There’s liberation on the dance floor in the songs of Matthew Urango – glimpses of revolution that glimmer beneath the disco ball. “I want my music to bring people together,” says the Californian pop innovator, best known as Cola Boyy. “Because standing together is our best chance at fighting this shit show.” The shit show in question is a broken, brutal system the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist has witnessed up-close. Urango was born with spina bifida and scoliosis in Oxnard, California: a town in which almost 30,000 are estimated to live in poverty. Prosthetic Boombox, his eagerly awaited debut album, might at first glance seem a joyous confetti-burst of pop eclecticism, engineered to sound like “scanning between stations on a car radio, landing on all these different sounds and styles” as Urango puts it. Dig deeper, though, and you’ll discover a simmering sense of rebellion. “The working class are injured, struggling to pay rent and struggling to put food on the table,” he says. “I want to represent that.” Prosthetic Boombox achieves that goal in a thrilling flurry of inventive indie, funk and soul: take Urango’s car radio analogy, place it in a time-travelling Delorean with Prince in the passenger seat, and you’re half-way there.

Look no closer than Prosthetic Boombox’s euphoric opener, the Avalanches-assisted ‘Don’t Forget Your Neighborhood.’ The track – which Urango says mixes “the Beach Boys, French disco, house keys and ragtime piano, kinda like the Cheers soundtrack!” – ends with lyrics urging listeners to “fight for your town with your fist closed, strike it and make it more than just a memory.” It’s a reminder that the working classes need to “turn our fists against our oppressors instead of each other,” he explains. After that emphatic introduction comes a horn-laced funk wig-out titled ‘Mailbox’ – a song that gives Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia a run for its Studio 54-themed money, featuring rising Londoner JGrrey. Elsewhere, ‘Song For The Mister’ ventures into smooth R&B territory, before ‘Roses’ – a collaboration with Myd of Ed Banger fame – offers a bouquet of bustling disco guitars and infinite bisous of Connan Mockasin’s band drops in on the immaculate ‘Go The Mile’. Urango saves his most introspective moment for the album’s starry closer. ‘Kid Born in Space’, a cosmic collaboration with MGMT frontman Andrew VanWyngarden, sees the artist reflect on what he once had to overcome as a disabled person of colour. “I see them looking down on my dreams of being,” he sings tenderly. “I hear them making fun of my voice, but I keep on moving forward, I refuse to live in anyone else’s shadow.” Prosthetic Boombox, on this subject, is more than an album title – it’s a statement of intent.

Southern California's Cola Boyy will be releasing his debut album, Prosthetic Boombox, on June 18, 2021 via Record Makers/MGMT Records. The album features guest turns from The Avalanches, Andrew VanWyngarden from MGMT, John Carroll Kirby, Nicolas Godin of Air, Patrick Wimberly from Chairlift, and Corentin “nit” Kerdraon.

A taste of the album, entitled “Don't Forget Your Neighborhood”, and featuring The Avalanches, can be heard now. A video for the track, directed by Belgian artist David Numwami, is also available today. Says Cola Boyy about the song, "This is one of my favorite jams on the record. I wanted a mix of the Beach Boys, French disco, house keys and a hint of the Cheers soundtrack for good measure! It's a message to everyone: don't get lost in the petty capitalist dream that has us abandon the people & places that shaped us. I wouldn't be who I am today without the masses of Oxnard, and no flashing lights can outweigh that."

Says Robbie Chater of The Avalanches about the track, “What a tune! One of the coolest and most inspiring tracks we have ever worked on with such a heartfelt message”

Disabled disco innovator, Cola Boyy, refuses to give up on his dreams with this psychedelic folk cut. A collaboration with Andrew VanWyngarden (MGMT) - this timeless ballad seeks to resolve the struggle and feelings of alienation he faced as a child with a disability, "Kid Born in Space" is a heartfelt and poetic statement from a musician who wants us to relate to his journey.

Fresh from working with The Avalanches and The Clash's Mick Jones on "We Go On", "Kid Born in Space" is the first slice of Cola Boyy's debut album on Record Makers/MGMT Records.

Cola Boyy says:

"This track is the culmination of a true friendship. In 2018, MGMT invited me on their tour, during which we became very close. I spent time with Andrew in his studio at home in New York. When I played him "Kid Born in Space", he liked it straight away and everything happened naturally from there: James Richardson played guitars and keyboards, Patrick Wimberly (Chairlift) engineered and refined the production, and then Andrew and I finished it up in LA. I am really grateful to them.

"When I was a kid I was convinced that no one could understand what I was going through and feeling, I was embittered and angry. The song is me explaining to my younger self to let go of worries about people staring or not understanding. Everyone has their struggles, and problems that shape them."

It's not the first time a song from another era finds greater resonance today, especially amid such troubled times.
Jeb Loy Nichols' 2010 "To Be Rich Should Be a Crime" makes no exception as it was excavated by Cola Boyy early 2020, who found in that reggae tune and its anti-capitalist message the essence of his steadfast work as a militant fighting white supremacy and growing social inequalities in the USA.
With the help of producer John Carroll Kirby (Solange, Connan Mockasin, Sebastien Tellier, Frank Ocean...), and adding real strings thanks to his longtime partner and producer nit, Cola Boyy put a new spin and new words into it, so that "To Be Rich Should Be a Crime" becomes the true classic protest song it always deserved to be.

Cola Boyy adds: "Jeb's words are so honest and real, I think he really speaks in the language of the people, which is something to admire. We're truly living in a historical time. So many people are mobilizing, rattling the streets, fighting for Black Lives. I'm confident in the ability of the people to change this world with their fists and their minds. The big bosses are trembling. It's the perfect moment for songs like these.

I will be donating 50% of my Bandcamp proceeds to the @Ox_Arrest_FundsVenmo. Community members and activists who are organizing in Oxnard are facing legal fees after protesting against local slumlords and the police. They're brave as fuck and deserve all the support they can get.
The other 50% of the proceeds will go towards the Help Austin #GeorgeFloyd Protesters Facing State RepressionGoFundMe. Protesters in Austin Texas are facing continuous repression. Leaders are being targeted and protesters are being brutalized by the police regularly. Following the murder of Garrett Foster by a fascist named Daniel Perry back in July, the police and their racist supporters have continued attempts at violently repressing the people fighting for Black Lives. These fighters need our support."

If you want to support:

Cola Boyy is back! A year after the release of his debut EP "Black Boogie Neon", working on his first album and playing his first big stages including Coachella Music & Arts Festival, he felt he needed to take a moment and release a single that him and the masses could blast in the streets of Oxnard and beyond.

"All Power To The People" is a straight-forward G-Funk track, but there is more than meets the ears : "All Power To The People" is not just a song, but a time capsule of what he has learned and what is to be done in response to the current state of the world.

"All Power To The People" is : a song, a video and a political leaflet written by Cola Boyy himself.

Watch, read and listen to what he has to tell you...

Watch the new video for Cola Boyy's "Beige 70", taken from his debut EP "Black Boogie Neon", available in vinyl and digital here!

Cola Boyy rides for the people. This Oxnard California songwriter and activist talks origins and message in this short documentary:



His debut EP "Black Boogie Neon" is available in vinyl and digital here!

Matthew Urango, aka Cola Boyy, is a 28 year old artist coming from Oxnard, California, discovered on the occasion of a concert in Los Angeles during June 2016.
Cola Boyy is an unusual and self-taught musician & singer. His very typical but natural voice is the consequence of a disability from birth.
His deviant disco songs talk about love and the happiness it breeds, while letting the rage of a rather different-looking militant crooner go.

"Have You Seen Her" is the EP’s kraut-disco oddity, halfway between the Ghetto Brothers’ rage and the funkiness of a Kurtis Blow instrumental... You’ll also hear a ripping guitar chorus and a Michel Berger-esque piano solo, all swaying to the beat.


"Penny Girl" is the a soon-to-be disco powerhouse hit that relates the story of a crime of passion: as poetic as a McCartney song, as effective on the dancefloor as a Patrice Rushen groove, and as fun as Frankie Smith’s "Double Dutch Bus".


"Buggy Tip" is the track that could have fallen into the hands of an eclectic DJ like Nicky Siano at Studio 54. Disco strings, catchy choruses to sing along to... Cola Boyy turns the melancholic memories of a past girlfriend into a banging beat to dance and shout to in a hot late-night club.



You can pre-order his debut EP "Black Boogie Neon" in vinyl and digital here !
Out September 21 !