About me

My name is Oscar Arroyo. I was born and grew up in Mexico City and moved to London in 2007. I've had a passion for music all my life. The first tape I bought with my own money was Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and The Cooked which included the hit "She Drives Me Crazy". I was into rock music during my adolescence and I used to play the drums. I then discovered electronic music that I could relate to with bands like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and David Bowie’s Earthling album. At the age of 24 I swapped the drums for turntables and began DJing in clubs and bars in Mexico City, playing house, electro-house and nu-disco. Cumbia and other Latin rhythms were all around me, they can't be avoided in Mexico even if you don't like them, in my case I didn't. You listen to these rhythms at family parties or street markets. There were some elements that I found attractive; the sound of the tarola (snare drum) and the tuba, both of which are largely used by "banda" (folkloric music from north of Mexico). Bostich's Polaris was the track that inspired me to approach electronic music with a Latin twist in a very different way, the Mexican touch was there and yet the music was still influenced by US or European sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQLZH5cD1go Also, BN Loco a project of DJ/producer Uriel Esquenazi from Mexico City helped to shape my taste for tropical music, as long as Sidestepper’s More Grip album (Colombia) from 2000. Chilango was the last push to get into cumbia, nu cumbia and tropical music, since the beginning I started to select the music for Chilango, former Mucho Mas. Since then we’ve been playing a lot of Nortec, Mexican Institute of Sound, Café Tacuba, Lila Downs, Señor Coconut, Mexican classics, underground Latin bands and cumbia mash-ups. I have also DJ’d in parties in London like Movimientos, Fiesta en la Calle, Pisco Disco and Glastonbury in 2011. My current favourites are ZZK Records from Argentina. Check the following links where you can stream and download some of my DJ sets, hope you like them: Chilango SoundCloud page: www.soundcloud.com/chilangouk My personal SoundCloud page for Esquimal: www.soundcloud.com/oscaresquimal Thanks!

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Work history

Music Curator
Aug 2007
Creation of playlists for all Chilango restaurants which include lots of Mexican, Latin American and tropical contemporary sounds.

Skills

• Music Programming
• Music Curation
• Music Branding