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2	The Pride of Puerto Rico The delicate gait and beauty of the Paso Fino horse makes it an icon of the island. read more...
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5	Into the Light Latin pop star Fanny Lu burns bright with the success of her first release and plans for her next CD. read more...
6	Killer Instincts Music impresario by day and DJ by night, Camillo Lara follows his gut in creating his trademark sound. read more...
7	Mixing it Up Gilberto Santa Rosa reaffirms his top spot in tropical music while claiming new ground as a balladeer. read more...

killer instincts

Music impresario during the day and
DJ and musician at night, Camilo Lara has little time, but talent to spare.

By Mark Holston

Camilo Lara’s life is a textbook example of how perfect balance can be achieved, of how the concept of yin and yang can be put into daily practice, of how the left and right brain can work in perfect harmony.
By day, the 31-year-old native of Mexico City is one of his country’s most successful music industry tycoons, producing and marketing some of Latin music’s most popular cutting edge artists as president of EMI Mexico. He cites the pride he takes in having been part of projects by such artists and groups as Chetes, El Gran Silencio, Timbiriche, Plastilina Mosh, Zoe, Aleks Syntek, Ely Guerra, Titan, and Moderatto.
By night, his corporate responsibilities met for the day, Lara’s creative instincts are unleashed, and his business executive persona is transformed into a genre-defying, sample-blending DJ act known as MIS—the Mexican Institute of Sound (or in Mexico, IMS—Instituto Mexicano del Sonido).
“I now understand more deeply the basic needs of an artist,” Lara says, explaining how his career as a performer has made him a better executive. “I’ve learned first hand just how exhausting it is to tour and to expand your fan base. In a way,” he continues, “I think I have experienced some things that executives only read in marketing plans.”
Asked if he is related to another famous Mexican musician of the same name, he laughs and blurts out, “Agustín Lara? Naaaa! I wish!”
Lara was just 18 when he embarked on his music career, joining EMI and working his way up the corporate ladder until 2001, when he left the firm to partner with Oscar-nominated film director Alfonso Cuarón and start an independent record label. Three years later, Lara returned to EMI and to the responsibility of guiding the label through increasingly challenging times for the music industry.
“The business has changed radically over the last years,” he says. “But I think it is more real and consumer-oriented than in the past.”
Part of that fan-friendly reality has been the steady move away from traditional products like CDs to downloaded tracks and albums. But even as the industry adapts to the whims of Internet-weaned young consumers, Lara still believes the CD will be around for some time.
“Liner notes are so important for the listening experience of an album,” he says. “No, I don’t think the CD will disappear, but its share of the market will definitely shrink. It won’t be the main format any more. But there are still many people that enjoy the experience of having a physical record in their hands.”
Among the CDs that a growing number of people enjoy having in their hands these days are Lara’s series of MIS releases, which began with 2006 his debut, Méjico Máxico. Last year’s Piñata, released by the U.S.-based Nacional Records, solidified the MIS formula that Spin magazine calls a “patio-friendly, Esquivel-style, cocktail-party vibe—jams for people whose drink of choice is the mangopolitan.”
The CD features guest musicians from such groups as Babasónicos, Tom Tom Club, and the Fantastic Plastic Machine. Lara is already at work on his next project, which will include remixes of Chilean singer Ana Tixou.
Interestingly, MIS began as a personal hobby with no expectation that it would become a second career. Several years ago, Lara began creating albums of remixed tracks that became novel Christmas gifts for his music industry friends.
“I guess that my music is a personal view of how Mexico is,” he says when asked to describe his style. “Call it Electro Cha-Cha,” he adds before taking it back. “Oops! I’m so bad at labeling!”
Although there are heavy doses of such vintage styles as mambo, cumbia and bugalú in his work, Lara admits that salsa and the music of earlier generations was not what he listened to as a kid.
“When I was growing up I was into New Wave and Punk,” he says. “I discovered cha cha-cha, cumbia and other styles later.”
The track A Todos Ellos is particularly revealing. Lara’s vocal chant cites a long and eclectic roster of artists, including Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, jazz bassist Jaco Pastorius, dancer and singer Fred Astaire, country crooner Johnny Cash, Beat poet Jack Kerouac, mambo king Pérez Prado, Italian film composer Nino Rota, and soul singer James Brown, among many others.
Asked whether the track amounts to homage or an attempt to educate younger music fans on significant talent from the past, he concedes that it’s a bit of both.
“Those are my dead people,“ he states. “They are the people that inspired me and that I am passionate about. It would be great if some of them could be rediscovered by new generations.”
Ever restless, Lara is branching out into literature. He’s wrapping up a novel titled Emails to Myself. Not surprisingly, there’s more than a bit of his own personal experiences in the storyline.
“It’s about a guy who is writing an autobiographical novel,” he says. “It was written in email while in airports.”