Mexico: Musica Tribal, Pointy Boots, Los Parranderos and 3BallMTY

Friends from Mexico have been turning me on to a form of electro-fusion music called "musica tribal" for the past year or so. We featured a Mun2 video about one Texas superfan on Boing Boing's Virgin America in-flight TV channel not long ago.

This weekend, the folks behind the TelMexHub conference series in Mexico hipped me to 3BallMTY and Los Parranderos, and I'd like to share their dopeness with you in this post. Turn up your speakers now.

Tribal is highly danceable remix art, combining cumbia, banda, and other indigenous pop music forms from Mexico with hard techno beats. The dance/hype troupe Los Parranderos (who often perform with 3BallMTY) are famous for constructing comically -proportioned pointy cowboy boots—the term "pointy boots" has become somewhat synonymous with musica tribal.

In the video embedded at the top of this post, an English-subtitled interview with 3BallMTY. They're a trio of very talented teens from Monterrey, Mexico: DJ Erick Rincon, 17 years old, DJ Sheeqo Beat, 18, and DJ Otto, who is 19. The name "3BallMTY," by the way, is a sort of text-truncation of "tribal" plus "Monterrey." At around 4:30 in this same video, there's an interview with Los Parranderos, who are from the town of Matehuala in the state of San Luis Potosí. I am deeply bummed that I missed the chance to see these guys perform live at the TelMexhub event this week in Querétaro, but there's video from that show embedded below. Also below, I've embedded a VBS TV episode with more on "botas picudas" and musica tribal (a related photo essay in Vice mag is here, with photos by Edith Valle, including the boots shot above). The way these guys construct the boots is amazing and awesome. They use rubber hoses and screws to extend the boots to impossible lengths. The fashion trend is about a year old, and it's simultaneously hilarious and cool.

Music to download: Toy Selectah's "Mex Machine" compilation is a nice place to start, and features a track with 3BallMTY. And the funkmasters at MadDecent.com point to a free EP download from 3BallMTY here. Here's related remixing at The Fader and Generation Bass.

(Special thanks to Sarah Aguilar of TelMexhub)

Here's 3BallMTY's first "official" music video, for the single Inténtalo, featuring the pointy boots of Los Parranderos.

And finally, an Indian TV news network from India's state of Karnataka tries to make sense of it all. Pointy boots have truly gone inter-tribal.

• [Cynthia Bonville]

  But the boots make my teeth hurt, is that desired?

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    You must have synesthesia.

    • [eyeone]

      No te preocupes Xeni, the website chuntaritos.com has been chronicling them boots for a minute now. Peep their Botas Exoticas category for a bunch of amazing styles of “pointy boots” going back to at least 2009. http://www.chuntaritos.com/botas-exoticas/

      (Website is a tad bit NSFW and irreverently insulting, often in a self-deprecating way…)

  • [Stig Carlsson]

    Yes… :)

• [Palefire]

  See, bell bottoms don’t look so bad now.

• [Teller]

  The person who can mech those boot tips to strike like a rattlesnake will get to date Gong Li and buy the house next door to Bill Gates.

• [Asdfasdf]

  Shoes with toes like that are actually nothing new. In the middle ages it was fashionable to have long toes like that, sometimes so long the wearers had to use cords to tie the shoe toe to their knees so they didn’t trip themselves.  In England, such shoes were called “harlots.”

• [Jarkko Torppa]

  In Leningrad Cowboys go america, the guys end in mexico and some of them liked it so much that they decided to stay. It’s been a while since I saw the movie so I might remeber wrong.

  • [Tom Forest]

    You do indeed remember correctly, at the end of the film they remained in Mexico and even made the charts. This is how I would have imagined them evolving.

• [efergus3]

  Reminded me of one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE-maxEOc4Q

• [_Username]

  We used to call normal slightly pointy boots “cockroach killers” because it was believed they would work so good at squashing cockroaches in a corner, these things defy logic…Putos indeed.

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  The Daily Mail ran an article that made it sound as if every man in Mexico was now wearing these boots.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    Very disappointed to have been beaten to the botas picudas meme by the fucking Daily Mail and Huffpo. 

• [bargainoutlet]

  I’m sure the TSA will love these new boots…

• [occlupanid]

  As somebody who wouldn’t touch Daily Mail or Huffpo with a ten meter hyperlink, this is the first I’ve heard about them, thanks to you. I’m positively giddy with mammoth-tusk toe-tappingness!

• [BrotherPower]

  Get Jack Parow in a pair of those and between the boots and the hat he could damn near do a Wonder Wheel.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

• [puppethead]

  Those are impressive boots, but I do feel a need to point out that Leningrad Cowboys not only did the pointy boots, but added pointy hair.

• [m m]

  They should do a show with Jack Parow

• [m m]

  There ya go baby

• [dculberson]

  Someone should tell 3ball that, to an average American male, his name sounds more like what would roughly translate to “Tres Testiculos.”

  • [devophill]

    I don’t think 3Ball is too concerned with the English-speaking market. If you don’t get the pun, it’s not for you.

• [Adolph Marx]

  ¡Devolucion!

• [Mitchell Glaser]

  At around seven and a half minutes into the video, a young kid dancing on stage drops his pants and does the classic “feather boa between the legs” stripper move. It’s only a matter of time before this get combined with pole dancing.

• [Nicky G]

  I… I…

  I’m freaking stunned at how insanely awesome this is.

  Holy, effing, sheet….

  :-O

• [Liliana Varela]

  omfg ……i cannot get over HOW FUCKING AWESOME THAT SOUND IS!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

• [atomic strike]

  what i hear around my block here in monterrey are mostly narco-corridos:

  el komander – mafia nueva 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xxpt8o23k8

• [Kristians Sics]

  As far as I remember Leningrad Cowboys finally went to Mexico

• [Johnny YesNo]

  where can i (and i’m being serious now) buy a pair of these boots. i want to wear them around non-ironically. i think they’re great looking.
  and +1000 for remembering leningrad cowboys

• [Marjo Aho]

  Leningrad Cowboys rocked those already in the early 90′s.

• [Mister44]

  I’ll throw this out there – as perhaps someone might know.

  Several months ago at a hotel I stumbled onto MTV2 (IIRC) that had a video featuring a spanish speaking dual.  It was filmed in black and white, and while the performers looked modern, they rapped while others in traditional dress did traditional dances.  I can’t remember for the life of me the name. I want to say it had something like ‘collective’ or  ‘experiment’ in their name. It might not be from Mexico, but TX or CA. Anyone have a clue wtf i saw?

  • [wellvis]

    Nortec Collective?

    • [Mister44]

      Oh – my GAWD!!  Boing Boing pulls through and pulls what I am talking about out of  the ether.

      First they helped me ID the “Howie Scream”.

      Now this!

      No – it was not the Nortec Collective. But they had a vaguely familiar sound, so I looked for similar groups. THIS is the video I saw and really dug:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmcdBkI_QO4

      Mexican Institute of Sound Instituto Mexicano Del Sonido 

      The song I heard was “Yo Digo Baila”