Rrayen
In 2015, Carlos Huerta, formerly known as electronic/rap artist Josué Josué, and currently a music journalist, founded Piratón Records in Mexico City. Huerta had no intention of focusing on any particular genre, but wanted to create a platform for experimental outlier-type artists. He chose the name “piratón” (“pirate”) for the label to reference the idea of illegal recordings as well as the Spanish-language sense of something that is underground.
The first two releases focused on experimental rap and hip-hop beats, but the following veered into different territory. Titled No Hay Más Fruta Que La Nuestra and featuring only female artists, the label announced that the compilation sought to “break away from segregation, centralization, prejudice, machismo, double standards, classism, cultural exoticization, and other anachronistic expressions.”
Planta Carnivora
Highlighting the work of artists from all over Spain and Latin America (Mexico, Cuba, Chile, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic), that first compilation and its followup, released in May 2017, share a wildly varied and fresh range of musical styles—folk, experimental electronic, hip-hop, punk, psych-pop, noise, and shoegaze.
Both compilations’ titles, which translate to “There is No Fruit Other Than Ours,” are a play on words riffing on a famous quote by revolutionary Mexican muralist David Siqueiros: “No hay mas ruta que la nuestra” (“There is no other route but ours”).
We caught up with Huerta in Mexico City to chat about the curatorial path from Piraton’s first release to the compilations, which also took him to create a column for Thump/Vice called “El Eterno Femenino (The Eternal Feminine).”
The conversation with Huerta took place in Spanish, so we share both the original discussion and the English translation below.
