by Mauro Ferreiro
"Tútalo", shorthand for "tu ta' loco" or "are you crazy", is a local capitaleño expression which is neither a question nor a statement, but a witty abstraction used to inspire conversation. Great sounds run amok in Dominican Republic, with just over 11 million people living in its gentle waters. I was raised here, and so was Lenny, co-founder of record shop Tútalo Records. His project, both a revival of old Dominican folklore and vinyl culture in Santo Domingo, promises to showcase musical rarities that never saw the light of day. I wanted to talk with him and have a closer look at his project and where the idea originated from.
You're an old friend, and we've also spun together at a few gigs, when did your interest for digging begin?
I got my first records around 2002-2003 here in Dominican Republic. At the time, vinyl was very hard to find since there were no record stores selling them anymore.
How are you finding all these records?
There are a couple of street vendors downtown that always have a lot of old and (often) damaged records. You have to keep an eye out for internet ads, yard sales, antique stores, and warehouses, just in case you run into a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Everything else is mostly scavenging or joceando.
Do you know where they were pressed? Who previously owned them?
Most of the records we sell at Tútalo Records were pressed in Dominican Republic and for the most part come from Zuni, Unidad, Marisol, Negra Records, and other record labels that don’t exist anymore. For the most part, these labels were pressing bachata, which is a Dominican genre that combines styles like bolero and Cuban guaracha with local rhythms like salve and merengue. Due to its origin in the lower-class, bachata was rejected by Dominican society as a vulgar musical expression, concerning itself with topics such as hard drinking, sour breakups and illicit sex.
(Artists from rural communities were able to press the first bachata records after La Guarachita opened its doors in the early '60s.)
As we mentioned in one of our phone calls, none of these records are even in the digital marketplace, and many people aren't even aware they exist.
That's right, we are trying to restore the legacy of bachata and bring back the hits that made it one of the most influential styles in the island. We are currently running the store from our own homes, and most of the records we have are 7” singles and deadstock duplicates. Alongside my partner Wellington Mejia, we are looking to export them abroad since we have so many records and most of them are true gems.
In comparison to Cuba and Puerto Rico, why do you think our music has been neglected for so long?
I think Dominican music has not been as popular as Cuban or Puerto Rican outside of Latin America since a lot of our music was made with very autochthonous musical language, making it somewhat inaccessible for the American and European ear. Our music never had the compositional treatment that salsa received in New York for example, or the money that allowed these orchestras to grow bigger and project their records globally. It remained confined to the island for most of its history, and the lack of accessibility for those abroad also played a big part in it never reaching the general population. (Editor's note — autochthonous: purely local rather than informed by external influence.)
(It was not until albums like La Chupadera by Antony Santos in the '90s that bachata was brought to the forefront of the wider Latin American music industry.)
Going on from that, there's a thriving vinyl culture here in London, and DJs have a particular interest in world music. But I rarely hear any Dominican music being played, if at all. Do you think that goes back to what we were just talking about?
Dominican records are extremely hard to find. We had a very hermetic record industry, meaning we produced and consumed a lot of music locally, so record labels had to make sure Dominican music got on the radio and into record stores outside of the country. Merengue, our main musical export, got a lot funkier in the ‘80s and had its own golden age. Merengue was pumping in all the discos in Latin America in the late ‘80s, and Dominican bands were constantly touring in Central and South America. It was not until the ‘90s when bachata got the right dose of electric guitar (and the crispness of digital audio) that it became an internationally known genre, for example with albums such as Bachata Rosa by Juan Luis Guerra and Medicina de Amor by Raulin Rodriguez. But with the death of the record industry came the death of Dominican vinyl. Not a single record was produced after La Guarachita, the company which owned one of the last pressing plants in the country, shut its doors in 1996.
(Radio Guarachita, the radio station of the local conglomerate, opened the airwaves for bachata and regional merengue to be heard by urban populations.)
I remember hanging out at the BBE Store and talking with Grace George about all the Venezuelan pressings they stocked of Dominican, Puerto Rican and Cuban records, yet we don't see any of these records back home. Why do you think this is?
Well I think this is because of a lack of vinyl culture in our country in general, but also how the passing of time makes old music acquire a new feel for people of different cultures. I like to think of it as if those records have been simmering in a stew, making them more appealing to new generations of vinyl collectors that didn’t get to live those hits when they were released.
We are both Santo Domingo natives, a city that started off as the first colonial settlement in history. For most people, colonialism is a relic of the past, for us, it's everyday life. How do you think this affects our culture?
There is a strong, subliminal perception in our culture of belonging to a big and powerful nation, as is the case for Puerto Rico. It started off with Spain but it’s mostly the North American influence nowadays, Dominican culture has strongly mutated to seem more a part of the United States than an independent Caribbean country. Dominican Republic was invaded twice by the United States in the 20th century and the cultural repercussions of these events can be seen in everyday life in Santo Domingo. The youth are very detached from their roots and tend to look at internet culture for influence.
Our music has shifted from Afro-Caribbean music to a more globalised sound. This is where you get dembow from, the Dominican genre taking over the world right now. I remember in the ‘90s pop music here was merengue, salsa, and the boom of bachata. But then bands like Proyecto Uno and Sandy y Papo came about, who played this sort of “merengue hip-hop” where Dominicans from New York City mixed merengue with house music and rap. Everything became more Americanized, and our music started to be made for big audiences with big multinational labels backing groups financially. So yes, colonialism is alive and well here in Dominican Republic. Parallel to that, this is also around the time when Juan Luis started repopularizing merengue and bachata, and then became big enough to go along and win dozens of Grammys.
Care to name some quintessential Dominican records?
Of course, these are all releases we also stock at Tútalo Records:
Any plans for licensing these masters and reissuing them under Tútalo?
Can’t call it a plan at the moment, but it is definitely something we are looking forward to doing in the near future.
Special thanks to Lenny for taking the time out to do this interview during these turbulent times in our country, make sure to follow him at @tutalorecords and head to their YouTube to listen to a few of the records they stock. You can also send them an email at tutalorecords@gmail.com for inquiries regarding sales and international shipping.
Also, for an incredible, in-depth resource on the history of Bachata and its role in Dominican society, check out Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music by Deborah Pacini, which explores the relationships between popular music, social identity, and class in the Dominican Republic.
Mauro Ferreiro is an electronic producer and musician from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He is one half of experimental jazz duo Error Subcutáneo and collaborator for Truth & Lies Magazine.
Follow @mauroferreiro on Instagram