iTunes Selects CHOC QUIB TOWN For Single Of The Week

Posted by: CorrienteLatina  Posted: 02-16-2010 Print Article Email to a friend RSS Twitter Facebook

"It's no secret that Colombia's Choc Quib Town are one of our favorite recent discoveries here at Nat Geo Music - we were blown away the first time we saw the lyrical triumverate of Tostao, Goyo and Slow combine laptop hip-hop with the rhythms and dialect of the black communities of Colombia's Pacific Coast." - NAT GEO MUSIC

Choc Quib Town’s track “De Donde Vengo Yo” is featured as this week’s “iTunes Latino Single of the Week.” The group’s U.S. debut album, ‘Oro,’ is currently available early at iTunes, in advance of its March 2nd street date. Choc Quib Town is comprised of three MCs - Tostao, Goyo, and Slow – in addition to a full backing band that supports its live shows. The group will celebrate their album release with two concerts in Miami on March 5th and 6th.

Fresh off a Latin GRAMMY nomination for “Best New Artist,” Choc Quib Town is originally from the Choco region on Colombia’s Pacific coast. They fuse hip hop, electronica and funk with traditional Afro-Colombian rhythms.
Nacional’s ‘Oro’ release includes the best of Choc Quib Town’s previous two albums released in Colombia, ‘Oro’ and ‘Somos Pacifico’. The acclaimed album ‘Somos Pacifico’ was produced by the innovative production duo of Richard Blair (Sidestepper) and Ivan Benevides (Carlos Vives).

While one third of Colombians are of African descent, these roots are not always reflected in the country’s national cultural identity. Through Choc Quib Town’s positive energy and socially-conscious message, the group looks to spread awareness about a culture that is often ignored.

“Music from the Pacific coast is sort of lost among the things people generally associate with Colombia – cocaine, coffee, salsa, cumbia – they don’t know much about what we call ‘the Africa inside Colombia,’” Tostao explains. “You turn on the TV in Colombia and you don't see many Afro-Colombians. We are narrating a Colombia that does not appear in the mass media.”

Goyo, sister to Slow, recently collaborated with Andrea Echeverri of Colombian music icons Aterciopelados on the track “28” off their GRAMMY-nominated album ‘Rio.’ Like Aterciopelados, Goyo echoes the need to use music as a true platform for developing consciousness. “We come from a tradition in hip hop that speaks out and criticizes society,” Goyo explains. “We want to tell the world how we see our people. In our music, we talk about the diversity of our region and its customs but also the social problems and how our people are basically invisible to the world.”

Choc Quib Town’s fusion between modern and traditional sounds is a result of a childhood surrounded by a large variety of influences. “Growing up, Slow and I did not have a record store in our town,” she says. “But fortunately our dad had a closet full of vinyl, CDs, and tapes – which he had ordered through catalogs from Bogota. We had access to the music of MichaelJackson, merengue from Las Chicas del Can, local chirimia bands like Saboreo and La Contundencia, vallenatos from the Atlantic coast, among so many others. As Choco is in the northern part of the Pacific coast, it is very close to Panama, so that’s where we would get hip hop and raga music from.”

The group formed in 2000, deciding to move to the Colombian hip-hop center of Cali. Their sound quickly spread and Choc Quib Town soon developed a significant fanbase across the country.

2009 was a banner year for the group as they expanded on an international level, beginning with a breakthrough performance at SXSW in Austin. In addition to their Latin GRAMMY nomination this past fall, Choc Quib Town also showcased at WOMEX in Copenhagen and toured from London to Paris and India to Berlin.