Bushwick is home to musicians from a panoply of backgrounds and across a broad spectrum of genres, and plenty of performers shoot music videos here. However, few of those videos deftly weave elements of daily life in Bushwick into a visual narrative that perfectly complements the song. A new music video for the track “Timbalaye” by the masterful Latin revival band Los Hacheros does just that.
The video features the members of Los Hacheros before a vivid backdrop of street art, and its visual narrative follows a little girl running through the neighborhood with her pitbull, getting a piragua and bringing a Puerto Rican flag up to a roof, where it is used to direct a flock of homing pigeons wheeling above the neighborhood above salsa dancers on the sidewalk. “Yo say Latinoafricano” is the singer’s refrain; the video is both powerfully soulful, but also jubilant.
“The band gave me complete creative freedom over the video’s content,” auteur Maxwell Enrique tells Bushwick Daily. “I’m a big collector of old salsa records, and people don’t know that salsa was born in NY. So I wanted the video to highlight elements of NY from when salsa was king and Puerto Rican influence ran deep in neighborhoods like Bushwick. It still does, but things are changing quickly. The video is a celebration of that community’s perseverance and continued presence.”
“Timbalaye” is a track of of the band’s 2016 sophomore album, “Bambulaye,” which was released by the Daptone-distributed Latin revival label, Chulo Records. Los Hacheros is a quintet comprised of violinist and vocalist Eddie Venegas, Itai Kriss, who sings and plays flute, campana and guajiro, lead vocalist and congas player Papote Jimenez, bassist William Ash and tres player Jacob Plasse; together, the ensemble plays melodic, intricate, layered music that at times sounds not unlike the work of Cuban bassist Cachao.
Let this video set the tone for your weekend, Bushwick!