more people making cumbia mash-ups, they are pretty much all over the world already, but hey, surprisingly enough there wasn't much done in Spain with this hybrid genre. Cherman lives in the mestizaje world capital, Barcelona, so it makes sense that he pioneers the neo-cumbia movement over there, specially considering he's another fellow Argentine expat.
Back in the nineties he was deeply involved in Buenos Aires underground scene, he used to publish a street circus magazine and host an alternative music radio show. I happen to have contributed to both those projects, so I know Cherman pretty well and I miss him (sniff, sniff), so it made me really happy to reunite recently with him through the Internet and find out that we've been both playing with cumbia in very similar ways.
But the truth is Cherman was years ahead of mine in cumbia appreciation. Back when I used to dismiss the entire genre for considering it corny and unworthy of my refined ears, he was managing this anarko-punk collective called Las Manos de Filippi and/or Agrupación Mamanis who played Cumbia With Attitude in Buenos Aires' underground back in the days when cumbia had absolutely NO underground credibility (mid-nineties that's it). They even had a crossover hit called "El Himno del Cucumelo" (which I still play at almost every party and somebody should be remixing it soon... Cherman?). That song entered history as an actual backwards crossover because being a cumbia played by rockers, it crossed from the rock scene to the traditional cumbia scene with huge success and there are plenty covers of that song around (the most famous ones by Rodrigo and by Adrián y los Dados Negros). So even then, when we were friends and colleagues with Cherman and we used to hang out on a weekly basis, whenever he tried to make me listen to this band he was managing, I payed zero attention because it was cumbia and I was too busy with my own hip-hop purism. Guess who was right?
One of the musicians from Agrupación Mamanis is now very well known in the Buenos Aires neo-cumbia scene as Lucas Luisao of Army of Dub, a dubstep pioneer in his own right. His influence is evident in Cherman's mixes. Download it and check it out. - The Hard Data, Latin but cool, Agosto 2009
Cherman (a.k.a german de souza) is an Argentinian living in Barcelona who had been working on several projects under the radar, one of those projects is a blog called newtonlaspelotas; in where I found I great selection of cumbiastep/ downtempo/ mash ups made by him!
I had to admit one he has used of my favorite spanish singers La Mala Rodriguez in a clever way blending her with Sr coconut, and if you haven’t listened to her, she is one of the coolest mc’s from spain, even labeled in machete records (I guess in the Toy Selectah era) then she went really mainstream..
People who started listening cumbia recently should know; or perhaps haven’t noticed yet, (even if you are a neo-cumbia lover!!) is that there’s a difference between cumbias (colombian, mexican, argentinian and venezuelan) and he does a special approach to cumbia on this cumbia-step from the cumbia villera point of view.
But what really sold me this mash up wasn’t a cumbia, in fact was something quite different; a mash-up using the amazing track let’s push things forward from The streets‘ brilliant album original pirate material and blended it with against all odds from Chase and Status from from their More than A lot. - Generation Bass, Noviembre 2009
CHERMAN artista Argentino radicado en España, quien como caracteristica especial mantiene una productiva fijacion con el dubstep, cumbia, mashups y ademas los PIBES CHORROS (entre muchas otras actividades). Tiene unos tracks geniales, mi favorito es el mashup con los BEASTIE BOYS. Para mas info chequen FOLCORE, colectivo de artistas del cual es miembro (y yo tambien), con base en Barcelona, pero con integrantes de todas partes del globo. - Bootlegumachine Blog, Noviembre 2009
...“Weird edits, mashups & bootlegs” de Cherman. Una compilación de edit y mashups en tono cumbia digital, dubstep y glitch hop; reinterpretando tracks de artistas tan diversos como High Tone, Los Reyes de la Milanga, Roots Manuva, Yello y Carlos Gardel. Puro desprejuicio musical. - Cassette Blog, Julio 2011
n nuevo jonrón de los amigos reyes del gravetón, los Caballito Netlabel. Acaban de editar “Borne Basstard Remixes” de Cherman, que cuenta con un remix propio y otros de Bigote, Boris Low, Dj Avatar, Ken, Tropical Terror y Qechuaboi. Nos cuentan que el track fue dedicado por Cherman al Born, barrio emblemático de Barcelona. No conocemos (o al menos no nos acordamos) el lugar del que hablan. Pero por lo que nos hace sentir “Borne Basstard”, suponemos que debe ser un barrio de temer, ya que el track es oscuro, un dembow con melodía maldita. Una nueva pegada de Caballito. - Cassette Blog, Noviembre 2011
Un nuevo jonrón de los amigos reyes del gravetón, los Caballito Netlabel. Acaban de editar “Borne Basstard Remixes” de Cherman, que cuenta con un remix propio y otros de Bigote, Boris Low, Dj Avatar, Ken, Tropical Terror y Qechuaboi. Nos cuentan que el track fue dedicado por Cherman al Born, barrio emblemático de Barcelona. No conocemos (o al menos no nos acordamos) el lugar del que hablan. Pero por lo que nos hace sentir “Borne Basstard”, suponemos que debe ser un barrio de temer, ya que el track es oscuro, un dembow con melodía maldita. Una nueva pegada de Caballito. - Cassette Blog, Noviembre 2011
(Virulaser) Check out this mix from Buenos Aires born Cherman, an active member of the Folcore audiovisual collective crew based in Barcelona. This tropical mixtape of his is a cool mashup of moombah, bass, lasers and latin driven bass tunes.
A mix of moombah everything…aka moombahtodo! - Shocklee Marzo 2012
... Intiche has a couple of cool albums coming out soon that I’ll surely be covering. Cherman brought his remixing style to work on Intiche’s Llullakuy revving it up for a rave scene. - Generation Bass, Agosto 2012
... la referencia número 53 de Cabeza!, “Trastorno Remixes” de Cherman. Para los que no conocen a este amigo, les contamos que es un fuerte impulsor de la música global bass, desde sus movimientos personales, sus colaboraciones con otros artistas o su inclusión en distintas estructuras, como por ejemplo la crew de Folcore. “Trastorno Remixes” es de lo más heterogéneo, entre dubstep, cumbia digital y digital dancehall, gracias a los mxs de Costofix and Theopop CT, El Timbe, Gor2, Gux Swadharma, Los Chicos Altos, Manso, SelfEvident.
Puros tracks pisteros y levantadores. - Cassette Blog, Mayo 2012
... ‘Bubblicious’, is a collab with the Argentinian digital tropicalist Cherman & Qechuaboi powerful cumbia-bass with the rigth amount of dance-drive to prepare a crowd for an euphoric climax! - Generation Bass, Mayo 2014