In anticipation for tomorrow's upcoming Moombahton Massive at U Street Music Hall, Sabo and his label Sol Selectas has finally given us another episode of their preview series with Moombahton Massive VIII. I say finally like I'm impatient and ungrateful or whatever because they are well into their third year of the party and this is only volume eight of the series, but actually I'm incredibly thankful. I'm thankful because I've never been to a Massive...outside of Moombahton Massive Day this past June, which was a pretty incredible day of events. But that was at the 9:30 Club and The Velvet Lounge, not U-Hall, and I've been told by anyone who's anyone that's been to a Massive at U-Hall and has repped the scene in DC, that's truly where the magic happens.
The importance of these EPs to me has always been their sneak peak of that magic at Massive from an outsiders perspective. Like most individuals, I like to try and simulate experiences in my mind of events and places I'd like to be at. Of course, I probably could've charged it to the game and just been at one of these legendary parties in U-Hall, but sometimes there's just no way to work things out because of timing or finances or whatever the hell else people use for excuses these days. Fact is, these EPs helped folks like myself who were absolutely in love with the genre and wanted to somehow be part of the experience from thousands of miles away, if not worlds away with how moombahton was such an international internet thing.
Per usual on these EPs, we get a healthy dose of the fellas that started Massive from the jump. Sabo's got four contributions on the EP, one funky collabo edit with Thee Mike B of "Fu Gee La" and three incredibly deep, techy and just DOPE edits like he's basically renown for at this point. Nadastrom chimes in with an updated DJ-friendly edit of Alex Clare's "Up All Night." As you should already know, their first mix of this joint is a moombahton classic (yes, there are "classics" now). But as a lot of tunes in the genre, their playability for me as a DJ has dwindled because the big synths, sirens, and so forth doesn't always work with a dancefloor. This '98 Re-Fix is everything it needed though...which was basically stripping it down to a riddim and letting Alex's incredible voice do all the work. The secret weapon on this EP though is from Kid Cedek, who's making his Massive debut tomorrow night, injects a lot of energy back into moombahsoul with is gorgeous edit of The Weeknd's "Devil May Cry." People have been discounting the explosive potential of moombahsoul and pop music for way too long and this edit (and the EP in general) is exactly what this scene needed right now.
