Support for this podcast and the following message come from Rivian, makers of the all-electric, three-row R1S SUV and the always-capable R1T pickup, designed with the planet and future generations in mind. Learn more or schedule a demo drive at rivian.com. I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Felix, I love when we do an interview. And today we have an interview. These interviews are really working out in ways that I didn't expect, actually. It's good for people, I think, to have a break from our yapping. Let's listen to someone else yap for a bit. How about that? That's exactly what I was thinking about, but I didn't want to put it so plainly, but I'm glad you're just late. I have a way with words. This one's really exciting. I mean, this is one of these artists that, you know, always fascinating to pick his brain. I always learn approximately 10 new things minimum. Felix, who do we bring today? Jorge Drexler. El Maestro. I got to say, he's one of the most decorated singer-songwriters in Latin America. I mean, he's consistently recognized at awards shows like the Latin Grammys. He has an armful for these well-crafted, very literate musical projects. And his albums are always the high-profile events in Latin music. And this latest record really demands that kind of attention. I mean, this latest album, what he's doing is something that many artists we're talking about are doing these days. He's returning home. He created a record entirely based in his Uruguayan roots. But the interesting thing to me, Felix, is he's coming at it from a completely unique perspective. It's with the intention of someone with decades of music making and, more importantly, life experience under his belt, Felix. I mean, this is very different from what we got from a bad bunny or, you know, a milo jota. It comes from this perspective of years of reflection. And specifically, he elected to do it by leaning into Afro-Uruguayan tradition, the sound known as Gandombe. The album's called Taracá. And in our conversation with him this week, we hear about his motivation for that return to his roots and how the album title is actually the sound a Gandombe drum makes. So we started off with Drexler telling us about the rhythmic foundations of the record. It's very peculiar. It's very different from Brazilian rhythms. It's different from Cuban rhythms. It's different from Peruvian Afro rhythms. It has its own identity. But we share some things. We share the clave, for example. We have this clave, which is... That three, two, no? One, two, three, one, two. My record starts with that. And you can hear that clave all along the record. That clave, you can also hear it in funk karaoke in Brazil. Pa, pa, pa. A little faster. You can hear it in song in Cuba. You can hear it in bolero too. And you can hear it in Gandombe. It's present in many, many rhythms. It's like, you know, this theory of the cultural meme. It's a cultural cell that propagates itself in a biological way, like a virus. You know, somebody comes down from a ship, from Cuba to Uruguay, and it goes to a party and that's pa, pa, pa, pa. And then the whole country is infected with that beautiful pattern. It's a meme. It's like a gene. In America, in South America, Central America, also North America. Now the definition of America since the Super Bowl of Bad Bunny changed, I think, for good. In America, we have these underlying connections, the underlying rivers that we have that you don't see them in the surface, but we have them underneath. The three, two clave that you're talking about is even all the way here in North America, when in the 1950s, a top player from New Orleans, Bo Diddley created what he called the Bo Diddley rhythm, but it's actually a three, two clave and everybody from there on, Buddy Holly, Grateful Dead, everybody has referenced that three, two clave. So it just, as you say, it just spreads throughout all of the Americas. There's something in a three, two clave. There's something about it. I don't know what it is, but it's contagious. It's literally contagious. You hear it and you adopt it and you consider it. I mean, the sign that you adopted something internally is that you get to believe that you invented it. So you put your name to it. Let's start with one of your tracks. Which one do you want to play first? Oh, I would like to play El Tambor Chico. It talks about one of the three tambores of Candombe. Candombe has three drums, Tambor Chico, Tambor Repique and Tambor Piano. They grow in size. The Chico is the smallest, Repique is intermediate and the piano is a really fat, big drum. And every one of them has its own pattern, but the Chico is the only one that has a fixed pattern. It plays always, it's repetitive. It's like a mantra. It repeats. It has three beats and they go like this. One beat with the hand and two beats with the stick. Taraka, taraka, taraka, taraka, taraka, taraka. It's a complete mindfulness experience without even mentioning the concept of mindfulness. You get attached to the present. So that's why taraka is also estar acá, to be here. To be here and be estar acá y estar ahora, to be here and to be now. So that's why I wanted to give the name of Taraka to the record. So this song is a homage to El Tambor Chico, to the most humble drum in the Candombe because the one that you learn to play when you get into Candombe, but at the same time the most spiritual one, in my opinion. Let's hear a little bit of that music. What does that mean to you estar acá, estar ahora? What does that mean to you estar acá, estar ahora? I mean, why the motivation now to make a song that, like you says, has this double meaning of the music you're exploring, but also the place that you're exploring it in. Why not? I had some personal and some musical context to go to Uruguay to make a record right now. Uruguay is going through an amazing development of the Candombe right now. Now you have a new group of musicians called La Rueda de Candombe, which generated this system based in Roda de Samba, Brasileiro from Brazil, which is a round table with six musicians looking at each other, playing looking at each other, with the whole community surrounding them. And that works as a mirror for the community because when you stand, they are sitting and you stand beside the musicians, what you're actually looking at is the other part of the community in front of you in the back of the musicians. So Rueda de Candombe is a mirror for community to perceive itself. And I went to see them and they invited me to sing. And the moment I went on stage, I sang with them, I said, I finally found a way of making my Candombe record because I found these companions, you know, like I can completely relate to the way they see Candombe. And it's one of the first things that really motivated me to go back and start writing about Candombe. El Tambor Chico is a song that I actually started writing 10 or 15 years ago, but I didn't find the Candombe record to put it in. So I remember that I had that song and I went back and looked through it and took it, changed it a lot and wrote half of it again and rewrote it and adapted it to La Rueda de Candombe. Those are the musicians that you hear in the back playing, accordion, baritone, acoustic guitar, one regular Spanish guitar and three tambores and the six of them sing. And so I had this motivation to do a Candombe record in Uruguay right now. At the same time, personally, I became 60 years old when I was doing this record and I spent 30 years in Spain, so I needed to reconnect to Uruguay. Also my parents had died in the recent years and this was the first record I did without having parents. So I also needed to get related with my family, with my place, with my neighborhood in Uruguay. I had to go back there. Like you mentioned Jorge, you've spent a significant amount of time outside of Uruguay. Was there something that felt especially attractive to you or that made you feel a certain type of way about creating in this very, as you've described, community style, Rueda being so communal in its creation and how you play it together? Was that related, do you feel, to your attraction to that particular type of music? Yes, because I got to see the importance of community in everywhere that I go and I play music. When I go to Medellin, I ask, where is the Vallenato party that we should go to? Let's go there. When I go to the southern part of Chile, let's go to a cueca peña and hear how they play the cueca. When I go to Bogotá, let's go to Acumbia. I go, Latin America is the biggest present that music gave to me. And you can see that influence, for example in a song called Anteladuda Baila, which is also a reflection about the intent of prohibition in different historic periods where different dances were prohibited. So I've chosen five periods in history starting from the Spanish baroque with the Sarabanda, going through the Mexican Inquisition with the Chuchumbé to the Uruguayan prohibition of Candombes and Milongas of the African descendants in Montevideo in 1807. Going through the tangua at the beginning of the 20th century, it was prohibited by the Pope at some point in the Vatican to the reggaeton in 1995 with the La Ley 112, with the law 112 that tried to stop the development of reggaeton. And of course it was a historic failure, you know? Now reggaeton is all over the world. Great. Let's hear a little bit of that song that you mentioned Anteladuda Baila. El Tribunal de la Inquisición en lo que sería luego México emitió un edicto público en lo que nadie cantara ni bailara el Chuchumbé bajo pena de excomunión y castigo del plan. I have to learn it by heart because I have to play it in two days in Mendoza. Yeah, you're like, this is rehearsal right now. Perfect. It's a very complex text. Something that's interesting to me Jorge going back to this concept that you introduced, which I truly am, I'm going to think about it for a while about this kind of natural selection of rhythm and how we got to this. You're an artist, which means you're a member, you're an active participant in this natural selection. Like it doesn't just passively happen to you, the rhythms you decide to use, or in this case in particular the statements you decide to make. I mean there's a very clear message here, there's a very clear choice in what you wanted to communicate. What's that for you? Like what's your natural selective process that's maybe a little more conscious than for most people? Natural selection processes are everything but conscious. It's actually the most unconscious thing. You don't select what you plan to select. You don't select what it would be good for you to select. You don't select what it would be appropriate for you to select. You are selected by it. You don't choose those things. If you got to choose those things, I mean natural selection wouldn't be natural. It would be a rational selection and it is not. Obviously part of that choice and part of that process or lack of choice is that there's a lot of sounds and an artist that have influenced you that you passed through and maybe decided to spend more time with. We asked you to bring in a few songs today that are also not your music. Which one, I would love to hear one of those. Which one would you like to play for us? I decided to focus on your Hawaiian music and especially in kandombe, you know, and very different types of kandombe. For example, listening to Alfredo Citarroza's Doña Soledad, which is a way of playing the kandombe with guitars. It's a guitar quartet doing the percussion of the kandombe on the guitars. And they have one of the guitar plays that played with Citarroza in my record, in the song, Cuando Cantaba Morente, playing a Milonga, Julio Covelli. So I wanted to make a homage to that specific Uruguayan sound of guitar and to, of course, Alfredo Citarroza, which is one of our biggest artists in the history of Uruguayan music. Doña Soledad. Cuantas personas habrá que la conozcan de verdad. Yo la vi en el almacén peleando por un dinten. Doña Soledad y otros dicen haga él bien, hágalo sin mirar a quién. Cuantos dintenes tendrás sin la generosidad. Doña Soledad con los que pueda comprar el pan y el vino nada más. La carne y la sangre son de propiedad del patrón. Doña Soledad, cuando Cristo dijo no, te sabe bien lo que pasó. You know, it's, it's amazing to me how listening to, like there's so many different influences that bass part is like the Afro Cuban Dumbao on the up beat. But then it releases. Right. Like it's just like it's tension and release within just the bass part itself. It's a baritone guitar. It's a baritone guitar. It's like the one guitar ronda that I was telling you. Sorry, I stopped you. Yes, I interrupt you. No, but it's just, it's just amazing how it's just, there's so many influences that wash over all of this music as I was listening to the music that you sent and then listening to your record. And like there's so many different references to like resilient music to all these different types of stuff. I mean, as a drummer myself, like forget about it. I mean, I'm just lost. I mean, we could, we could spend three hours. This podcast can become three hours of us geeking out about all the rhythms, right? I think we're coming back all the time to this subterranean rivers, no, los ríos subterráneos, la la nappa freática, la freática. I don't know how you say it in English. It's the water that circulates underneath the surface. You don't see it, but it connects other regions, you know? You hear so many things in that from Spanish guitar to Cuban son to tumbao to habanera. I love that. We'll get back to our conversation with the great horded Drexler in a second, but first, we're going to take a quick break. This message comes from IXL. Spring is here and school testing is just around the corner. IXL can help make an impact on your child's learning. Receive 20% off in IXL membership if you sign up today at IXL.com slash NPR. This message comes from Progressive Insurance. You're listening to this podcast, so you've got a curious mind. Did you know that drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average? Visit Progressive.com and get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, national average 12 month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who save a progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. Support for NPR and the following message come from Spectrum Business with connectivity solutions to help your business stay online and on track. Reliable connections, responsive support, and tailored solutions. Spectrum.com slash business. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This message comes from the Arbor Day Foundation. For more than half a century, the Arbor Day Foundation and its global network of more than a million inspired individuals, businesses, and community leaders have united behind the power of trees to help solve some of the planet's most pressing problems. From Michigan to Madagascar, the Arbor Day Foundation is planting trees at the speed of a changing world in communities and forests across the globe. See how you can do your part at arborday.org slash NPR. This message comes from the United States Postal Service. In business, there's no room for guesswork. Every shipment and deadline matters. When you're trying to keep operations running smoothly, the last thing you need is uncertainty. That's why reliability is at the core of USPS ground advantage. Each package moves through a secure, nationwide network tracked from dock to door. It's delivery you can depend on. Visit usps.com slash ground advantage to learn more about how you can start shipping with confidence. I want to go back to something that you said when you said that you're turning 60 this year. I remember when I turned 60, it was also a monumental. It was a very, very major part of my life. It was a lot of changes going on. And 60 is a recognition of, okay, we're almost there. This is almost, we're not at the end, but we're almost there. But not yet again. Yeah. But so everything has to count now. The age of making mistakes and learning from the mistakes, of course, we do that our whole lives. But we hope that most of it is behind us now. I'm going to be 68 this year so that 70 is looking really, really like a big giant sign on the highway. Right? It's like, so I know how I deal with that through my own life and with my relationships, my friendships and all that. What fascinates me about doing this job is talking to musicians like you who have a way of expressing those same things that we all feel except through lyrics, through music, through self-discovery. That's what this record, it really, now it makes sense to me where you are with this record and where you went back to this and what you're looking at within yourself with this record. Did this feel especially different because of that monument of turning 60? Completely. Completely, but I didn't perceive it at the moment. Like my friend Ben Cedron, the jazz musician, says you only see records in the rearview mirror. So I'm actually learning, in this interview and the interviews that I'm doing these days, I'm learning what the record is about. And of course, you start talking about the record, you start building like a speech about the record. But you forget of very important things. It's that perception, the perception that your parents are gone, you're the first one in line, you see the horizon there. And then at the same time, I don't know, I feel extremely alive and still very, with a strong will of investigating, of finding new things, of dancing, exploring new territories. But at the same times, you get this feeling of, I need to go towards what is really important for me, what it really describes me. I have to start talking about a thing that it's very difficult to, but it has to do with essence. What's your job in this planet? What are you here for? I have a song about that, it's called Nuestro Trabajo, saying, what is my role in society? What am I supposed to do in this community? What is my role? And you explored a lot, but you start taking away the non-important things and trying to leave the essence. I started making this record, I'm realizing now. I had just worked with PJ Sinsuela, I had worked with Bobby, a rap electronic musician, Argentinian, with Pedro Capoe, I worked with a lot of very contemporary artists. And I thought when I started making this record, my original plan was to make a trap record, to make a very electronic record. I really started thinking about that. The first scratches of the songs with Tadu Vasquez, the Uruguayan trap producer, were really with a lot of auto-tune and just getting into that. And something along the way happened that I got in touch with this amazing generation of Uruguayan acoustic musicians. And I said, okay, some things get older quicker than other things. So I have to go to the things that I feel that are more permanent, because there's nothing older than the thing that was modern last year. So at the same time, there's this tendency in the music world right now that it's going back to your roots. It happened with El Madrileño, the Setangana, it happened with El Malquerer, the Rosalía, it happened with the VTR Masfotos, with Benito. And I said, I can do that. I'm in a place, I'm in a moment of my career, of my life, and my relationship with Uruguay, that I think I can do that. I should do that. I'm supposed to do that. And I would love to do that. So I went back to Uruguay and I gathered all those musicians and I brought people from abroad, my external vision, and started taking out cleaning, all the autotunes, I just left some of the things. There's a lot of electronic music in the background, but I tried to go to the wooden sound, tocar madera. And I think at the end of the record, it's related to the vowel A, you know, A. The vowel A, it's a name all with the same vowel. The vowel A, it's like the default sound of the phonic apparatus. We just let the air go out, ah, you know, that's why it's related to pleasure and to pain, the A. So I wanted the A vowel to be in the name. It's like a record that goes toward the default sound of the wood in the drum. That's why the first video we did with the tocar madera, with the song, it was filmed inside the drum. You can touch the wood with your eyes when you see that video, you know, and you get very close up frames with the wood. You know, it's really interesting to hear you speak specifically, Jorge, about this trend towards making traditional music, because it's absolutely something we've been seeing. And it's something that I think, you know, we talk with a lot of artists earlier in their career, I'm friends with a lot of artists earlier in their career, and they're doing this return to roots, but it's almost like, it's with perhaps a little less intention. It's just this desire to return to something that they don't quite understand, but they know they need to make it. And talking to you, there's this real intentionality behind it. And it makes me think the other night I was talking for hours and hours to Dominican artist, Alex Ferreira. He's my friend. He's a very close friend. I love Alex. So his daughter is like my sobrina. I know. She's the best. She is literally the gift to this planet. And we were talking about, speaking of these milestones, how his relationship to his music has changed since Uma came to be, since he became a dad. And particularly this desire he has to kind of make more socially conscious music, make music that's representative of the better world that he wants for her. And it's interesting to me, the way that with time with these milestones, becoming a parent, turning 60, losing parents, like that not only, it becomes a lot more intentional the things that we want to represent and the things that we want to change in our music. It's like you get to it in the same place, but from this very different, much richer perspective of life. I'm going to tell you something that it's really, it's really shocked me when you started relating it with him. It has to do with Felix's right now. I had two moments in my life when I had the feeling that I had to go back to Uruguay to record. And those moments where when I changed my family status, you are born and you are a son for a long time or a daughter for a long time until you can, I mean, you can choose to have children or not. I mean, it's not an obligation, but if you have children, then you for a while, you are a son and a father for 30 years. And then if everything goes fine, it comes to a moment when you stop being a son and you, in the last period of your life, you're just a father, you know, and those, you have those turning points, two turning points, those turning points. The first one was in 1997 when my son, first son, Pablo was born. And the next record I made was Frontera. I went back to Uruguay because when the earth moves, when you change your relationship inside your family and you, you don't know who you are anymore, because you're a new person, you're a father now, you're still a son, but you're a father, then you need, I need to touch wood, to touch base, you know, to go to the, I went back to Uruguay and I made a record called Frontera, which I relate a lot with this record, with Taracá. Frontera is a record of reconnection. It was 1998 that I went to Uruguay to record the record. And I had just moved to Spain and I was already feeling that I was afraid of losing my connection to Uruguay and I had to go back. Then I came back to Spain to do all my records and I came back now when this other thing happened, that I stopped being a son and I became only a father and I'm going to be a father just for the rest of my life. So those things that happened to Alex when Uma came to the world, her daughter came to the world, you start reconsidering what your role inside your family, which is the root of your community is and you start thinking about that. And those are turning really important turning points and it's not at all a coincidence that you go back to your roots when those things happen to you. Jorge Drexler, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us, bro. It's always a pleasure. I'd like to consider these conversations, these ongoing conversations that we have somewhere down the line. We'll pick it up from here. Like one big conversation that we're having along the time. Thank you, Namaria. Thank you, Felix. It was beautiful talking to you. Gracias. Hope to see you in person. Ciao, ciao. You have been listening to All Latino from NPR Music. Our audio editor is Noah Caldwell. The executive producer of NPR Music is Saree Mohamed. And the executive director of NPR Music is Senali Mekta. Okay, so once again, if you enjoyed this episode, we always appreciate, I don't know why they try to make us say positive review. Leave whatever review you want on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. He's supposed to read it and read it. I don't care. I want the people to be liberated. And we always love hearing directly from you too. So send us an email at altlatino at npr.org. Let us know what's on your mind. You always do. I'm Felix Contreras. I'm Anna Maria Saree. Thank you so much for listening. This message comes from 1-800-FLOWERS. 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