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Cumbia 420: The Super Viral, Weed-Infused Musical Phenomenon Bringing Ghetto Back To The Mainstream

By Hernán Panessi and Javier Hasse.

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Cumbia 420

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"Nowhere else have I heard a rhythm like this, a sound like this,” declares the mega-viral Argentine artist L-Gante, poster child for the new, cannabis-infused musical style born in the favelas that’s jolting Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world: Cumbia 420. BUY DABWOODS CART ONLINE

L-Gante not only leads the Billboard charts across the region with his "BZRP Music Sessions #38," but also boasts a total of ten (yes, ten) songs in the “Billboard Argentina Hot 100” list, reaching more than half a billion listeners with his music in the last six months.

Authors’ note: remember to skip the ads to see the actual music videos.

What’s Cumbia 420?

Formally, Cumbia 420 is cumbia, reggaeton and marijuana. In other words, Latin rhythms and good old weed. And its rise to virality reminisces of the ascent of gangsta rap into the mainstream. L-Gante and his crew are to today’s popular music in Latin America what N.W.A. was to American music in the late 80s and early 90s.

"It's reggaeton with the cadence of cumbia in its rhythmic structure,” explains DT.Bilardo, L-Gante’s producer and a guru of Latin American fusions who, by dint of his hits, laid the foundations for the musical phenomenon of the moment.

Cumbia 420 is “a brand, rather than a style,” he adds.

Unlike L-Gante, who has more than 1.4 million followers on Instagram despite a massive shadow ban on his content and profile, DT.Bilardo, who pulls the strings from backstage, has just over 40 thousand. And he likes it that way.

The Cumbia 420 Assembly Line

With an approach to production that reminds of Taylorism – in their serial line of assembly every station is labeled “work,” DT.Bilardo and the crew of the Kriterio Music label (which includes professionals in design, audiovisual art and sound production), publish practically one track per week.

Again: That’s one track per week.

And the path is almost always the same: a song comes out accompanied by a video clip, the view count starts to surge quickly, and, within a few hours, it becomes a hit.

That’s one hit per week!

"Cumbia 420 connects in a very personal way with the audience that it seeks to represent. It's a product that’s 100% designed for people who smoke, for people from the hood, the ghetto. It’s for humble people who are immersed in an adverse situation but want to get out and want to progress,” details DT.Bilardo, talking about the close connection that Cumbia 420 has with its followers.

But Cumbia 420 is not just about the South American superstar L-Gante and his producer DT.Bilardo. Others, such as Perro Primo, are also helping push the movement forward.

"Cumbia 420 exploded because cumbia started to sound, once again, like it used to. As it used to sound in Mexico, Colombia and, obviously, Argentina. And on top of that, now people are super weed-friendly, super into cannabis. So, Cumbia 420 is a perfect connection," says Perro Primo.

Geographically, the movement is interesting too. The members of this crew of young under-35s who, with their strength, novelty and energy, are changing the rules of the independent music game, are separated by the second-largest body of water on Earth, the Atlantic Ocean: While L-Gante and his crew live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, DT.Bilardo is based in the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain.

Curiously, they have seen each other's faces only a handful of times. To date, all the commands arise from an epistolary relationship maintained 100% through the Internet.

Bizarrap's Role

There is a unique force in the boondocks of Buenos Aires, Argentina: music producer Bizarrap, a sort of South American Dr. Dre, a hitmaker who has already accustomed its loyal fan base of tens of millions to a weekly smash rap hit.

If Biza participates in the production of a song, chances are it will be more successful than the latest Justin Bieber, Drake or Rihanna release — and this is quite literal. For instance, his latest session with the Mexican-American rapper Snow tha Product accumulated some 40 million plays on YouTube alone within a week of its debut.

The role of the visionary artist that Bizarrap is in the rise of the Cumbia 420 movement was not minor either. With almost 200 million plays on YouTube and Spotify in just two months, L-Gante's Villarap Session (that's what they informally call L-Gante's "BZRP: Music Sessions #38") is one of Biza's most popular productions. And, some may argue, it's also the true driver behind the original virality of the cumbiero artist born in General Rodríguez, Buenos Aires.

In an interview with Spanish youtuber Ibai, Biza reinforced DT.Bilardo and L-Gante's view of the genre: "Cumbia 420 is cumbia, reggaeton, and marijuana.”

In his words: "It combines a bit of what RKT is, which is a very Argentinean genre that used to be played in a dance club in Buenos Aires, called Rescate. What is unique about it, and there are many people from other countries who do not understand it, is that it is not like reggaeton. Everything is thrown backwards. The percussion is kind of out of tempo. But actually, it is not incorrect. In the end, it's not uncoordinated... It's very strange.”

The Waiting Room – And Cooking The Main Course

In short, Cumbia 420 carries on the legacy of the cumbia villera subgenre. Originated in Argentina in 2001, a year of economic crisis in the country and a complex moment across the region, cumbia villera represents the slums promoting a message of resilience and empowerment.

In its origins, linked to the group R.P.M., Cumbia 420 was born almost as a joke that nobody noticed because they were “just too stoned.”

That is, until L-Gante came into the scene, repeating "Cumbia 420" here, there and everywhere; until it became a trademark.

He tattooed it on his belly, he committed to the project, he sprinkled his inexplicable magic powder over it. His existence is also one of the essential components for this success. A success that, of course, has other reasons.