Photo by terecico
Text by Marcus K. Dowling
On March 5, 2010, moombahton debuted in Washington D.C. Since then, in a moment not seen since the days of punk and hardcore, the nation’s capital’s underground is influencing the universe. Dave Nada, the College Park native and noted international DJ and producer who developed the genre, describes the new sound as “global, mid-tempo tropical bass.” I personally refer to it running into a brick wall of sound. For a fast-growing legion of producers, DJs and fanatics enamored with the moombahton, it’s more than music. It’s a chance for freedom and new expression in a wild new age.
A few weeks earlier, Nada had been in Vancouver, testing out his new sound at parties during Winter Olympics. I wasn’t there, but Twitter was, and the hashtags were off the chain. By the time he returned home, the online buzz was deafening.
Nada’s first D.C. set was an unannounced end-of-the-night party hijacking at the Rock and Roll Hotel’s second-floor bar. Folks like Nada, U Street Music Hall co-owner Jesse Tittsworth and Tittsworth’s T & A label co-founder Ayres Haxton, who spins under the name DJ Ayres, had already been discussing the sound. By the next morning, I knew Dave would be lurking at DJ Lil Elle, Starks and Nacey and the now-defunct DJ Jackie O’s 90s hip-hop KIDS party, and I was fairly sure Nada would be manning the decks again.
About 1:30 a.m. on the March 7, my intuition proved correct. KIDS had dissolved into just another electro party (as it tended to). Indie electro was white-hot at the time, but when Dave Nada hijacked the DJ booth, the world went still.
The range between 108 and 114 beats per minute is referred to by moombahton producers as the “golden tempo.” It’s a bit faster than hip-hop and a pitch down from house, thus making it the most ideal of tempos for populist dance music. All indie dance music was moving at 130 BPM at that time. Hearing the same tunes slowed down? It was a mystical experience, an entire room dancing in an expansive rhythmic sludge. We all had incredulous looks on our faces—we had no clue what we were hearing, but we were wholly in approval. The heaviest hitter for me that night had to be when Nada spun the Calgary, Alberta-based DJ and producer A-Mac’s edit of A-Trak’s remix of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Heads Will Roll.” The biggest electro jam of the day turned into an emotional revelation, one of those life changing moments when you see the future and your place in it.
Since that moment, nearly two years ago, moombahton has gone worldwide, from D.C. to nearly point around the globe. It’s most social of sounds at an increasingly social time, turning up the bass is slowly unifying the world.
Want more moombah? Moombahton Massive XII starts at 9 p.m. tonight at U Street Music Hall.
Marcus K. Dowling is a co-owner of Vamos Promo, a public relations firm specializing in tropical bass and moombahton events, and is also the editor-in-chief of moombahton.com.
