Madre Cumbia

Madre Cumbia. Graphic Design and Packaging by SoyJairoGuerrero / Creative Consulting

This recording mixes the folklore of the cumbia, urban language and electronic music.  Produced by Jairo Guerrero a.k.a B-Liv, Madre Cumbia is an exploratory work that mixes Mexico and Colombia in musical and visual manners: two locations that live embedded in Jairo Guerrero’s heart as a musical artist, sound explorer and visual artist. Taking the sound of CUMBIA as the main axis, since it is a musical style common to both, his birth country Colombia, and the country where he has lived for the past 20 years, Mexico, B-Liv (Jairo Guerrero) presents this work consisting of 6 songs that present some of the versions of the Cumbia, from the sounds of the Colombian Atlantic and Pacific, to the Mexican Barrio Bravo, the cumbia sonidera and that of the Kolombias, a sub-culture of the Independence neighborhood in Monterrey (Mx), and which he has decided to intervene with electronic music.

The musical challenge also presents a visual challenge.

In terms of the sound, and, the record achieves a high respect to the essence of the sound of the CUMBIA in its different shades even with a heavy component of electronic music; visually, the objective was similar: to come close to the aesthetics related to this music genre, with the Barrio, the local, the urban and of course, the catholic visuals that are linked to the Virgen de la Candelaria, which is associated with the CUMBIA since her celebration, both in Mexico and Colombia, is accompanied by cumbias, dancing and bagpipes.

With the above in mind, the first piece to be developed was the logo of Madre Cumbia, a collage with a Stencil style or Tribal Tattoo, with a touch of Kitsh, and around this logo is the graphic design of the record, saturated with yellow, as vivid as the fire and the candles lightened up on February 2, the day of the celebration.  One contrast can be found in the color black – just like the face of the Virgen de la Candelaria, and the other contrast is the small ornaments, applied by hand on each of the 100 limited copies of the CDs, such as the flags of Mexico and Colombia on the front, as well as the folkloric bracelets applied vertically on the side of each physical record.

It was a goal that the designed looked purposefully aged, worn out, with details belonging to a daguerrotype and old typographies as those used in lead printers, with cracks and flaws typical of the time of the Spanish colonization.  The yute bag whee the record is contained resembles the way in which in that time period (the same as the origin of the cumbia) people carried gold coins or women took copper milagros as an offering to saints in churches.   

Yute is a vegetal fiber extracted from the stem and cortex of the plant named Corchorus capsularis.  A natural and biodegradable material of rustic appeatance.  
As a part of the kit, it is included a set of sticker with images of the Virgin and QR codes so, whomever has this sticker in their hands, can listen to the music in the various streaming platforms.  A printed t-shirt is also included.