The Sants neighborhood of Barcelona has been shaking its ass for three years. And it does so with the parties organized by La Bulla Perreo, a collective devoted, as they say, to ‘perreo’ underground. “We started because we thought that in Barcelona there wasn't the reggaeton party we wanted,” says Fede Castro, a resident of Sants and a member of La Bulla together with Carlota Álvarez, who is in charge of the group's photos and social media.
What does ‘perreo’ underground consist of? “For years Barcelona has been experiencing a boom of commercial reggaeton and what we offer is, let's say, what doesn't sound on 40 Principales. We go to the root of the movement, as a countercultural phenomenon,” details the santsenc. La Bulla champions what they call ‘neo-perreo’, a “dance that celebrates enjoyment and sexuality”. This movement for them returns to the origins of reggaeton as part of Caribbean musical culture and which, in Barcelona, appeals to “the entire African and Latin American community”. The main artists are La Zowi, Bad Gyal, Young Beef or Tomasa del Real, among others.
This past Saturday, La Bulla has celebrated one of its traditional monthly parties at La Deskomunal de Sants. There performed Omar Roldán Molina (under the name White As Chocolate) and Castro himself (DJ Yasmin) and they spun dancehall, neoperreo and dembow.
Anticommercial Reggaeton in a safe space
How should we imagine La Bulla's parties? On the one hand, music plays that generally the public does not know in order to avoid the "karaoke" effect that the collective rejects. On the other hand, from La Bulla they try to program the maximum number of women DJs possible, especially now that there are more than ever. "I have been a DJ for twenty years and before it was impossible to find a girl who played and even less reggaeton," Castro assesses. According to what he observes, the outbreak of the feminist movement in recent years has put on the table the lack of women in the music sector and this has benefited many DJs.
This, moreover, has led the collective to propose some festivities dedicated to local people, and especially to people from the LGTBI collective and women, who we see both on and off the stage. However, from the collective they ensure festivities free of sexist violence: “It is basic to create a space so that everyone, and especially women, feel free to DJ and dress in striking clothes and do dances that can be seen as sexual, without men harassing them”.
Although their reference venue is La Deskomunal de Sants, they have also programmed sessions in spaces like Paral·lel 62, especially within the framework of the Iridia Fest and the Say it Loud. Finally, asked about how they face the future after La Deskomunal has announced that it will close at the end of the year, they trust they can continue programming parties with the new group that manages the venue. There is no doubt that Sants will shake its ass many more nights.
