Colombia is still counting its dead, and its electronic music scene is answering from two cities at once.
How is Bogota's club scene responding?
Video Club, Odem and Radio Estrella announced on Instagram on August 11, a day after the quake, that they're donating a cut of that weekend's door money, plus several DJs' fees, to PLAN International, a relief organization already on the ground in the affected departments. Video Club's Friday night, "Entropia: RUIZ OSC1 + KUSS", and Radio Estrella's "Linds x PlurALL & Hyperpop", both August 14, ran as fundraisers rather than ordinary bookings, with the clubs pushing people toward direct donations through PLAN International's own channels, not just ticket sales.
What is Medellin's label doing instead?
A day later, on August 12, Mammboh Rhythms, the label Sons Of Hidden and Serge Andre run out of Medellin under the banner of "Andean & Folkloric Techno," released United for Colombia, a 32-track compilation with every cent of the proceeds earmarked for relief.
https://mammbohrhythms.bandcamp.com/album/united-for-colombia
Thirty-plus producers, among them Obscure Shape, Isaiah, Advanced Transistor and Ricardo Garduno, signed on inside 48 hours of the quake. The label split its response into two tracks: the bulk of the money flows to verified relief organizations prioritizing Choco, the region hit hardest, before reaching Pereira and Cali, while a separate, dedicated fund goes exclusively to Colombian artists and producers who lost their homes, a group Bogota's door-money campaign doesn't single out.
"Art has always been a force for change, a form of resistance and a revolutionary movement," Serge Andre said of the project.
Why did the death toll, and the response, keep growing?
When Bogota's clubs posted their pledge on August 11, the confirmed toll stood above 160. By the time Mammboh Rhythms released its compilation on August 12, it had climbed past 240, a grim reminder that rescue operations were still pulling people from collapsed buildings in Choco as both fundraisers went up. The quake's cultural fallout reached well beyond the epicenter: Cali's mayor suspended the 30th Petronio Alvarez Pacific Music Festival, the country's biggest showcase for Afro-Colombian music, and Pereira canceled its harvest festival to redirect the budget into recovery. Bogota and Medellin sit hundreds of kilometers from Choco, but both cities' club scenes are part of the same national music economy, and plenty of their promoters and DJs have friends, bookings or family in the departments hit hardest. Medellin-based DJ Julianna posted footage of the damage to her own family's house in Cali and opened a GoFundMe for repairs and housing, independent of either campaign, a reminder that neither fundraiser is happening in the abstract: for a lot of the people who play these rooms, this is personal.
How to help: Donate directly to PLAN International's Colombia earthquake response, or buy United for Colombia on Bandcamp, every cent goes to relief in Choco and Mammboh Rhythms' fund for displaced producers.
