Austin based artist Kiko Villamizar released new single “Tuya Tuyita” on December 10th along with an accompanying music video. Tuya Tuyita is the second track from his upcoming album Todo El Mundo due out February 18th, 2022. The new single follows the release of the project’s title track which garnered attention from Austin Chronicle, Sounds and Colours, and Medium’s Pop Off.
Kiko explains the inspiration behind the song, Tuya Tuyita is an internal dialogue about taking responsibility for my own life. Tuya means yours, Tuyita is tuya with a diminutive suffix to create the new word ‘little yours.’ He adds, “No matter what I have to deal with, I want to leave behind any victim mentality that might be my own obstacle in contending with the other obstacles in my life. It is to remind myself that while my traumas are not my fault, it is my life and nobody else’s to make it better.” He continues, “This is not to say that everything in society is okay, as there are things to correct. Nobody has the right to tell another about their boot straps. But I have expectations for myself in the universal barter with mother nature.”
Kiko Villamizar was born in Miami to Colombian parents and was taken to Colombia as a child and raised on a coffee farm where he learned Colombian folk music through oral tradition with his family. He studied jazz in Miami, then began traveling, collecting melodies and rhythms that make for a genuine world class fusion of Colombian rhythms. He studied jazz in Miami, then began traveling, collecting melodies and rhythms that make for a genuine world class fusion of Colombian rhythms. Kiko’s debut album, La Remolacha was released in March of 2015 on Peligrosa Records. It is a beautiful collage of Latin American and Caribbean rhythms . It’s element is Earth. The sophomore release Aguas Frías (also on Peligrosa 2017), transports you to the Colombian Andes and Caribbean with traditional Afro-Colombian drums and the Indigenous Colombian “gaita” flutes meshed with a full psychedelically electric 8 piece band. The element of this album is of course, Water. With his upcoming album Todo El Mundo (out February 2022), Kiko carries the traditions of his ancestors but moves forward more into the future. With a minimalist and transformative approach , the element of this album is Wind!
The album was recorded at Kiko’s WEPA Studios (www.wepaestudios.com) in South Austin. In 2019 he founded a non-profit cultural arts center that teaches performing arts, visual arts, and studio engineering that included WEPA Studios. The album was then mixed at at Lechehouse Studios by Beto Martinez (Grupo Fantasma, Brownout, Money Chicha, The Los Sundowns) in Buda, TX.
Kiko is very proud of his new single, video and upcoming album stating, “I would like to share the story of this word cumbia. I would love to give a platform to all the elders and the youth of all the communities that share this music as a cultural common denominator. And I would like to contribute to this tradition called cumbia within an emerging subgenre called tropical futurism.”
During the pandemic, Kiko also picked up stand-up comedy, and has been able to showcase another side to his art. He is currently booking shows throughout Texas and beyond, and his comedy side complements his music side nicely, as fans of each discipline are starting to discover both sides to him.
Kiko concludes, “It is amazing to be alive. I want to reciprocate with mother earth and show my gratitude . My obstacles cannot have my energy, for it is mine minesita.”