Brooklyn-based Sunsplash took the hardest drum section of Pocz‘s ravey Kuduro-styled “Mortal Kombat II” and edited it into the base for their remix, adding new melodies and synths that take it into deeper, more atmospheric territories. In reference to Venezuelan Changa Tuki, a local dance style rooted in the barrios there, they’ve labeled it “Tuki Bass”. Changa is Venezuelan slang for 4×4 house and techno, and Tuki basically means ghetto. The style is entirely separate from the U.S. ghetto house genre that led to juke. It’s fast and hard, but displays a distinct Latin flavor. (Check this DJ Yirvin mix for a taste.)
Changa got popular in the 80s and 90s, pushed by Minitecas (mobile sound systems), and the Tuki thing (also spelled Tuky or Tukky) blew up around 2006 with La Maquina Latina, a soundsystem that hosted dance battles to Tuki music. The style is often referred to as raptor house or hard fusion. At times, it sounds very much like Angolan Kuduro, although that happened independently. “Thats whats amazing,” says Pacheko, who lives in Caracas and works closely with Pocz. “These people have never heard of Kuduro, or barely heard of Baile Funk or anything like that, yet they came up with something that is very similar at moments.” This area of Venn overlapping is what led Pocz & Pacheko to call their recent Enchufada record “Tuki Love“. It appeared on Hard Ass 5, a series of “foreigner visions of Kuduro“.
Pacheko is currently working on a mixtape to showcase artists in the Tuki scene, and they could certainly use the shine, according to Alberto Stangarone, who is one half of Sunsplash and is also from Venezuela originally: “The term Tuki was coined in popular Venezuelan culture, the style and music are easily identified, but most of the original producers remain anonymous and largely ignored by Venezuelan media. Sure, their slum raves are big, and their songs are danced to by legions of ghetto ravers nationwide, yet the names of the music producers rarely pop up. Also, unfortunately, the word tuki has been misused by social elites as a synonym for thug.” But that’s why they’re using the word, Pacheko explains, “To be like, ‘Fuck it, the Tuki thing is awesome.'”
[audio: http://culturesystem.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/PoczMortalKombatIISunsplashRemix.mp3]