CHO1iTA BEATS
⤏ REMOLACHA DE TOURNAY AND CARLITA ROWLEY IN CONVERSATION WITH MARS AVILA
⤏ PHOTOS BY LINNEA DEL CID | STYLING BY MARLENE LUCIANO
⤏ ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 2019
Remy and Carlita are effortlessly cool. As I enter the back room of a Highland Park speakeasy, I’m greeted by their set; up-beat 80s funk and pop classics fill the bar. Together, they are CHO1iTA BEATS, the DJ duo dedicated to simulating a lowrider cruising experience, whether on the airwaves at Dublab or at their Blind Barber Highland Park residency. I was able to ask the duo a few questions about life, music, and lowriding. Sit back and relax as CHO1iTA BEATS te traen el mmmmm.
MARS: What sort of music did you listen to growing up? When was your first exposure to lowrider culture?
REMY: I was born and raised in Miami in a Cuban family and both of those factors are probably the biggest influences on the music that I was exposed to and still love today. Growing up in Miami, I was mostly only exposed to Spanish music — specifically raeggaton, Elvis Crespo, Celia Cruz, Tito Puente. My mom had a rule that — when we were in the car with her — we weren’t allowed to change the radio station, so I was only really exposed to the sort of music she listened to — which was thankfully a lot of jazz, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Whitney Houston, Sade.
But when it comes to lowrider culture, I wasn’t really exposed to it until I started being friends with Carlita. She introduced me to freestyle music and showed me that all the music I love is part of lowrider culture already.
CARLITA: My mother came to the US from Mexico when she was 30 and was very attached to her tierra. Growing up, we would visit Mexico a ton. When we went, the adults would listen to a lot of cumbia jams and we would dance to a lot of Elvis Crespo-type music. But my younger cousins would introduce me to a bunch of 90s jams and got me into watching music videos.
I'm from the Inland Empire and I think lowrider culture is pretty prevalent there, but my first real exposure to it was when my parents would take us to car shows on Sundays. I always had an interest in the lowrider aesthetic and always felt really magnetized towards the culture, but I didn't realize why until I took a queer-Latino studies class. I realized that this certain feeling that exists within me from being Latina was celebrated and represented in lowrider culture.
M: Do you have any artists, DJ or otherwise, who you look up to?
R: Yes! I would say one of my biggest DJ influences is Jayda G, who is this Canadian, female, super badass, super hot DJ. I watched one of her Boiler Room sets, and that inspired me. She plays a lot of the music that Carlita and I play. And besides her, all these new female Reggaeton artists, like La Gooney Chonga, who is also from Miami.
C: The first DJ group that inspired me was Chulita Vinyl Club. I was DJing for UCLA Radio under CHO1iTA BEATS and at this point we weren't DJing vinyl. This was the bootleg chapter, where we would illegally download songs, curate a set, and do some talking on air. But, after listening to Chulita Vinyl Club and seeing these badass Latina women coming together and forming a community around vinyl, I realized that was something that I really wanted to find for myself.
I also gotta shoutout my friend Jackie (aka DJ CherlynFlan) who has been really supportive and helped me feel like I was worthy of space in the DJ community here in Los Angeles.
M: How did you meet, and how did CHO1iTA BEATS come to be?
“You get a little bit of 909 Inland Empire Mexicana Carlita sussisity and 305 Miami Cubanita Remolacha fuegito. It truly is a mezcla of — not just music — but culture, identity, and friendship.”
C: We met when we were 19, young and dumb. But we're still a little young and dumb. Remy moved into our giant four-bedroom apartment that was occupied by nine — yes you heard it — nine people. That home was very chaotic, so we knew when we connected that it was real love. We became familia pretty instantaneously, and if there was one good thing that came out of that apartment, it was definitely meeting each other.
R: Carlita was doing CB with OG member Daniel Claps since 2016, so when he had to return back to his homeland, we both decided that Remolacha y Carlita was the obvious next chapter for CB. Since then we've grown exponentially from illegally downloading music to collecting vinyl and learning to be real DJs who have a residency at the Blind Barber and DJ on Dublab.
M: As a DJ duo, how do you blend your musical tastes together? How does the creative dialogue go down on the air and live?
C: Our music tastes blend super naturally together, which obviously makes it really organic and fun to work together. However, being from different backgrounds and literal opposite sides of the country, we are able to introduce each other to different worlds of music. You get a little bit of 909 Inland Empire Mexicana Carlita sussisity and 305 Miami Cubanita Remolacha fuegito. It truly is a mezcla of — not just music — but culture, identity, and friendship.
M: Your set at Blind Barber had this dancey, 80s, boppy-vibe, and I heard a recording of your Souldies Nite radio show. What goes into curating a cohesive set?
R: For our sets, we like to meet up on the same day — this is vital to our process [laughs] — and create a general structure for the set. Since we DJ with physical vinyl, we have to take into account how many tracks we need to fill the time, but we bring extra so that we can adapt in real time and go with the flow. We leave a lot up to the present moment, where a majority of the set is based on the energy that we feel from each other and the crowd and that is true for both on air and live performances. We are very present with each other and our audience and we aim to please. The audience means a lot to us, we get so much from them energetically and we love our fans.
M: What's the most memorable show you've played? What sorts of venues do you like to play best?
C: We love all of the shows that we've played so it's hard to pick a favorite, but the Dublab set felt like a turning point for us. Mostly because we had started off doing radio, but we hadn't done it in a while. So coming back to it made us realize how much we had grown and we were proud of ourselves. And also it was just so much fun. The Dublab station has such a nice set up and they're legends! We like playing all the venues to be honest, but if I had to choose, I would go with house show situations and if Remolacha had to choose she would go with performing on air.
M: What really gets a room going? Also, what doesn't?
R: It gets people going when we are going with each other. They really feed off of our energy and that's mutual because we definitely feed off of theirs.
M: Finally, what are you listening to at the moment?
R: Right now, its a mix of a pura ratchetera and sad songs — which I feel is very representative of my everyday self [laughs]. I just got back from visiting Miami so I’m stuck on a Reggaeton tip. La Goony Chonga, J Balvin, Rosalía, Ozuna, y Bad Bunny. But also Snoh Aalegra's new album just dropped, so you know my sensitive Cancer-ass has had it on replay since last Friday.
C: My music taste is all over the place. A lot of the time I'll go through phases. I spend a lot of time discovering new shit. I'll take a break from it when there's no set in the near future. I've actually been going back and forth between listening to a lot of my friend's music and a lot of Johnny Cash, Kathy Heidman, Yves Tumor, and Lizzy Mercier Descloux. I am really always all over the place.
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⤏ MARS AVILA (SHE/HEARSE) IS A MUSIC PRODUCER AND NIGHTLIFE CONNOISSEUR LIVING IN LOS ANGELES. WHILE PRODUCING FOR DEATHLESS GODS WITH HUMAN BODS, SHE RECEIVED A MEDIA ARTS DEGREE FROM USC AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE FROM HER CHUNKY CAT, FUMI.