Explore Mexico City With N.A.A.F.I

Although celebrations have always been a big part of Mexico City life, underground club culture is still a relatively young phenomenon there. Maybe it's an economic thing, and young people don't have money to be go out every weekend. Or maybe it's because of the lack of homegrown music media. Whatever the issue, N.A.A.F.I is interested in providing a solution.

The left-field electronic label—their name stands for No Ambition And Fuck-all Interest—got its start as a bi-monthly party in 2010. It offered an antithesis to the city's strict, stiff conventional club scene by highlighting "ritmos periféricos," or outsider rhythms: intense, hard-hitting, and distinctly Latin electronic music. In the years since, they've evolved into something much more immersive.

"N.A.A.F.I is a collective, a family, a group of friends," explains Chilean producer Paul Marmota, who lives in Mexico and creates delirious electronic music that blends reggaeton, house, and folkloric instrumentation. "We created a space for our styles that wasn't there before. I don't know how to explain it."

In this video, The FADER and Palladium explore the world's fourth-most populated city with Marmota as a guide, traveling from a sunlit office, to a contemporary art museum where N.A.F.F.I was hosting a roundtable lecture, to an all-night dance party in a basement warehouse. Watch the whole thing above for a closer look at one of the most exciting electronic music scenes in the world.