Buscabulla has released the single "Vámono", with a music video directed by Claudia Calderon. It is the first song both written and conceived since the duo's members, Raquel Berrios and Luis Alfredo Del Valle, moved home to Puerto Rico, from New York. The song is a rally to those who have returned as well as those whom have left. It is an urgent reminder to connect with your history, your roots, your very own self.
Buscabulla were born and raised in Puerto Rico. Yet it wasn't until 2011 while living in NYC that the producer, designer, songwriter, and DJ Berrios teamed up with producer and multi-instrumentalist Del Valle. Together they formed "troublemaker", or “Buscabulla", as it's known in Puerto Rican slang. Buscabulla's debut EP was co-produced with Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange) and subsequently released on the Kitsuné Musique label in 2014. Buscabulla's second EP, II, was self-produced and self-released in January 2017.
Following Hurricane Maria in the fall of 2017, Del Valle and Berrios returned home to the island and settled in Aguadilla, a small town on the northwest coast, to re-connect with their roots and record their debut album.
Today they release the video for “Vámono”, which is an amalgam of Neo-Cultural expressions inspired by ancestral traditions which are celebrated in regions close to the group's own personal history in Puerto Rico. The Vejigantes, from Ponce, where Del Valle was born and raised, and Festival de Las Mascaras in Hatillo, where Berrios' ancestors are from and, like her, emigrated to NY, made a life there and came back to Puerto Rico to live out the rest of their lives.
The Festival de Las Mascaras de Hatillo (Masks of Hatillo Festival) began in 1823 and was originally celebrated on horseback. The modern-day iteration, notorious for its atmosphere of cathartic chaos, alcohol and reggeatón blasted on loudspeakers, have traded horseback for custom-made and meticulously decorated floats which, have even been designed to perform grandiose wheelies in the last 20 years. The attire is custom-made by only a handful of seamstresses and involve intricate couture techniques to construct them.
"The idea for this video captured me from our first conversation," explains the video's director Claudia Calderon. "I had been to the Fiestas de Máscaras de Hatillo before, became fascinated with it and wanted to do something related to it ever since. The project also struck a chord with me given that the song is a reclamation of our roots as well as a reaffirmation of the decision to live in our island in spite of all the political uncertainty we're currently facing. It's an invitation to work for the country we want to live in."
The duo's debut album will be released in 2020.
