The brilliant author F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that “Happiness is only the first hour after the alleviation of some especially intense misery.” This line rings true regarding many instances but still there is fallacy in its brilliant cadence (if read or spoken correctly – regarding “cadence”).
My happiness has come about by different means. Naïveté entwined with confidence brought me happiness in the various stages of my writing and publishing these past few years. As with most successful people in their field, though I’m not claiming great success for me in mine, if I knew how much work and how much time it would take to be where I am now, I most likely would never have taken the first step on this trek. So therefore I can relate to the quote above that with each step and minor success I struggled for, happiness has been a reward on many occasion.
The latest success as it were, that I have achieved, is the setting up of this blog, the signing and exclusive releases of much sought after artists, the connections made to others from across the planet and the personal feeling of progress doing something most find difficult to even begin. The Global Bass Experience is where I am now and is the source of a tremendous amount of my happiness. To say the struggles to get where I am now were miserable is an overstatement on most accounts, but with a few it does ring some truth.
This is a place where I can indulge myself in the joys of editing and publishing daily as well as promoting through social media. For me promotion has a negative connotation due to the many promoters behavior and work ethic of which I have encountered. But when I tag the word to my name, it is triumphant for me, because it carries no negative aspects, only positive, for my social media promotions have only been met with respect and intrigue. A lesson one might take from this, and should, is how if one morally, respectfully and honestly carries oneself in this world, most if not all work will be received cordially and desirably.
With The Global Bass Experience, I am incredibly motivated to bring forth the best happenings in the realm of Global Bass, along with an occasional branch out to other realms such as indie rock/pop. With this motivation behind our releases, I feel we have successfully released some excellent projects. I wish to take this time to revisit these releases for those who might have missed them as well as for those who wouldn’t mind a memory refreshment.
First we started off with my good friend Cybernetiko, a Cumbia keyboardist and composer located in California. Originally I approached him when I was still a co-owner of Generation Bass. He finished his EP while I was switching over to The Global Bass Experience making for a great start. His EP is titled “Genetiko” and it contains some of the most interesting Digital Cumbia songs I’ve ever encountered. Truly showing his talent as a composer and musician, “Genetiko” blew me away, and to be perfectly frank, I still often receive questions and comments about it from those who recently encounter it for the first time.
The second well received release I am immensely fond of came from a remix project that was long in the works. The excellent band from Athens, Georgia, Dialect Trio, released their EP “Elements Of Style” earlier this year to much expected acclaim.
I, along with several others, found myself incredibly fortunate to be a part of the remix album. I loved the freedom Dialect Trio allotted me to approach their song from my own personal preferential place. It truly was a wonderful experience remixing but even more so wonderful to be featured along the other talented remixers, remixers which included, Rafael Aragon, NICE☆J, Damo Naimad, Ale Cassis and Dany F. I must emphasize that for me to be chosen among these remixer was and still is a true honor.
The third and latest official release by The Global Bass Experience spawned from interesting beginnings. I will attempt to not insult the character of DJ Negro Dub but rather write admirably of. A year or so ago he contacted me by writing a message on my Soundcloud account. My poor Spanish caused me to run it through Google Translate, but the gist of it dealt with how I should discontinue promoting Nu Cumbia because I was only covering the big names in the scene who many feel had hijacked the underground movement to make money and receive fame, not by themselves on purpose but by association with certain labels, one label specifically being ZZK.
I researched this claim which now concerned me gravely, by asking many others about their opinions of the ZZK movement. All my research came from many honest residents of Buenos Aires, Argentina where ZZK is located. The stories all were told the same to the extent that Digital Cumbia, specifically Cumbia Dub, was first prominent in the underground scene, particularly at parties in the ghettos, even more specifically the still ongoing party titled “Colombia Fest.” There reigned two DJ’s in particular, who many have claimed to be responsible for the rise of Digital Cumbia, DJ Taz and my original messenger DJ Negro Dub. Of course there were others such as Toy Selectah, El Hijo De La Cumbia and Sonido Martines but the party where the movement supposedly began, which I believe to be earnest, was operated by DJ Taz and DJ Negro Dub. Apparently as most, excuse the racial slur, “white” businessmen, unfortunately for my sake, Americans, do, they find something that is stirring and making a scene in the ghetto (we did it with blues using a handsome young white man named Elvis (with all due respect to the king for it was not his fault, as he was genuine in his love for the music) to perform this “dirty” “race-y” “black” music for white listeners, thereafter starting the pop music scene as we know it today. For it was okay if a white man does it.) and take it on professionally, creating a label, signing artists and distributing the music for profit (regardless of the often disingenuous claims of the label claiming the spread of culture and positive ideas as the goal) while leaving the originators in the ghetto to fend for themselves, without even referencing them.
This was the case. ZZK was good at promoting their releases. So the argument that those who started the movement should have reached out to bloggers like myself in order to be known is their own fault, might carry with it some merit but with limited resources and American money against them, to blame them would be incredibly unfair. Bloggers, who mostly are self proclaimed journalists, argue on two sides, one that they shouldn’t have to reach out and search for music but for the music to come to them, and the other, which I belong to, is if one even wishes to claim to role of journalist for whatever reason (normal for the sake of sounding prestigious I suspect and believe) they should seek out truth, they should seek out those who have little to no voice, they should seek out the talented around the world. So needless to say but I’ll state it anyway, that aforementioned argument may carry a little weight but is outweighed by the contrarian position of which I subscribe to.
Everyone who knows the truth about what goes on and what went on at Colombia Fest, knows DJ Negro Dub. His name is written and spoken of with respect. And rightly so. To release an EP with him was a great honor, an honor I have yet to cease feeling and believe I shall never do so. His EP will be the first of hopefully many The Global Bass Experience releases to be pressed on vinyl soon and up for sale physically to be purchased either in compact disc or vinyl record form. Following is this exquisite DJ Negro Dub EP.
This is an excellent video of DJ Negro Dub performing the single off the EP “Tora Tora” live in Buenos Aires.
I invest my own money into all of this so far, from the design and maintenance of the blog to the costs of promotion and physical production. A labor of love would be an understatement if someone were to state my case. I, though I should say we, at The Global Bass Experience hold morality up high on a pedestal when concerning our business and creative dealings. We don’t have much, but we do the best with what we have, and we have confidence that one day soon we will grow large enough to take on many exclusive high quality projects at the same time. However for now, one at a time, well thought out, with much attention given, we will proceed releasing excellent albums.