Late 2013

I was at one of my own events. I’d booked a competing promoter as a show of goodwill, hoping to bridge the divisions in Portland’s small electronic music scene. We got to talking about the competitive nature of event promotion in the city.

“It’s a soundclash, Jamaican style!” he said, grinning.

I mentioned that soundclashes are communal events – many sounds, selectors, and deejays come together. The competition is exclusively musical, not territorial.

“Deal with it,” he said. “It’s a competition. We’re winning.”

I dealt with it. I’m Latino, from Nicaragua, based in Portland. They were winning.

Nude photo music and closerpdx

By this time, I’d launched Nude Photo Music, named after the influential Detroit Techno record by Rhythim is Rhythim. I was running monthly events in Portland, playing live electronic shows, playing DJ sets, and releasing music. I attended the Decibel electronic music festival in 2010, 2011, and 2012. In 2010, I approached them wanting to do a showcase for my label – many other labels and promotion crews did showcases there. I tried again in 2011, pitching a Closer showcase or collaboration. Nothing. 

In 2012 and 2013, CloserPDX hosted the official west coast pre-party for Detroit’s Movement Festival – probably the most prestigious and longest running techno festival in the US. I had personally done production and remix work with Swayzak, Mark Bell, Jonah Sharp, and Chris Fortier. I’d founded CloserPDX, an electronic music festival that showcased over 50 artists, brought in John Tejada and Monty Luke, and hosted educational panels.

People kept asking why I wasn’t doing anything with Decibel. The organization never engaged with me. Emails went unanswered, calls never returned. Incidentally – the name “Closer” itself originated because it was in Portland – and simply closer than Seattle.

CloserPDX music festival park parties

Each year we organized a free daytime party in a park. We’d set up a sound system outside – open to anyone. These were some of my favorite events. Not a club environment. The people enjoying the music weren’t club goers. Families. People at the park. Homeless folks. Even park rangers who came not to shut us down but to enjoy the music. I had an old, beat-up small set of speakers and a subwoofer. I’d borrow additional powered speakers from friends, and borrow a generator from another friend. We’d communally assemble a system.

My music partner at the time – we had a DJ duo that was working well – got a booking at Decibel in 2013. He went solo. Did not include me.

2014-2016

Sometime in October or November, I just pulled the plug on it officially. I asked my partner to no longer use the name, and pulled the website down. I also wound down my label, sadly leaving a couple great releases in limbo. 

December 9, 2015: on a plane to Nicaragua.

March 2016: I lost my job

And then – I found videos from Bluefields Sound System, a recording studio that had operated on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast from 2004 to 2016. They’d documented elder songwriters like Mango Ghost and Sabu. They’d trained young artists. They did so much with so little. It inspired me to find some way to reconnect with Nicaragua; to find a way to integrate my music with my personal history.

One of the artists featured in those BSS videos was Keneth Leon – “Mr. Lion.” In 2012 videos, he was in his mid-twenties, already six years into his work with BSS. He dominated rap battles with rapid-fire freestyles. He talked about being a “cultural ambassador.”

2016 – Trying to rebuild

In September of 2016, I tried to rebuild. Started a boutique analog rotary mixer company. I had experience building and repairing electronics, so I applied myself to designing a DJ mixer. I built a 3-band isolator, a phono preamp, and filled with ideas – I attended NAMM in LA as a guest of Elektron, with my good friend Chelsea Faith Dolan.

What I Found in Those Videos

They recorded elders before their legacies were lost. They taught young people audio production, video, graphic design. They revived Palo de Mayo music that hadn’t been promoted since the 1980s. They trained artists to be cultural ambassadors. I was in particular drawn to a young artist, with a distinct Costeño accent, and a unique, rapid-fire Caribbean delivery.

In those videos that I was watching in 2016, Mr. Lion had already spent years doing this work.

I had tried to get into the system here, over and over. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, they had been building their own.

BSS closed in 2016 – the same year I found those videos.

2016-2024: Building

Patrick Frye – a good friend who’d released music on my label as Centrikal – had an idea. Build a small modular sound system. Something we could split between us, store separately, put together for events. It never happened, but he planted the idea sometime in 2016.

I started looking at soundsystem photos. Reading about them. Visiting freespeakerplans.com and the live sound forums on diyAudio. Collecting images on Pinterest. I found boutique makers in Europe. They weren’t quite what I was looking for. I couldn’t find someone in the US, and Caribbean and Latin American builders did not have the infrastructure available to ship something to me. At the time, I did not have the skills to build something from scratch. 

At the same time I was learning about cumbia. Discovering Colombian genres like Champeta. Rediscovering Nicaraguan music like Palo de Mayo. Watching those Bluefields Sound System videos. Following Mr. Lion’s career online. Watching his energetic performances on the Palo de Mayo stage each year, on Nicaraguan TV shows, and shaky phone videos where he battled other Nicaraguan rappers with rapid-fire wit and tight rhythmic delivery. 

Miniscooper

first shows

Feeling energized from the festival, I took the money I had saved up and what I earned from the festival, and ordered from Miniscooper.

It took Artur – the man behind Miniscooper – until late 2023 to finish. He shipped it flat-packed from Poland. I would assemble it myself. Shipping assembled speakers would have been too expensive. I was not upset or frustrated with Artur taking this long – he was one guy building systems in Poland, trying to launch his company globally, and welcoming the birth of a baby during that time.

June 26, 2023: Monday. The system arrived.

Spring 2024: The system was finally built and playing music.

Mr. Lion

During this time, I had kept following Mr. Lion’s career. He released music with many other Nicaraguan artists, frequently working with Papa Bantam, who in 2025 became the lead singer of Dimensión Costeña for their European tour, replacing Anthony Matthews who was unable to perform due to age. In 2022-23, working with Nicaraguan producer JMartinez, Mr Lion and Papa Bantam formed Innovación Caribeña. They released an album called “Natural Love”, and followed up with many national stage and TV appearances. The album received strong support from Costa Rica radio stations, and even found some traction in the US. I incorporated several of the tracks into my DJ mixes and sets. In 2022, Mr. Lion won two national awards: Best Composer of Nicaragua, Best Artist of the Caribbean of Nicaragua.

He didn’t need BSS to continue being a cultural ambassador. The infrastructure had done its work.

Small speakers. Hand-wired electronics. Learning cumbia, Caribbean rhythms. The music I’d grown up with but had left behind trying to make it in European-dominated electronic music scenes.

Eight years from selling those park party speakers to building this system. Eight years following Mr. Lion’s work.

July 2023: taking my family to nicaragua

I took my wife and kids to Nicaragua to meet my family, especially my grandmother. The trip was wonderful – getting to introduce my American children to their heritage. Re-visiting El Tránsito, which remained a small village, but had experienced a lot of gentrification and has become a surf destination for mostly Americans. 

It was obvious to me that this new element was not really benefiting the local population, as the new hotels, cafes, restaurants, and shops were far above the means of the locals. We arrived in El Tránsito late on July 18th, the night before the July 19th celebration of the Sandinista revolution in 1979. We checked into our rooms, and walked to the town to find some dinner. However, all the restaurants were closed. We found a small pulperia (small store) and bought some bread and other snacks. When the lady working there heard we didn’t have dinner, she immediately invited us to come eat with them at their house. They would make us food, and make room for my entire family. I was deeply moved and grateful at this gesture, something that would be hard to find in the US.

October 2024

I decided I was ready to move forward with the music. I reached out to Mr. Lion, but we were not able to connect. He lives in Bluefields, on the Atlantic Coast, a region very hard to access from Managua the capital. We could not connect on that trip. However, we stayed in touch, and after the trip I sent Mr. Lion a selection of riddims I’d been developing. Cumbia rhythms in dancehall format. 808 drums meeting Cumbia percussion. Heavy dubwise Sleng Teng bass.

“Cumbia CentroAmericana” – Cumbia-dancehall fusion connecting Pacific and Atlantic Nicaragua
“Detalles Significativos” – dub reggae with cumbia sonidera elements, featuring Kevin Miller from Monkey on bass.
“Paraíso Terrenal” – celebrating the multiethnic Caribbean coast

The Pattern I Didn’t Know I Was Following

I’m presenting at the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) 2025 conference. The presentation is called “Beyond the Bassline: Soundsystems as the Infrastructure for Identity and Resistance.”

The research traces how marginalized communities across Latin America and the Caribbean built soundsystem cultures in response to exclusion. From 1950s Kingston where working-class Black residents created soundsystems when excluded from uptown clubs. To Colombia’s Caribbean coast where Afro-Colombians built massive picós in neighborhoods denied official spaces. To Brazil’s “Jamaican” region in Maranhão where geographic isolation from national radio led to radiolas playing Caribbean music.

To Nicaragua’s Atlantic coast where groups like Genesis, Cawibe, and Dimensión Costeña synthesized Caribbean and Latin sounds because they were culturally isolated from the Pacific coast. To the contemporary chinameras in Nicaragua’s mining triangle where artists assert their cultural identity in the face of displacement and exploitation from gold extraction. To the amazing music of the Miskito artists in Bilwi, Puerto Lempira, and the smaller communities.

The pattern repeats: marginalized communities excluded from official channels build their own infrastructure. They don’t ask permission. They create alternative spaces where they control the narrative, affirm their identity, and gather despite danger or displacement.

While preparing this presentation, I realized something – I didn’t consciously decide to follow this pattern when I started Momotombo Soundsystem in 2016. I thought I was just rebuilding after my own loss and trauma. But I was following the same pattern I’m now presenting as academic research.

“I didn’t consciously decide to follow this pattern when I started Momotombo Soundsystem in 2016. I thought I was just rebuilding after my own loss and trauma. But I was following the same pattern I’m now presenting as academic research.”

– Gustavo Lanzas

Portland’s electronic music scene shut me out. My brother had been imprisoned, deported and died. I lost my job. Ghost Ship took friends I loved. Every system that was supposed to be there for me, failed me.

So I built my own infrastructure. Small. Hand-built. Connected to my roots. Not competing with anyone because I wasn’t trying to win their competition anymore. Coming from a place of sharing and generosity instead of exclusion and competition.

That’s what we do. It’s not a choice I made consciously. It’s a pattern older than any of us. It’s in our blood, going back to drums in the darkness, dancing together around a fire. It goes back to the native peoples. To Africa. To the times long ago we don’t even know about.

Why This Matters Now

In 2025, Latino communities across the United States face systematic targeting. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, assaults, and detains people based on racial profiling. Stops are justified by appearance, accent, speaking Spanish. Unconstitutional and outright illegal tactics are being use to spread fear through both documented and undocumented communities. Parents are afraid to enroll children in programs, participate in public events, or sometimes just be out in public. Families are afraid to gather. People are just being disappeared. 

This is exactly when our music, our dance, our culture – including our soundsystem traditions – become essential.

That 1977 party in El Tránsito from so long ago – it happened during Nicaragua’s civil war. An uncertain time filled with danger and fear. People gathered and danced late into the night despite the danger. That wasn’t escapism. That was survival. Creating a space to affirm their identity when identity is under threat. Finding joy, when every day is a greater challenge than the last. 

In 2025, as Latino communities face hostility and uncertainty in this country, we can go back to this same pattern. Every soundsystem toque, every backyard gathering, every Cumbia night, every quinceañera with a sonidero, every basement dancehall session, every drive with the windows down and Cumbia or Soca or Dancehall blasting on the stereo – these aren’t just parties or music. They’re political acts. 

Every soundsystem toque, every backyard gathering, every cumbia night, every quinceañera with a sonidero, every basement dancehall session, every drive with the windows down and Cumbia or Soca or Dancehall blasting on the stereo – these aren’t just parties or music. They’re political acts. 

– Gustavo Lanzas

Puerto Rican Reggaeton star Bad Bunny alludes to it in his short companion film to the album “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos” – Jacobo Morales’s character becomes excited and exclaims “escucha! Escucha!” as a young person drives by blasting Bad Bunny from their car, lamenting that he hardly hears the young people and their music, the sounds of the barrio – due to the displacement of locals and gentrification of Puerto Rico by wealthy tax-avoiding Americans. His companion, Concho the toad responds with “why don’t you do it yourself?”

When official channels exclude you or actively threaten you, you build your own spaces. You gather despite the danger. You affirm who you are through music and dance. You create a community when systems try to fragment it.

Beyond the Bassline

My NACCS presentation will show how this pattern repeats across time and geography. From African drums banned under slavery to cumbia emerging on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. From Congo Square gatherings outlawed in 1843 to jazz emerging in New Orleans. From Jamaica’s soundsystems in the 1950s to champeta in Cartagena. From Nicaragua’s BSS training cultural ambassadors from 2004-2016 to Mr. Lion continuing that work today.

The presentation includes video interviews with Mily Iriarte, a feminist pickotera from Colombia who explains how champeta becomes “a strategy for the assertion of popular rights and an anti-racist practice.”

With Diper Sound, a Mexico City sonidero discussing how soundsystems serve communities through quinceañeras and community gatherings, built from DIY and repurposed equipment.

With Mr. Lion speaking how BSS empowered young artists on Nicaragua’s marginalized Caribbean coast, and his impressions comparing Nicaragua to his experiences in Brixton in the UK. 

But I’m not just presenting academic research. I’m presenting my own lived experience.

I followed this pattern without fully understanding it. Built alternative infrastructure when mainstream scenes excluded me. Reconnected with my culture after systems failed me. Created a miniature soundsystem that bridges Portland and Bluefields.

My collaboration with Mr. Lion – Riddims + Dubplates – is part of that ongoing pattern. Small soundsystem in Oregon connecting with an artist in Bluefields. Cumbia meeting dancehall. 808s meeting güiro, conga and dub bass. Continuing the conversation BSS started, that Dimensión Costeña started before that, that soundsystem culture has always been about.

Miniature in Size, Powerful in Spirit

That promoter in 2013 said “soundclash, Jamaican style!” thinking it meant territorial competition. He had it backwards.

Soundsystem culture isn’t about winning competitions. It’s about building infrastructure your community needs when official channels exclude you. It’s about being small and powerful. It’s about cultural preservation over market position. It’s about gathering when gathering is difficult or dangerous.

– Gustavo Lanzas

Soundsystem culture isn’t about winning competitions. It’s about building infrastructure your community needs when official channels exclude you. It’s about being small and powerful. It’s about cultural preservation over market position. It’s about gathering when gathering is difficult or dangerous.

Those park parties we organized with Closer – borrowing equipment, communally assembling a system, free music for families and homeless people and park rangers – that was soundsystem thinking. I didn’t know it then, but I was already practicing it.

After my brother died, after I lost my job, after Ghost Ship took friends I loved, I could have walked away from music entirely.

Instead, I found my way back. Not to the scenes that never had space for me. Back to cumbia. Back to Caribbean sounds. Back to Nicaragua. Back to the music and culture that was always mine.

Mr. Lion learned it at BSS: You don’t need permission or validation from outside. You build what your community needs.

This isn’t just history. It’s happening now. The pattern emerges again and again. 

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Riddims + Dubplates is available on Bandcamp and other digital platforms.

I’ll be presenting “Beyond the Bassline: Soundsystems as the Infrastructure for Identity and Resistance” at the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies conference November 8th, 2025.