He’s in Mexico. He enters the land of the Aztecs as an aspiring DJ and producer. Constantly increasing. On the billboard of the festival he integrates are Diplo, Armin van Buuren, Tiësto and many of the “DJs” he has admired since his youth.
Excited. He is very nervous and even sudden shyness comes over him. But from the dressing room to the stage, he finds good music for his ears. A crowd of 30,000 people chanted “Bi-za-rrap”. It’s the crowd that chose to see the Argentine credit for being there in front of that stage instead of the other three or four that round out what the renowned EDC festival has to offer.
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The image is from early 2020 and will have to wait for the pandemic to subside to repeat and mechanize as happens with any artist on tour. In Buenos Aires in March 2022, Lollapalooza not only marked the return of the big festivals after the Covid hiatus, but also publicly showcased several of the actors of a very young scene that still has some dotted lines to complete.
(You can read: Carlos Vives defends Shakira for her ‘Music Sessions #53’ with bizarre rap).
The DJ/producer who emerged as the center of the scene closed to a crowd of 100,000 on the first night and played several of the sessions that brought him to this venue. Those created with Nathy Peluso, Nicki Nicole, L-Gante, Dillom, Snow Tha Product and Residente were danced to and celebrated by the “Generation Lolla”. Bizarrap is an impressionist artist. With his strokes, he illuminates and defines the sounds of a generation that chose to destroy pop culture and recreate it at will. The home studio where Gonzalo Julián Conde, his first name, started it all is the place where music and ideas become a mystical unit. It’s not just home study, it’s your scriptures.
Bizarrap is an impressionist artist. With his strokes, he illuminates and defines the sounds of a generation that chose to destroy pop culture and recreate it at will.
Most of the BZRP Music Sessions, which became popular in the western world thanks to his recent collaboration with Shakira (although this one was recorded in Spain), were recorded there, in his room in Ramos Mejía (a town 22km from Buenos Aires). .
To date, he has accumulated the surprising number of more than 4,600 million listeners of all his sessions only on the Spotify platform, connected with musicians from different countries, ages and backgrounds; of different music genres, although of course urban music in general and “trap” in particular prevail.
(Interestingly, ‘I’m looking forward to it’: Shakira records video of a new song that would go against piqué).
its beginnings
First the idea, then the implementation and finally the acceptance. Bizarrap began by creating videos of freestyle battles known as “crazy combos”. modeled on Marito Baracus, musician and one of the first Argentine YouTubers who predicted he would transcend. Then he was encouraged to do remixes, that is, to create new versions of songs that had already been released, in his case from the hip-hop culture in which he had been immersed practically since childhood. The freestyle battles of the Fifth Step (rap battle competition in the Caballito neighborhood of the city of Buenos Aires) were his sustenance. It took place between 2012 and 2017 at Rivadavia Park and had its final chapter at the Malvinas Argentinas micro stadium. His videos garnered millions of views on YouTube and served to spread the scene and solidify the foundations of the phenomenon.
If Duki is the most popular character of the local “trap”, which has been confirmed after his three shows in Vélez where he was seen by around 120,000 people, Bizarrap is the alchemist, the creator of sounds. His work is not limited to “throwing bases”, but to creating and composing the rhymes that the ragpickers “spit out”, giving them the right sound frame.
(You may be interested: Sasha, Shakira’s 8-year-old son, did the cover of ‘Monotonía’).
Bizarrap is the alchemist, the sound maker. His work is not limited to “throwing bases”, but to creating and composing the rhymes that the ragpickers “spit out”, giving the appropriate sound frame.
In short, what he does is songs, and this idea has been with him since his early teens, when I discovered that the sounds created by DJs like Skrillex aren’t from a handful of musicians playing traditional instruments, but from electronic music. He searched for tutorials, downloaded FL Studio to make music, and took piano lessons more to learn to compose than to play the instrument.
At the age of 18, Gonzalo had his first crossroads: to devote himself to music or to study. Thanks to a professional exam and especially the psychologist who gave him the exam, he decided to do both. “How do I make the decision?” he asked, and the pro showed him the room where he’d rehearsed with a band every Friday since he was 20. “‘If you like something, you don’t have to leave it. Music will accompany you throughout your life. I would recommend you study marketing. At worst, it will help you communicate your music,’ he told me, giving me an incredible message,” Bizarre Rapper Julio Leiva said two years ago in Caja Negra, Filo News’ interview cycle.
The Music Sessions, which are so famous today, were born on February 8th, 2019. At least that is the date on which the session released with Bhavi was uploaded, based on a request from the rapper. Until then he didn’t see himself as a composer, he only saw some rough edges of music production. That first chapter has 17 million views on YouTube today, but the numbers are anecdotal. Everything it brings to market reaches millionaire numbers in terms of streams and views.
The special characters that make it different are summed up in this punk-spirit phrase that appeared in the credits of that first session: “Sponsored by Nobody.” A home studio, doing your own stuff, having direct contact with the people involved in the scene: rappers/traps,
(Also: Shakira is right: Piqué, coupled with an extramarital dating agency).
The thousands of views on YouTube and the good number of plays on Spotify of his first BZRP Music Sessions didn’t change him. The empirical and, shall we say, traditional validation of walking down the street and hearing his music playing in a car turning the corner impressed him the most. That was four years ago, when he was still seen on the streets of Ramos Mejía or at the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (Uade), where he left when he heard the rumor that “Biza” was studying there.
He said “no” to Warner
He landed a job at Warner Music and the last straw came some time later when the president of the company’s regional office contacted him about signing him as an artist. Frightened, he turned down the offer and over time began collaborating with Federico Lauría, the executive producer and manager who was the fastest to read and decipher the new scene, and who today is the fate of Duki, Nicki Nicole, Bizarrap and many more directs.
A few days ago, the DJ and producer, who not only wracked Gerard Piqué’s nerves with Shakira, but above all got the world talking about the song and its content, reached the top 10 of the Billboard rankings, probably the most important not only in the United States, but today in the record industry.
The special characters that make it different are summed up in this phrase with a “punk” spirit that appeared in the credits of that first session: “Sponsored by Nobody”.
He now shines with the Colombian singer topping singles from the same release and staying at #2 on Spotify’s global charts. The first Argentine to reach 50 million monthly listeners is also one of the 35 most listened artists on the streaming platform created in Sweden.
(We recommend: Milan made Shakira’s collaboration with Bizarrap possible.)
“He is a boy who has understood that good ideas do not come about alone, but that a team is needed“. The phrase belongs to Betina Sassón, a woman who tried to explain to her husband who Bizarrap was in a video that went viral. Beyond the comedy step, behind this sentence is Gonzalo Conde’s formula. “I’m grateful to all the people who have crossed my path,” he usually says in the interviews he gives.
These days envoys from different European countries are in Buenos Aires trying not only to find him, but also his neighborhood, with his childhood friends, with this air and this environment that helped to create one of the most surprising phenomena, the of Argentine music in the world 21st century.
AUTHORS: SEBASTIÁN ESPOSITO, SEBASTIÁN CHAVEZ and LUPE TORRES
THE NATION (ARGENTINA)
On Twitter: @LANACION
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