COBRA CULTURE (Melbourne, Australia)

Lucille Loveday                                             Serhan Ali from Australia wrote:

I am extremely excited to announce that Cobra Culture now has Colombian Pico Sound Systems !! Made with love and passion! Direct from Barranquilla. Each Pico is hand crafted by Edilberto de la Hoz and the amazing artwork is by Eduardo Borrero. We give big thanks to Fabian Altahona Romero who made it possible for us to experience and share a piece of Colombian Sound System Culture.

«…From the 70s each pico developed its own aesthetics through colorful paintings and decorations on the speakers and the control tower. This transmits a real identity to each pico, and can be inspired from pure psychedelic figures (El Dragon, El Cobra), or from personal experiences (for example, El Coreano was created by a colombian man who went to fight in Korea war), or from musical artists (El Pijuan), or from revolutionary figures (El Gran Che, El Gran Fidel). The visual identity personifies the pico, and usually transmits a message of power («indestructible», «la potencia africana», «guerrillero de la salsa»).
It really contributes to glorify the soundsystem, as being also considered as a piece of art.»  «These paintings represent a kind of visual recognition saying: «here we dont play shit music, we play musica picotera!»

«…In brief, picós are homemade mobile sound systems that feature speakers and DJ equipment – a literal party on wheels. Unique to the Caribbean and originally emanating from Cuba and Jamaica, they were originally created as a response to the fact that poorer people weren’t welcome in dance clubs. For them, these picós became their clubs, a place to dance and enjoy the music they wanted to hear. True labors of love, the speaker boxes and equipment were painted with bright, colorful images of keyboard players, tanks at war, African dancers, cobra snakes… visual elements that evoke local history and culture.»