Have you ever met someone and was like, “Damn, if I was a Jewish hip hop lover from California, that’ s some shit I would’ve done?“
That’s what I said to myself some 10 years ago after meeting the homie Josh Heller, who I learned spent time in Mexico City teaching hip hop and English or some such cool shit. Josh does a bunch of dope media stuffs, including his most recent venture, an international record label, Viajes.Cosmicos launched w/ a buddy during quarantine. That buddy is floresflores.
The first release is from FLORES FLORES and I had a chance to send FLORES some questions in between doing dad shit like pulling weeds, pulling teeth and pulling a hamstring.
How much money have you blown last year on your music hobby?
I don’t have a music hobby. I reject the notion that this economic system puts forth, that if you don’t monetize on things they are supposed to be hobbies or luxuries. I have been preparing all of my life for this album. Being present and focused on doing things and bringing them to completion is something invaluable. And it’s way more uncomfortable and frustrating than not doing them, but is fulfilling. For me, at least.
Trying to be a better musician/producer has made me want to read more, listen to more records, learn different software, and taught me to stay curious, really. That permeates through all aspects of my life.
What level of hell do you think Mexican Americans who can’t speak Spanish occupy?
None. It’s ok if you don’t know spanish, culture and heritage go way beyond language. I mean, if you want to learn it, that’s fantastic but don’t do it out of guilt.
What’s the first album you played on repeat until your mom told you to turn that shit off because it will make you crazy?
Probably the Space Jam Soundtrack. I don’t remember driving my mother crazy by repetition, she is very musical but I do remember one day that she picked me up from high school and I put Sonic Youth’s Sister album on and she just turned the radio off and said “No.”
But I do get stuck on repetitive listens with some songs from time to time that just hit something in me – I remember the first time that happened was listening to the Miguel Bosé song Como un Lobo, I would rewind that song forever on the cassette, I must have been like 5 years old. Right now I have David Bowie’s Up the Hill Backwards on repeat for some reason. I almost exclusively listen to albums, not singles, not playlists, but some songs just stay in my brain for weeks and I need to feed it constantly and I’ll keep singing them. It can be a pain for people around me to hear me sing the same part of a song forever.
Why did your parents name you Flores twice?
My mother is the biggest José José fan in the world. She could’ve named me José but the 80s were a tricky decade for a lot of people.
If you could move to one city in Mexico, where would it be? One city in the US?
I’ve been living in Huasca the last couple of months with my wife. It’s this beautiful town in Hidalgo, close to where we grew up (Pachuca, capital of the state) and I’d love to move there indefinitely, but it’s hard letting go of commodities of big cities.
In the states, I really like San Diego, and it’s close to TJ, so you can get legit mariscos and tacos al pastor. But I don’t know, maybe a small town in California would be great.
Tell us about your album. How many blunts long is it? That’s to say, how many blunts can you smoke before the run time is through, using the International Metric of 5 minutes and 17 seconds per blunt?
I think it’s like half an hour long so you can squeeze maybe a 6th blunt if you really focus, and break some records/rules.
The album is called Uno, I recorded it in my studio in Mexico City called Números Rojos.
It has nine songs, one of which is Placed, the first single that you can check out right now on all streaming platforms.
If someone broke into your house and threatened you at gunpoint but gave you the chance to play one song off your album to convince them to leave in peace, what song would it be?
Probably Outline, cuz it’s the shortest. You don’t wanna be for too long with a psychopath.
What song should I play with my first cup of coffee? Why?
I’d do Caliber. It has a nice call of the wild/contemplative vibe. Gives room for introspection, even if the lyrics are about being wasted.
Tell us about your transnational label launched during quarantine.
When I was about to finish the album I hit Josh up because he is like the only friend I could think of that would be up to putting a record out with me. He liked the record and he had the idea of Cosmic Journeys for a while and this was a perfect way of taking step one.
I think music has been the driving force for both of us in our lives so this is us riding that wave to something bigger and better, we hope. We are still figuring things out but up until now it has been very fun. We are trying to have a very elastic vision of what an indie label can do or be in 2020. Aside from floresflores there’s also gonna be radio shows, more music projects from different genres, merch, videos.