With technique: DMOE

Inlet: We visited DMOE in Medellín to start this new series. We spoke with the selector about his
new techniques and musical bagaje.

News:

News: *With technique is a new series, in which local artists reveal the tools that have been with
them in their dijing and producing journey. Is a unique opportunity to discover methods and
process that sometimes get forgotten, but that are worth to keep in mind.

In Medellín, between the axis of Córdoba and Girardot we went to the precinct of an artist that
since the 90’s has been battling in the hip hop scene by injecting the city knowledge and carisma
with his musical bagaje. Melomaniac, vinyl collector, DJ, turntable player and beatmaker: those
are the words that can describe Jhon Jairo Marulanda and the words that have characterized him
on the development of projects like DMOE and BEATZ EN CASA (Beats at home), an online show in
which he invites people to share their knowledge. Creditor of several turntable tournaments, Jhon
won a spot and respect inside the hip hop culture among other genres like salsa, fuck and jazz. He
managed to earn both by studying sounds and complex musical structures that later he shares
with his audience.

As DJ and turntable player is important for him to see the selector moving the pitch “If the DJ is
mixing, he/her IS mixing. I want to see him/her moving the pitch, I want to see the effort of mixing
the song”. In addition to that he mentions that as a vinyl collector he recommends to all people to
have among their records The Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd.

We sat down to have an extensive and substantantial talk where we got to know Jhon exploration
and growing journey, with the techniques that have characterized DMOE path.
How does DMOE starts his music search?

Is a long story. Talking about the music format it all comes from my parents since they only had
vinyls and cassettes. They listened to tropical music, baladas and tango. They were melomaniacs. I
always caught an eye on vinyls but my first collections were cassettes and CDs. Until 2004 I had my
chance of getting together my very own vinyl collection. By that time I also started dancing
breakdance. For me the four elements of hip hop are important: MC, DJ, breakdance and graffiti.
Obviously you have to focus in only one thing, nevertheless it is very important to learn and
understand the dynamics of every element. In 2014 I stopped writing rap lyrics. Also I had some
accidents and for that reason I stopped dancing. As a result I’m between graffiti and djing. As a DJ I
started with a wide and rich collection with multiples genres. Back in the 90’s I was very radical
with the music I choose: only hip hop. There were some other things like baladas or salsa that
were always there for my parents but my main pleasure was hip hop. When I started dancing
breakdance I had the chance of dancing with B-boy Julio. I respect him a lot and he is still on the
move.

In Medellín?

Yeah, he’s amazing. When I started dancing Julio told me “We are going to start dancing break
with salsa” and that changed me because in the videos I only watched people dancing hip hop and
funk but not salsa since is not a beat marked genre. He taught me everything and since then that
influence of latin funk with soul influences made me look up for other groups. We were used to
listen Héctor Lavoe, Ismael Rivera, Willie Colón but there are other artist like Mongo Santamaría,
Roy Barretto, Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers among others that experimented and fusion
multiple styles. By 2007 I already had my hip hop, salsa, jazz and funk collection. Between 2006
and 2007 I had the chance to get in touch with a collective that was called Discos Cocinados. Sano,
one of the members of the collective that i knew before becoming a DJ is someone that I deeply
appreciate since he helped me at a personal crisis time. I got all his support and for that and more
I’m very thankful. He gave me some VHS’s of DMC competences, that was my YouTube. That’s
how I learn a lot of stuff and knew the Discos Cocinados project. He introduced me to other
colleagues: QK, Lo Frequency, Panda, Cohete, Rudolf and MK. Being with the collective was insane.
I got close to electronic music: house, dum ‘n’ bass, electro and techno. I played funk, hip hop and
salsa.

As time went by I started to develop my own instrumental bases. I was very focused on
investigating music, listening records to sample and creating routines to play turntables, this led
me to won a turntable competition on August 24 2007. I began to participate in competitions and
people was shocked by my salsa and hip hop mixing. People were used to see routines with hip
hop and funk but when they heard the first beat of Siembra by Willie Colón and Rubén Blades…
they said “Marica what is he doing? Salsa at a turntable competition?” It was interesting. Right in
that moment everyone said “That paisa turned it up, he really did…”. We had to untie the
competence with an insane scratching activity and I won. After winning more competitions I
decided to retire to start new things.

When you were talking about being radical with your hip hop selection, were you referring to
the moment were you got out of the comfort zone and explored genres to create and
accomplish new rhythms?
Of course. For example if you analize big producers they have a musical bagaje and an infinite
exploration of music genres. If you stay only with one genre yes it can be good, but a time will
come when the sound gets stuck in the music market, so it will need a turnabout to make it work
again. I have always think that with time music has lost a lot of importar ingredients. Some stuff
gets musically empty. They lack composition and intention which makes them empty, with this I
just lose interest on listening nowadays producers. Back in the 90’s we listened groups like The
Roots or A Tribe Called Quest. ATCQ was a project based on samples that took jazz, soul
fragments. These samples were rich in uniqueness, and where catchy to anyone that heard them.
When you hear to The Roots, their music and band format invites you to dance or just sit down to
enjoy their work with a good company while you’re drinking beers.

Could you affirm that nowadays people just want to put out music for no specific reason, just to
have something out there, instead of analize the sound? If it’s a yes, does it affect the way music
perdures with time?

Many producers adapt to what is popular at time, but they do little research of roots and origins of
music, as a result they don’t understand what they are listening. To the day is difficult to identify
an specific sound of each producer. A lot of music sounds the same. That’s the issue, I’m not able
to identify who is who. There are some producers that highlight themselves for their curiosity or
because they like to explore. In music everything is about experimenting. If a producer is going to
adapt to a commercial music genre they better work a lot to have people saying “This is really
good!”

When you jumped from cassette to vinyl what happened with your old collection? Where did all
go?

Unfortunately we are a non-memory country. All those cassettes were lost as I went for CDs. Also
people borrowed and never returned them. It hurts since there were some special ones. They
were a reference to our local hip hop history. Is important to remember and attempt to safe our
local music history. So many people have disattached from our hip hop since they are more
interested in knowing north global history. Talking about memory: hip hop has been in Medellín
for over 30 years and there is no documentary, not a single book with relevant information for
those who are interested in knowing this history. Now most of the kids are more into knowing the
popular hip hop crew. It’s so sad to mention those who have give so much to the movement and
kids, they don’t recognize them, but if you ask for people of Venezuela, Chile, Spain or the U.S?
Then they know about the origin or history of those scenes. What’s really happening is that we are
always looking outside culture, local and national scene? That does not matter.

Why do you think people are more into knowing what’s outside, than knowing what’s
happening here?

I don’t know what to say. It happened to me: I started listening more U.S hip hop than local even
knowing that I grew up listening to local music on the radio and programs by people like Rulaz
Plazco, El Gringo de Black Heart and El Santos de La Chika. This guys played U.S and then, they
blowed your mind with local music. It is a duty of every DJ, producer and local artist has to do:
looking for local music. It would be amazing if DJs and selectors focused on making podcast where
they include more local music because the audience is going to ask for names, for the names of
those who make that music. With that name they can research and listening other things, to other
good local artist and the other and so on and so on.

You lived through the boom of piracy in the 90’s. How did that business worked in Medellín?

At the time there were some people with family in the U.S and Europe so they got numerous
originals cassettes and CDS. What did they do? They made copies for their homies, and then they
did the same until the music was spread across the city. But getting a cassette was a whole
problem, I even paid for a friend college tuition to get music. With CDs the boom was even bigger.
Lots of people had access to free music with CD burners. That was the biggest music traffic in
Medellín. Downtown, there were lots of places that said “Are you looking for hip hop? Got ya, I
have these playlists” and they shown lots of folders with low quality printed álbum covers.

And how long people had to wait for the music?

It was all a waiting thing. At the time there were places like Sector Subterráneo and Karioka -still
functioning- and they had everything right there. Those were the only two specialized on hip hop
places, they had CDs, cassettes and vinyls, all original. Vinyls were expensive, not anyone could
afford them. People that listened hip hop back then was young -including me- so it was
complicated to get money, we only got money for the bus and some food. We sacrificed: don’t
spend money on food, save it and buy one or two records per month.

To the day vinyl industry is growing but unfortunately in Latin America there are very few places
that press vinyls. Not all independent colombian artists have enough resources to have their music
pressed in that format. It is very expensive. Vinyl has always been present and it will always be. It
was hard to know where to get vinyls but since I discovered some flea markets… well I cannot get
out of them. In Colombia what you can mostly find in these markets is balada, salsa, porros and
cumbia.

How did people perceived the arrival of record shops at the country?

When I started purchasing vinyls there were only two or three specialized stores. On 33 Avenue
there was Puzzle. This store had from trip hop, downtempo, house techno to other stuff. They
brought a lot of european music but the store had financial issues and had to shut down. Back
then CDs were taking the vinyl market and also, lots of DJs were swiping to digital. Some thought
CDs were the end of analog, but the word will end before that happens.

What represents selecting a record, cleaning it, and leave the turntable to play each sound for
you?

Records are very special to me. I take care of them since I feel they are a necessity, like eating. I
need them to feed and satisfy my emotions. To stimulate my creativity and full my life with
rhythm. Before I was uncomplicated: I got the record, I played it, I look the credits, the covers and
saved it. As years went by I changed, a lot. I became very strict: with cleaning and how I organize
them. When I talk about cleaning I mean I change the plastics that protect the covers and records
inside. I wash and remove dust on every single one of them. It would be nice to share this work at
a sonic history gallery so people can look and listen. So they can value what artist have done for
music, and my labor.
How has your collection evolved?

Right now, I might have 8.000 records, but I rather have quality than quantity. I got full of records
because I bought copies of the same record, for turntable competitions of course. I told myself
“what a waste to have all of this and not using it”. Is better to have other people using it, that’s it.
If I have 100 records in my collection, I know all of those. I have an online vinyl shop on Facebook,
it’s called Oro Negro. I created it to institutionalise the name that has been given to vinyl records.
Also selling part of the copies of repeated records I have.***

This series was made for Thump Colombia. Here you can read the first part and here the second
part.