Making the Bugiganga Tropical Collection
We are proud to present a new edition of Bugiganga Tropical, a vinyl collection that embodies the principles of Tropical Diaspora Records®. This project explores the cultural encounter between two displaced peoples: Africans forcibly brought across the Atlantic and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Their collision birthed new forms of expression—music, art, and resistance—that reflect both the horrors of colonialism and the resilience of survival.
Acknowledging the Paradox of Language and Power
We recognize that the tools we use—language, design, even the term “America”—are shaped by imperialist narratives. English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Portuguese: these are the tongues of colonizers, yet they are also our means of communication today. Silence is not an option. We choose to speak, to reclaim these channels, and to amplify voices that have been systematically erased.
Design as a Political Statement
The cover art of Bugiganga Tropical is intentional. Each volume features plants—coffee, cacao, sugarcane and cotton —that symbolize the forced labor of enslaved Africans and the displacement of Indigenous communities. These crops built colonial empires on genocide, yet they also became sites of cultural fusion. The music within these records—Afro-Brazilian samba-rock, Andean Cumbia, Forró de Rabeca, Samba, Blues—is a testament to that survival.
The Roots of Tropical Diaspora Records
The word “bugiganga” still echoes in my ears – a Portuguese term meaning trinkets or knick-knacks, spat contemptuously by wealthy Paulistanos to describe my Black grandmother’s few possessions as she worked in their homes. An “empregada doméstica” they called her – just another euphemism masking modern slavery.
These records grew from that injustice. What colonizers dismissed as worthless – the music, crafts, and fragments of culture preserved by the oppressed – became our most sacred treasures. The Bugiganga Tropical series honors this truth: that what masters called “trinkets” were in fact the irreplaceable heritage of enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples.
This is music as living history – not streaming data, but physical artifacts you must hold to truly know, just as my grandmother’s story must be held to be remembered.
The cotton plant embodies the bloodiest chapter of racial capitalism—the fabric of slavery that clothed the world while stripping Africans of their freedom.
“The ‘bugigangas’ of the oppressed outlast the gold of the oppressors.
This music is proof.”
Questioning the Names We Inherit
Why “America”? A term derived from Amerigo Vespucci, imposed by European cartographers. Why not Abya Yala, the Guna people’s term for this land: “land of vital blood”? Our work challenges these colonial frameworks, insisting on a narrative that centers the oppressed.
The Vinyl as an Archive
The first four releases in our catalog are foundational. They trace the musical legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and Indigenous resistance. Vol. 1: Coffee (2015) – The brutal way of forced labor. The stimulant that fueled colonial exploitation. Vol. 2: Cacao (2018) – The stolen sweetness of Indigenous knowledge. The bitter seed of stolen Indigenous knowledge. Vol. 3: Sugar Cane (2020) – The sweet stalk that cut through generations of flesh. Vol. 4: Cotton (2025) – The final stitch in slavery’s fabric, now unraveled
A Call to Listen Deeply
This is more than music. It’s an act of remembrance, reclamation, and repair. We invite you to engage with these sounds, to sit with their stories, and to question the narratives you’ve been taught.
Play these records. Hear the past. Resist the silence.
Thank You
Djs Dr.Sócrates and Garrincha
Tropical Diaspora Records® 2025
Cover Design by Matthias Beck based in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and hand made printing by Harald Weller based in Berlin.
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