El Hijo de la Cumbia is a producer from the Buenos Aires suburb of San Martín. While some artists who live in the cosmopolitan confines of Capital Federal dabble in cumbia as a sort of retro-novelty, this bedroom producer comes from an area where traditional cumbia is basically the official soundtrack for parties and dances. As such, he has gone out on quite a limb by mixing in hip-hop and dancehall elements with his music. The name El Hijo de la Cumbia translates to "The Son of Cumbia" and he certainly lives up to the title. Rejecting the repetitive loops of Argentinian cumbia villera, El Hijo de la Cumbia instead pulls heavily from Mexican and Colombian cumbias. Anchored by thick and varied percussion, his music also has a somewhat psychedelic quality. Imagine a producer like Dan the Automator putting together some cumbia tracks and you're getting close to the world of El Hijo de la Cumbia. In a country where financially surviving as an independent artist is nearly impossible, El Hijo de la Cumbia manages to scratch out a living as a DJ and producer. Amazingly, he has been enlisted to produce tracks for a number of Mexican artists who discovered his talents online.
