After Hours – DJ sets by Riobamba & cry$cross

Two back to back DJ sets by Riobamba & cry$cross.

Riobamba is a first-generation, Ecuadorian-Lithuanian sound artist/DJ, scholar, death doula, and cultural activist based in New York City. Riobamba is represented by techno-feminist booking agency Discwoman. Riobamba’s rowdy, deeply researched live sets reflect back nightlife’s power as a site of joy and resistance, amplifying connective tissues between YouTube clips, bodega soundtracks, and noise hyperreality “suped up with a twisted, industrial gnarl” (Complex). The Fader has called her production work “a radically self-expressive piece of futurism that stands against a single, boxed-in definition of what Latinx club music can be.” She is founder of APOCALIPSIS, a record label that amplifies artists of the Global South and diaspora, and is intent on restructuring the music industry to center and pay BIPOC creators.

Multidisciplinary visual artist, image maker, and DJ cry$cross is a true artist embodying the breadth and depth of New York City’s DJ culture. Their music takes you to a familiar yet alien place, sonically traversing time and space. Their work explores their journey to reconnect with their native African roots and finding ways to intertwine the cultures that they grew up between. Through this, they create an entirely new world of their own, in turn, encouraging others to do the same.

Being from New York herself, cry$cross is no stranger to the city’s musical history and its cultural influences. She pieces together a vivid nostalgic picture through fusing gritty NY club with percussive electronic music to create a contemporary new sound. Her sets are masterful in their execution—living confidently in the boundaries between genres, to create an infectious sound that has captivated dancefloors across the country.