Latin EDM with Happy Colors

There is no clean origin story for Latin EDM. It didn’t emerge from a single city, scene, or genre; it erupted from the collision of multiple diasporas. Each carrying their own musical inheritance and finding that the rhythms refused to stay separate. Dominicans in Rotterdam. Puerto Ricans in New York. Mexican Americans running between Corpus Christi and Mexico City.

Latin EDM is best understood as a shared condition: what happens when the children and grandchildren of Latin America encounter electronic music and recognise something familiar in its architecture. The four-on-the-floor pulse of House music is not too far from Dembow’s skip. Trap music’s heavy bass works hand in hand with Reggaeton. Moombahton was invented by accident in 2009 when Washington, D.C. DJ Dave Nada slowed a Moombah track down to 108BPM and heard something new.

With the alchemy of those sounds coming together in full flow, what happened next was a decade of creative explosion. Artists from across the diaspora — working across Dembow, Champeta, Cumbia, Reggaeton, Miami Bass, Moombahton and dozens of regional variants — built a body of music that was simultaneously local and global. Rooted in community and impossible to contain.

Happy Colors has been inside this story from the beginning. A two-time Latin Grammy Award winning DJ and producer, his music sits exactly at the intersection of electronic dance culture and the soulful, rhythmic depth of Black and Brown Latin America. With his latest single ‘Musicality’ out now, he gave us the lowdown on Latin EDM.

Munchi — Diplo & Friends (2012)

Munchi is the Dominican-born, Rotterdam-based producer who became one of the defining architects of the Latin club sound. He blended Dembow, Moombahton, Champeta and Caribbean bass into a style that was entirely his own. His 2012 ‘Diplo & Friends’ session landed on BBC Radio 1 like a dispatch from a future nobody had charted yet. “Look, I gotta be honest… this mix changed my life before I even knew what my life was gonna be,” Happy Colors says. “A Dominican in Rotterdam playing Bembow on BBC. On the BBC, loco! No translation, no watering it down. Titles in Spanish, violent Mambo, dirty Dembow. When I heard this I said, ‘okay, the door’s not locked. That friend of mine kicked it down already.’ Every Dominican making electronic music owes Munchi a botella. I said what I said.”

Big Makk — Diplo & Friends (16/11/2014)

Orlando native, Miami Bass pioneer and Haitian-American artist Big Makk brought the heat of South Florida’s Latin club scene to the global stage with his 2014 ‘Diplo & Friends’ slot. The mix was a statement: Miami bass didn’t die, it just kept evolving. Makk sadly passed away in 2016, and his legacy sits squarely at the heart of everything that came after him. “R.I.P. Makk,” Happy Colors begins. “This one I can’t listen to like a critic. 2014, ‘Diplo & Friends,’ and the radio sounds like Miami. Not Miami the postcard, Miami the real one, our Miami. This was the era when I could hear our stuff getting played and I knew we weren’t underground anymore, we were just early. Makk played it loud and heavy and with love. Miami bass never died, it just learned Spanish. Rest, brother.”

Dillon Francis — Taco Tuesday #2 (03/31/2020)

Love him or question him, Dillon Francis was the artist who took Moombahton to stadium audiences at a moment when the genre’s original wave of attention was fading. His ‘Taco Tuesday’ mix series kept the format alive in public consciousness while the underground kept developing it. However you feel about the commercialisation of the sound, the door it opened was significant . “Look, I know some purists get salty about Dillon,” Happy Colors admits. “‘He commercialized it, blah blah.’ Bro. When Moombahton hit the main stage, who do you think walked through that door after? Us. Dillon’s the funny gringo cousin who showed up to the family party and actually learned the steps. ‘Taco Tuesday’ is him keeping the genre ALIVE when everybody said Moombahton was dead. It’s dead? Then why are we all still dancing? Exactly. Respect.”

Ma-Less — Deep Dark Moombah Mix

Ma-Less is part of Munchi’s extended family of collaborators. A producer who understood that Moombahton had an emotional, introspective side that the blogs covering the genre’s party-starter reputation largely missed. This mix demonstrates the range of the sound. “This is the 4am one,” Happy Colors proclaims. “For those in the know. Everybody remembers Moombahton as the party, but the deep side…Moombahsoul…the dark stuff, that’s where the genre had feelings. Ma-Less is family, her name is tattooed on the history of Munchi’s catalog, and this mix is proof the real ones never left. When the blogs moved on to the next hype, this sound stayed in the basement getting stronger. This is the mix you play alone in the car. No skips. Pure emotion.”

El Dusty — EDC Mexico (2017)

El Dusty is the Corpus Christi-born producer who became one of the defining voices of contemporary Cumbia. He took a genre long dismissed as old-fashioned and provincial and demonstrated, definitively, that it belonged on festival stages. His 2017 EDC Mexico set was a homecoming and a coronation. Happy Colors and El Dusty also have history, as their 2015 collaborative single ‘Cumbia Anthem’ went on to earn a Latin Grammy nomination.

“This is my brother so yeah I’m biased,” Happy Colors admits. “Dusty on the EDC Mexico stage playing Cumbia through them festival speakers, crazy. The music they told us was for the ladies, and a hundred thousand people were losing their minds. We did ‘Cumbia Anthem’ together, so when I hear this set I don’t hear a DJ mix, I hear a victory lap. Corpus Christi to Mexico City. Cumbia went home and came back with a chain on. That is winning.”

Follow Happy Colors on Mixcloud and Instagram and check out his new release, ‘Musicality,’ out now.