Okay, before we start on that, we have to tell our listeners something. You may have noticed that there's been a change in the All Songs Considered podcast feed. That feed is now just called NPR Music. You're right, Felix. It's got a fancy new look, cool new artwork, and a new name, but don't freak out. You'll still hear the same NPR Music shows you already know and love. All Songs Considered on Tuesdays, Alt Latino on Wednesdays, and New Music Friday on Fridays. Only now with a name that sums up the fact that you're getting all of NPR Music's shows in one place. And don't worry, Felix. Felix, stop worrying. The Alt Latino podcast feed is still around, so no changes there. Exciting. Okay, from NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Let the chisme begin. The chisme is still new music. I had so much stuff left over from when I was out, and it keeps piling up. So we got to get through this because there's a ton of great stuff. You're first. But I went first last week. Okay, fine. So I brought in a song that I think is going to perfectly set off the tone for this episode. It's called Mi Borracho, and it's by Quevedo. Yo digo por ahí que en Canarias no se sale Que en Canarias no hay enrale Ya suenan los metales ya suenan los timbales Los vientos y las cuerdas que vienen carnavales Moro en cada esquina la frutera la vecina Este no hay sitio pa casarse me va a llevar a la ruina Azul, amarillo y blanco, obvio claro que combinan Sé cuando empieza la fiesta, pero no cuando termina A mí me encanta tu cuerpo, ay mi niña dame un cacho Starting out slow, I see. Felix, do you remember when you said that merengue is too fast to dance to? I will never forget. For me. I can merengue till the end of time, Felix. Well, maybe with my hip replacement. Maybe, ooh, I ought to try it. Ooh. Maybe they give me a merengue hip. So I wrote this song because I love a merengue, and this is a very contemporary merengue. It's by Quevedo. I don't know if you know who he is, Felix, but he's like a very famous singer. He's a Spanish singer, probably one of the most, if not the most famous singer in Spain right now, or male singer, maybe Rosalia would be female. But he's had a bunch of huge hits in Latin America using Latin American sounds. And so when I heard this song, I was like, wow, he does a really good merengue. But you listen to the lyrics and he's from the Canary Islands. And you can hear that everywhere. It's like filled, filled, filled with all these very specific references. He names different islands, different cities. He uses all the local slang. And I was like, how weird that he would make a merengue as this like homage to Spain, to the Canary Islands. So I looked this up, Felix. Encyclopedia Britannica did tell me. Apparently, so Dominican music, most Dominican music is this really interesting, beautiful blend of African sound and then Spanish sound. And apparently most of the immigrants from Spain migrated from the Canary Islands to the Dominican Republic. And they brought an early variant of merengue with them. So merengue is actually, while yes, definitely from the Dominican Republic, has some really strong origins specifically in the Canary Islands. And they're also part of that is Chuines, which I don't know if you know Chuines. It's like that traditional Dominican kind of like poetic singing. and mangolina, which kind of sounds like an earlier, it's a dance form in the Dominican Republic that kind of has an earlier merengue sound to it. Both of those also came in part from the Canary Islands. So in the Canary Islands, merengue is still incredibly popular and they have a carnaval every year, which is happening about right now. And it's like all merengue, the whole carnaval is what they play. So this was released with the idea of him being a participant, quote unquote, in the Canary Islands Carnaval and immediately became the most listened to song in Spain. It completely blows my mind about that trace, that journey that music makes from there and how it gets mixed up. It's another example. I'm just kind of taken aback because I never would have associated merengue with the Canary Islands, with Spain. Yeah, at all. I didn't even think Spanish people dance. Yeah. And they came merengue Anyways, that was Ni Borracho by Quevedo Okay, I'm gonna change it up a little bit, whiplash time There's a new solo album coming from Joey Quiñones He's the lead singer of Be Sinceres The Southern California Chicano soul with the oldies tint kind of band A great new record it sounds like There's a single out, it's called Drifting And we'll talk a little bit about it after we listen to it. When I tell you that I've been thinking, I'm still drinking on the memory. Do you remember How it used to be Tim, can you feel it? Can you feel it? We're drifting out of memory I keep on trying to find To keep on Keep on holding on Holding on Till it gets I Get back And if it's memories That we're drifting on Just let me drift away I'm still here I want to leave I want to leave Felix, I'm imagining now. It's bringing back all the memories for you. Watching all the cool guys with the cool cars ride around with the girls. Me with my mom and dad's car. While you watched from afar and listened to the souls fill out the windows Such a sad truth man I wasn even there and i know you know it crazy for me to even say the classic chicano soul because with this music we're only talking what maybe 10 years right the whole southern california oldies thing sure and it goes back to like you said like my high school days the 70s like when music that was heavily influenced by R&B and everything else. Like this whole Chicano soul thing was just an expression of African-Americans and Chicanos living side by side and making music together and listening to a lot of the same stuff. I want to play something. It's a song and style that influenced Chicano soul. And when I heard Drifting, it reminded me of this. It's called Yes, I'm Ready by Barbara Mason from 1965. Check it out. I don't even know how to love you Just the way you want me to But I'm ready to learn Yes, I'm ready to learn To fall for love To fall in love So you see that connection? I mean, it's... Yeah, a thousand percent. It's just such a big part of that sound, and I'm always fascinated. I'm really... I didn't appreciate it when I was younger. It was like, oh, yeah, the oldies thing, yeah. But as I got older and I understand a little bit more about music and about, you know, sociocultural things, it just completely makes sense, and it's just such a profound statement that oldies lowrider music reflects that OG cultural mashup, like I said, between African-Americans and Chicanos. These young people that are making that music out there in California, I'm there for it, man. I love this distinction. Chicano soul serves as this really important to me distinguishing marker, too, of the purity of Chicano culture. I think the fact that it is so heavily influenced by and really just right next to what at the time is soul music being made by black people in this country shows really like the disparateness of the cultures, right? From Mexico. I was talking to someone over the weekend. She's from Sinaloa. She lives in Nashville. And she was like, I moved to Nashville because I felt more at home in Nashville than I did in California. Because Chicano culture feels so distinct to me from the culture of my upbringing in Sinaloa. Like the southern culture feels a lot closer. And I think that that is a really important thing that at this point in time in history, right when this is happening in the 60s there is a deep integration especially I think with African-American communities in Southern California specifically because of what is now its own distinct Californian culture that has yes Mexican roots and Mexican influence on on the front end but really becomes its own thing and that's you can hear it in the music you can hear in the way that people make what they write what comes naturally to them at this point there's such a deep integration into that California culture that includes the African-American communities. And it's always been there as long as people live next to each other. I mean, a generation before this was the Pachuco Boogie, right? The R&B, like post-World War II, big band boogie, R&B, rock and roll thing. It's always there. And like you said, it continues on through to even right now. And Joey's, I mean, such a cool example of this. And I love that he's working more on a solar project because it's not just these sincere. I mean, he is the Altens. I mean, all of these kind of baby bands that have sprung from this newer movement of Chicano soul in Los Angeles. He is like the leader. He is the spearheader. And people know the Sacred Souls now more broadly nationally. And he was the impetus. He was the starter of that. I mean, he has his own imprint record label that we've talked about before. And so he's been really a fundamental part of bringing back this music. And also, especially now, even more and more and more and more gentrification becomes an issue in Boyle Heights, in East Los Angeles. And they're really using this music as a way to say, hey, we've been here. We're established in this community and look at the lineage that we have here. You know, because a cultural lineage from the 50s, 60s is a pretty big deal for California. And I will, you know, you bring up a sore spot. I will admit it. Because when I hear stuff like this, I love the music. But it also reminds me of those days of just standing on the side like everybody else is cool but me. Just standing on the side with my mom and dad's car. We've had this conversation before, Felix. The drummers are the ones that get the girls. And I don't understand what your problem was. That's another. You're like, no, it's the guitar players. Another topic for another podcast. Let's move on. That is Drifting from Joey Quinones. He has a full album coming out. It's called In a Soul Situation. It's going to be out in May. So he's dropping these singles, and I'm here for it. Okay, my turn again. Oh, I'm really excited about this one. You're going to like it. Okay. Argentine singer, her name is Carolina Mama, and she produced this entire album with Lau Noa. I don't know if you remember her. She came and played a tiny desk, amazing Brazilian artist, and Emily Elbert. She's an American artist. She was part of Esperanza Spaulding's experimental jazz and theater project, so she has her own whole life that she's lived. This song in particular is off of her first album called Amina, and this is the title track, Amina. You hide yourself, it was difficult to find you In a world that leaves you life You cry and cry, the one who doesn't forget You're still in the Brazilian mood from last week, man. My next cut is Brazilian, too. What can I say? The Brazilians do well. Although she's Argentine, but clearly production influence from Laonoa and in general from the region. And I think that this also, too, to me, like hearing this kind of sound in the record of an Argentine singer to me is like, oh, Brazil really is being exported in some interesting ways these days. I mean, obviously, I'm literally trying to put it out there by bringing on all these Brazilian records. And I think more and more I'm hearing some of that. But a stylistic crossover to me, like a production crossover, a more subtle crossover is like that's always a sign that we're really on our way to blending. Like I always name, I reference when I talk about reggaeton crossing over to the US for the first time, it's like I say there's dembo in Sorry, the Justin Bieber song, right? Like hearing the beats hearing the rhythms hearing the production first come out before an artist necessarily a Brazilian artist but just that those sounds make its way That a blend in Latin America we haven really seen as much in the past Brazil always isolated always So anyways, I love this record. I like the folkloric instruments, the acoustic, Berumba, the shakers, the cachichi, all of that stuff, all the percussion stuff, which I have locked up in stores right now. But I just love hearing all of the intricacies because it's all rhythm, but it's part of the whole pastiche. It's like a quilt, right? Like you take one little shaker out and the whole thing falls apart. That was the title track Amina off of the new record Amina by Carolina Mama. I think it's time for a break, Felix. Okay, one break coming up. Okay. All right, Felix. I have a power trio. It's sort of an all-star group. It's a couple of drummers and a bass player, keyboard guy, synthesizer guy. The group is called Ellipsis, features Michael League, Pedrito Martinez, Antonio Sanchez. This track is called Suru. It's Felix's dream record, man. And it's like an all-drum record. But there's a lot to listen, okay? Check it out, and then we'll talk about it. Okay, that is the voice of Pedrito Martinez. He's one of the members of this group. He's a solo artist. He's a side man. He's one of the best contemporary rumbero performers, vocalists out there. He's a masterful command of Afro-Cuban folkloric drumming and singing, as you heard there. references Yoruba culture, all that stuff. The band also includes Antonio Sanchez, who plays drums and electronics and electronic percussion. He's played for a very, very long time with jazz musician Pat Metheny. He's done film soundtracks. He has his own band called Bad Hombre. It's just, he's really attuned to a lot of different intricacies, right? And then the third guy is Michael League. He's the leader, bass player of a band called Snarky Puppy. Big time jazz fusion band, big fan of that band. And they're just these guys, they just, Antonio Sanchez and Michael League live in Barcelona. And they get together and they played and they did some stuff and they said, you know, we ought to do something. So they invited Pedro Martinez to do it. You know, I said it's an all drum record and people are going to like, oh, my God, I couldn't listen to a whole album worth of drums, maybe. But I got to say, there's different ways to listen to it because you could listen for the great example of the Afro-Cuban drumming that he does on every track. There's a lot of different ways to do it. You can also listen to the mashup of the musical traditions. Antonio Sanchez, he's from Mexico City. He grew up in the Mexican jazz scene, and he came to the United States, went to Berkeley. And he's just opened up the expansion, the role of the drum set, because it's so melodic. It keeps time, but it's also part of the melody. And then Michael League has this whole thing of just this amazing snarky puppy band that he started. and so many different influences from 70s funk and jazz and fusion and all this other stuff if you listen to the whole record there's a lot of different ways to get into it and all the different mashups of traditions and cultures and it's not a traditional song like it doesn't the beginning and end the bridge and all that other stuff it's like a big giant jam session with all these wonderful wonderful elements it may just be a felix thing but i know they're out They're touring right now, doing a lot of different stuff. So other people like it. You know, Felix, honestly, who cares if the drummers are the ones that get the girls when you can just stay at home and learn the conga parts on every Pedrito Martinez song, you know? That's something to think about. Better use some time. I do want to remind everybody that Pedrito Martinez, Antonio Sanchez's Bad Hombre, and Snarky Puppy, they all have tiny desks. So go look for them. because you can see them individually, and then you listen and you see how they mash up. The album's called Ellipsis, and the group is Ellipsis. Michael League, Pedroito Martinez, and Antonio Sanchez. Okay. Wow. We already made it to the end. Oh, this one's really good. Okay, so my spoiler from earlier was that I am bringing another Brazilian artist. This is really not on purpose, okay? It just keeps happening. Anyways, this artist, her name is Da Cruz. The artist's name is da Cruz, which is short for Mariana da Cruz. She is currently living in Bern, Switzerland, but she is from Brazil. She's an Afro-Brazilian artist that basically mixes samba, funk, all these different styles. And she's come out with this album called Som Sistema. It's this exploration of all of the sounds of the African diaspora, not all of them, but many of them. I'm going to play you a little bit off this track called Chata. I love you, I need to tell you A life is a smile for you It looks like the game turned to you I love you, I need to tell you A life is a smile for you It looks like the game turned to you Like this is not my scheme I don't like the cinema I'm a message that smells like problems I'm so chata, chata, chata, chata My blood is not cheap Bringing the mashups, man. So, I mean, you can hear a little bit of it, but on this record, she switches from South African, Amapiano, Brazilian Baile Funk, Caribbean Chata, new African club music. There's also Brazilian Trap in there, Angolan Kuduro. I mean, she really does do this like survey of African diaspora. And again, like talking about Brazil leaving Brazil, what better way to do it than through this vehicle of the exploration of the roots of Afro-Brazilian sound, right? And I mean, she is a person who is so impressive. She grew up on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. She's the seventh daughter of a cook and a cotton picker. She's been releasing music since 2008, Felix. And basically this album, it talks all about the long-term effects of colonialism, social upheaval, land grabbing from indigenous people in Brazil. So she's talking about all the themes, but she does it in this really danceable, really exciting, really fun way. I want to play you one other song. It's called Tudo Bem, Mas Complicado. you remember us two looking at the line of the horizon and everything was capable convinced that the barriers You know when you think about it It's not a lot different from the album Ellipses with all the drumming. Because there's just... Like I hear African Maclabi in this one right at the top. Doom, check, check, check, check, doom, check. But that's Baile Fong too. That's exactly what that is. It's all... Everything just sort of layers on top of everything. Just like on the other record. They're just doing it with vocals. You know what I mean? Yes. That's what I brought up last week, too, when you were like, oh, this is Afro-Cuban. These sounds. And I'm like, no, this is an artist who's actually pulling from traditional sounds from Cabo Verde, who actually has nothing. I was about to say, nothing que ver. He doesn't have anything to do with Afro-Cuban music, really. What you're hearing is... Africa. You're hearing Africa. Yeah. And you can call it all these different now diasporic names we have for it, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, Baile Funk, Music in Cabo Verde, but it's really all the same thing. It's some of the most dynamic music out there, honestly, when you can think about all these different ways to do it. Those are some songs from the album Som Sistema by the artist Da Cruz. Okay, I'm going to end the show with something very, very special. Okay, Sofia Ray is a vocalist from Argentina. She's originally from Buenos Aires. She's lived in New York for many, many years. she's always been an inventive vocalist on her own she's all these different collaborations these mix-ups and everything she has a new record coming out it's all collaborations with a variety of vocalists from various Latin American countries it's coming out in April there are two singles out right now I want to squeeze both of them in the first one is with Daimei Arosena it's called Zigzag check this out Walking in the inside To defer your anger To avoid the bullet It's a trap in the sun I know and you know it Seeking fertile, frantic, social closeness Lisa's bruised Who's lying? Who's lying? Who's lying? As beautiful as this is, watch what happens a little later in the song. the sound of this Finanzзя Which is the sound that we're more used to hearing Daimea Autocena performing, right? She's an Afro-Cuban vocalist, amazing. She's been on the show. She's been a tiny desk. but that beginning part is just a way it's just sofia ray raising the bar for music that explores a human voice not just singing but layering like a choir like we've heard other people do it and she's just harmonizing with these different musical textures and instruments that zigzag song starts with the harmonizing then you heard what it goes into later on but it's like it's the point is like these two voices come together and they create a new one on their own, right? And that's what happens at the beginning. The collaborations on this record, oh my God, Daimeh, Mireya Ramos, Pedrito Martinez again, Juana Luna, Zinio Rubinos, a group from Colombia, Carlos Añez, Mariana Baraj, Argentine vocalist, so many different things. She's really killing it. We have to play the track with Gabby Moreno. This is called Rotulo. Check it out. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey El fraco, el rótulo, el miedo a no saber quién sos Feliz con el diagnóstico, celebras a tu condición Nuevas formas y plataformas I can't wait to hear the rest of the record. You know, I think it was sometime last year they had a performance in New York where a lot of the vocalists, it must have been around the time they were making the record, they were able to go and perform on one night and it just killed me that I couldn't make it there that night in New York. I had something else going on. But Sophia Ray, man, And I've been a fan of hers for such a long time. The way she uses her voice so creatively and all these different contexts with different musicians. But this one, man, it's just there's something about this. It's just really, I think this is going to be one of my favorites of the year at the end of the year. Because, like I said, she's raising the bar on what she does with the human voice. I just went to look at who produced. I was curious. And it seems like it's mostly just her, which is amazing. I mean, she has always been like a very good manager of her project. And I say manager in the sense of like, it's really very much artistically directed and driven by her. I was shocked by that Daime track, Felix. It's so outside of anything I've ever heard her do. It was like almost like bordering on a Bjork style type of thing. And to hear Daime do that is like completely independent of her usual style. It's really, really cool. The album's called Antonima. It's coming out in April. Again, we just heard two singles, Zig Zag with Daimea Rosena and Rotulo with Gabby Moreno. You have been listening to Alt Latino. Our audio producer is Noah Caldwell. Executive producer for NPR Music is Saria Mohamed. And the executive director of NPR Music is Sonali Mehta. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Thank you for listening.
