My hips are sad. These promos are not moving them; they’re squashed to hell, grooveless, and it’s about as fun to dance to as an Airbus engine drone.* I know how to solve this: N.A.A.F.I, the Mexico-based international label with its unique voice and rhythms patterned on the likes of tribal guarachero, spun by its family of producers into deeply personal bangers.
I’m not sure what happened to the N.A.A.F.I hype — it seems like back in CDMX, they’re doing just fine. But remember when DJ Mag was talking about how they were “battling cultural stereotypes and lazy genre misnomers”? Or when former RA editor Whitney Wei held them up to The Guardian as a sign that electronic music had been decolonized?
Well, while it should come as no surprise that we didn’t solve colonialism and racism in the 2010s, I think it’s safe to say that post-pandemic club culture has set the whole scene backwards. It’s also worth noting that while N.A.A.F.I talk explicitly about the importance of being more local and not lumping together their distinct styles with all of the hemisphere-sized Latinx world, both articles proceed to lump. There’s no room to sit around and complain about that, though, because we should devote all our energy to listening to music.
And N.A.A.F.I haven’t slowed down — not one bit. It’s a queer answer to both dominant malinchismo and machismo. It’s instead powerful and vulnerable at once.
The label’s value-packed 2025 sampler is more than just another club grab bag for lazy reviewers like me. No, this feels like a mixtape — dynamic, perpetually in motion, and with tracks that breathe as well as groove. It sets the tone right from that emotional, narrative opening by Ruido con H out of Celaya in Guanajuato state. Even just referring to this music as simply “Mexican” is a kind of colonial construction, erasing the hyperlocal diversity of hybridized indigenous sounds. You can almost hear a producer like Ruido con H engaging with those collisions — their own Bandcamp is a digger’s paradise.
N.A.A.F.I are also reimagining European releases, turning to Amsterdam-born-and-raised Candy Coup for music that calls on her roots in Curaçao and Bonaire, crossing it with Holland’s brash, in-your-face, sneaker-destroying beats, as on the peak-destroying “Gashadokuro.” Or there’s Negdedunn, with wonderfully sophisticated, brain-bending beats in motion on “Mizik pou la Klib.” He’s also embracing the complexity of his identity, self-described as “Afro-descendant (Haitian) and European (Swiss) origins” on a mission to “creolize his productions and sets.” Unburdened from the mayonnaise-like homogenization, he seems set to invent his own intimate genre. Or there’s friend-‘o-the-site Leslie García, here with her Microhm moniker in a jaw-shattering scorcher of a track.
It’s unfair to play favorites here; every single track is a hit, and I love how relentless the combo is. Play through to the end to arrive in Monterrey, though, and Tribal Guarachero champion Clap Freckles.
Check Clap Freckles’ other stuff — singles are necessary, because you almost need to recover from these tracks. Perfect. Who needs an EP of five middling tracks when you can have one mass weapon?
There’s so much more, too. If you want to dive deeper into this tribal sound, there’s a sprawling 2025 compilation for that:
I’ll let them speak about why this matters — in particular, that it’s also a music that keeps alive a pre-Hispanic soul.
TRIBAL 2025 arrives as both a tribute and a reinvention of Mexican tribal—a genre that, since the early 2000s, has collided coastal percussion, pre-Hispanic rhythms, and regional sounds with global electronic music. From Monterrey and the State of Mexico to Guerrero-Oaxaca’s Costa Chica, tribal has left its mark on dance floors and shaped the cultural identity of a generation of Mexican and Latin American producers.
Over a decade after NAAFI helped put this sound on the map, TRIBAL 2025 offers a fresh take. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s the raw power of tribal—its driving rhythms, communal pulse, and deep-rooted cultural ties—pushed into conversation with experimental strands of contemporary music and new ways of thinking about the club.
The compilation gathers a new wave of producers exploring tribal from every angle: Clap Freckles, El Chico Callado, Dj Fucci, DNZA, Underwght, Dj Weed, HMR, Lao, Entrañas, El Irreal Veintiuno, Debit, Siete Catorce, Homie Luna, Ezya, Cler, Sandunga, Syztema, OZOMATECUHTLI, Ruido Con H, WTTLC, and Zutzut. Each track bends the genre, expands its edges, and asks: what can tribal mean today?
More than a tribute, TRIBAL 2025 is a declaration: tribal remains a space for experimentation, identity, and the global reach of Mexican electronic music.
Their full catalog is brilliant. They might even be able to save Berlin from its own self-absorbed depression. Even four kicks in a row can groove anew, as in the ands of Berlin-based, Argentinian-born Tufi. Here’s what techno could sound like, not like it’s part of some event for high-end sunglasses for funerals.
Seasonal affective disorder is cured. Turn it up.
Image at top is 35mm photography by mexicanjihad, who’s doing a lot of their visual work and has one of my favorite handles ever…
*okay, someone needs to make a track based on the sound the A320-series PTU makes, and I am probably that person. Creolize is the word of the day, though!