BRIC House Party presents, TERAPIA

TERAPIA was born in 2022 as a collective effort to replicate the vibes and spirit of Verbenas - open-air community celebration rooted in music, dance, and collective joy that take place in the caribbean region of Colombia - and where powerful sound systems called Picós fill the air with champeta, soukous, salsa, cumbia, charanga, pachanga, and more. More than a party, TERAPIA tries to create a social ritual: a space where stories are exchanged, bodies remember ancestral rhythms, and the community affirms its presence and resilience. TERAPIA is the type of party that offers a blend of world music, but also it is an expression of identity and represents joy and sense of community

Don Alirio is the alter ego of Carlos Mario Mojica, a native of Barranquilla, Colombia who currently lives in the city Medellín, Colombia and is a picotero, curator, selector, collector and musical researcher with emphasis in the studies and the protection of the sounds of Africa and Latinamerica. His musical selection pays homage to the neighborhood, to popular dances and to unpretentious sound systems, where devotion is professed to a single element: music. Defining the identity of a neighborhood, a city, a country, or a continent is always possible through music. This is how Don Alirio was born, as a result of an exciting and uncertain dialogue between audience and musical notation, eliminating any kind of boundary between rhythms and genres, telling stories that mark the globalization process of a universe of records that arrived on Colombian shores from the 1950's onward. "I am not a DJ, I am a Picotero."  

Carlos Montes Alcalá is from Barranquilla, Colombia. He  is a record collector andhas created a Facebook Channel called África Tropical Radio which seeks to keep the Picó owners in Colombia informed and up to date with the music from África and The Caribbean that they have not heard yet. 

Alcalá has always loved music and his father, Orlando Montes, has owned a Picó since 1976. He always saw lots of records at home, mainly African and Afro-Caribbean music, but it wasn't until the 90's that he started playing them on my dad's Picó. He emigrated to Europe in 2006 and lived there for 14 years, traveling to France constantly, where he started making contact with almost all the record store owners in Europe and parts of Africa. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY and continues collecting records, keeping record culture alive through Facebook Channel África Tropical Radio. 

Congolese dance band from New York City led byYohni Loboko(Yohni Djungu-Sungu) a virtuosic guitarist, singer and multi-instrumentalist from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yohni has performed with legends of Congolese music Fally Ipupa, Soukous Stars and Zaiko Langa Langa. In 2019 he founded Loboko alongside drummer, DJ and journalist Morgan Greenstreet, supported by multi-instrumentalist and producer Nikhil P. Yerawadekar. Loboko’s unique style of guitar-driven dance music draws on Congolese rumba and soukous, Baluba and Bakongo traditional music and a heavy dose of contemporary seben, delivered in a punchy, raw format: two guitars, bass and drums. In 2023, Loboko released a vinyl '45: Kanyunyi / Ekengewith the acclaimed Brooklyn label Names You Can Trust featuring special guest Ngouma Lokito, veteran bassist with Soukous Stars, Tshala Muana, Pépé Kallé and many more.

Roberto Lujan is a native of Cartagena, Colombia and has been living in New York City for over 41 years, but he never lost his cultural roots and traditions. El Picó LA CLAVE DEL FOLCLOR was born in April of 2022, manufactured in Kissimmee, FL, in the workshop of master and friend Alex Castro who fabriquets Picós in the United States. The name LA CLAVE DEL FOLCLOR came out of the love he has for his traditions. Therefore, his Picó is a unique masterpiece that displays on its screen some of the traditional elements of his culture: a couple of cumbia dancers expressing joy and holding a set of candles as the cumbia dance tradition suggests, a bottle of rum TRES ESQUINAS and a bottle of historical vanilla-flavored soda from Cartagena KOLA ROMÁN, Our Lady of Mount Carmel and historical landmark La Torre del Reloj in Cartagena among other elements including the Colombian flag.