According to its members, the name Buyepongo means “to cause
a ruckus” – which certainly describes the scene on the dance floors of Los
Angeles whenever the band launches into its dizzyingly energetic, instantly
infectious rhythms. But it also describes Buyepongo’s riotous mash-up of influences,
which absorbs hip-hop, punk, funk, and jazz sounds into a delirious tropical
blend of styles from across the Latin American diaspora. Like its name, the
band is part hybrid, part invention, something untranslatable that nevertheless
perfectly captures its uniquely vibrant spirit.
On their debut album, Todo Mundo, due out January 29,
Buyepongo takes their Pan-Latin sound worldwide with a vivid collection of
original music that is as hard to pin down as it is to resist. “Our music is
going to get you moving and thinking,” says singer and percussionist Edgar
“Meshlee” Modesto. “It’ll break you out of your comfort zone and connect you
with other folks and cultures. If you come to dance and have a good time you’re
going to get that, but if you come to hear great music with a lot of heart and
technique, you’re going to get that too. It’s a very unique style.”
The members of Buyepongo started playing together as friends
in high school, at the time reflecting their early punk rock and hip-hop
influences. But after the band’s original incarnation split apart in 2010,
Modesto and a few friends embarked on a life-altering backpacking trip through
Belize and Guatemala which exposed them to the Afro-Caribbean sounds of the
region’s Garifuna culture. “That trip to Central America was really an
eye-opener,” Modesto recalls. “I realized that we could do a lot just by
changing rhythms and adding our funk and flavor from growing up in L.A. Since
then our mission has been to keep improving our sound and creating a new style
of music.”
The core members of Buyepongo came together shortly after
Modesto’s return: multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jorge “Yuka” Vallejo,
bassist Randy Modesto (Edgar’s younger brother), and saxophonist Angel
Hernandez. The membership of the band, which Vallejo says might be more
accurately called a “tribe,” is fluid; on Todo Mundo, the line-up is completed
by keyboardist Kris Castro and percussionist Larry Harvey.
Since then, Buyepongo has shared the stage with acts such as
Quantic, Ondatropica, Ozomatli, Booker T, Celso Piña, Os Mutantes, Sister
Nancy, Dead Prez, Cut Chemist, Beatnuts, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings,
Antibalas, and Punta Cartel to name a few. They’ve performed on countless
stages, including Grand Park, Levitt Pavillion’s Summer Music Series, Hollywood
Forever's Dia De Los Muertos, The Los Angeles Music Center's Los Angeles County
Holiday Concert, the Skirball Cultural Center's Family Amphitheater
Performances, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
For those familiar with the Wu-Tang Clan, the choice of the
word “ruckus” is no accident – the legendary hip-hop collective is a key
influence, and their song “Bring Da Ruckus” is something of a mission statement
for Buyepongo, who pride themselves on their ability to energize a room while
still generating a wholly original sound. “We’re always looking for that thing
that sounded like us,” Vallejo says. “We’re always moving on to the next thing
and evolving, and this is what’s come out so far from trial and error and looking
deeper and deeper into ourselves.”
Todo Mundo, then, is a snapshot of a band that continues to
grow, diversify, and experiment. They draw on the traditional "roots"
music of Colombia, Haiti, Belize, Honduras and the Dominican Republic while
incorporating the wealth of modern sounds that can’t help but make up the
tapestry of experience while growing up in an urban melting pot like Southern
California.
While out with their friends, that might mean a steady diet
of west coast hip-hop and hardcore punk, but at home they might be hearing ‘60s
soul, classic rock, or Mexican folk music. As their musicianship developed,
jazz and funk entered the scene. Nascent file-sharing technologies brought an
even vaster world of music to their ears at the speed of an internet
connection. The resultant fusion is something that the band refers to as
“buyangu.”
“It comes pretty natural,” Modesto says of Buyepongo’s
effervescent fusion. “I really think it’s as American as anything else. Growing
up here in L.A., if you just open yourself up you’ve got the opportunity to
interact with a lot of really cool cultures. It always comes down to flavors,
and to me jazz and hip-hop are part of American history and culture, which
created the environment for that music to exist. As the families of migrant
folks who traveled in search of a better life, we’ve been put in a situation
where we got to pick and choose the music we wanted to listen to.”
Groups like Chicano Batman (whose former managers Qvolé
Collective, currently represent Buyepongo) and La Santa Cecilia, which are very
different but share musical attitudes and in some cases members with Buyepongo,
are beginning to achieve success with similarly genre-smashing sounds.
So what does “Buyepongo” mean? Throughout Todo Mundo, it
means energy, movement, boldness, rhythm, surprise, and celebration. According
to Vallejo, “it means a lot of different things to all of us. The sound, the
energy, the party, the travel - it fits into anything we want to do.”
