Cumbia kufiya: DJ Juan Data (+ Bin Laden)

Yes, I know that today is the day that Osama Bin Laden's death/targeted killing was announced. But my thoughts are a swirl of emotion and feeling and inchoate analysis. And life must go on. So here is another in my ongoing posts on kufiyas. (But as I turn to cumbia + kufiyas, it turns out that there is a Bin Laden connection.)

DJ Juan Data is a very interesting dj who hails from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and who has resided in San Francisco since 2001. (Oooo, significant year for OBL.) His work is in the contemporary cumbia vein, mixing cumbia with funk and hip-hop and soul and...


I like this image, from his 2009 Linyerismo mix (which you can download here). DJ Juan Data typically performs in the distinctive wrestler mask.

And, sometimes, in kufiya.

Here are some cool cumbia '45s to download, courtesy Juan Data. And here's some more info about him.

I learned about Bin Laden cumbias from a 2008 post on mudd up! It mentions a song, identified only as "2nd de la Cumbia Bin Laden," and says it is "an anti-war New York cumbia tune about the gringo response to the World Trade Center attack, from 2002." It's a straight cumbia number, and I've been able to identify the artist: Internacional Gitano. Since then, I've found several "Bin Laden" cumbias. I find them interesting, but don't have much if any idea about what they're about or what their significance is. In most cases the OBL reference seems to mark the fact that the song is a cumbia-bhangra mash-up, as in the case of "Cumbia de Osama":



or "La guitarra de Bin Laden":



Whereas "Guitarras Talibanas" has a South Asian vocal but isn't so bhangra.



Wish I could tell you more about these Bin Laden cumbias. And hopefully someone will, in future. In the meantime, let them remain swathed in mystery.