Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2020: Reggaeton, Salsa, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Bachata, Merengue, Urbano and more Latinx

still really curious what reggaeton song you were spacing out on!

Natti Natasha w/ Zion & Lennox “Te Mueves “ is the song

https://youtu.be/ceuhJ9F99DM

I have liked certain Zion & Lennox songs in the past too, but have never really sat down and listened intently. They have performed in DC area multiple times and I have yet to see them ( but I should).

yeah, “Te Mueves” is pretty good.

Am also liking Sech’s “Relacion” , although I kinda like the choir backing him up more than Sech on that cut

RIP Puerto Rican salsa singer Cano Estremera

https://heavy.com/entertainment/cano-estremera-death/

RIP 99 years old Cuban percussionist Candido

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/01/arts/music/j-balvin-fortnite-concert.html

j Balvin did a Halloween concert on Fortnite

In recent years, thee gloriously notorious La Montra, AKA Rita Indiana, has become better known for her dystopian novels, but now she's back with Mandinga Times, which is pretty amazing, esp. on headphones, and well-covered here, by Daniel Alarcón:
Last year, Indiana felt ready to come back to music. Much of the recording was done in the fall, just months after Puerto Rico’s most tumultuous time in recent memory, when two weeks of raucous street protests forced the resignation of the governor. The political energy of last summer is evident on the album; its songs, sung in the voice of Mandinga, Indiana’s gender-neutral alter ego, feel like anthems of discontent. The finishing touches were applied after the world had shut down, making the album feel less like a warning about a dark but still avoidable future and more like musical stenography documenting our current predicament. But, like Indiana’s earlier music, and like her work more broadly, “Mandinga Times” is also an immersion in hybridity: it’s merengue with a heavy-metal heart; it’s gagá mixed with thrash, reggaetón and punk, dembow, trap, and Middle Eastern melodies; it’s love songs and battle raps and protest music. When I asked Cabra to describe the album to me, he struggled. To say that it was eclectic was only half true, he said. In fact, each song was eclectic, diverse moods and styles alternating in a single track. “I find it hard to place Rita’s project within a genre,” he said. “If I describe how her music sounds, I think that takes away its power.” That's the album's producer, Eduardo Cabra, of the legendary Puerto Rican band Calle 13
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/26/rita-indianas-songs-for-the-apocalypse

Looks like Emilio Solla won the Latin Grammy for Best Album. Haven't heard the record but just looking at the members of the band makes me want to hear it.

Been watching some of it tonight on Univision. Saw Karol G song pop/ reggaeton; J Balvin reggaeton; some balladeers and some Mexican regional acts. Just now Pit Bull with a rap-rock group

X-post — Solla won for best Latin Jazz album

So he’s an Argentinian who moved to Spain and then US. This album with his tango jazz orchestra and guests came out in December 2019.

https://latinjazznet.com/reviews/cds/featured-albums/emilio-solla-tango-jazz-orchestra-puertos-music-from-international-waters/

Residente won song of the year for “Rene” beating out some bigger names

Natalia Lafourcade beating out Bad Bunny for Latin Grammys album of the year

Natalia Lafourcade beating out Bad Bunny for Latin Grammys album of the year

Good.

Natalia Lafourcade’s “Un Canto por México Vol. 1, got an honorable mention from Amanda Petrusich in the New Yorker.

The only Latinx album she listed . None in her top 10

I kinda like both. Lafourcade has moved away from the pop/rock En espanol she was doing to a more traditional Mexican sound with horns and such.

Bad Bunny bends the framework of reggaeton a bit, and sometimes gives subtle nods to some salsa greats he loves

Lido Pimienta and Bad Bunny in the NPR top 10 ( list is longer than 10)

This X Alfonso album by a Cuban guy into hiphop and more that’s in the bottom of the NPR top 50 album list looks intriguing

loving the Natalia Lafourcade

on Bad Bunny being the world's most streamed artist and how the UK didn't see it coming:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/dec/04/how-did-bad-bunny-become-the-worlds-biggest-pop-star

(reminded me of that cursed ILM thread about the "reggaeton-lite fad" supposedly being the "the 'Shit Trend' in pop music right now")

it's funny to see the anglo side of the american industry try to cross maluma over (via "hawái," perfunctorily remixed w/ the weeknd) when "dákiti" is right there, handily outperforming the vast majority of anglo hits week after week without even trying

i gave bad bunny's album a listen... honestly, it could stand to be quite a bit shorter. but the stretch from "dákiti" to the end is strong

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/chart-beat/9495004/bad-bunny-el-ultimo-tour-del-mundo-billboard-200-number-one

I still haven’t listened to latest Bad Bunny. Earlier one this year has made some critics poll lists

“Si veo a tu mama” has crept up to be one of his biggest songs this year which was weird for me at first since it’s an unusual casiotoned beat for him (think “hotline bling” or “cha cha”) but I guess it makes sense in a world without parties to dance to Dakiti, Vete or Ignorantes which are also huge but expectedly so.

today I overheard a norteño version blasting out of a car of “si veo a tu mama”; I don’t know what to make of it but I love that it exists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CjWs1Cpb4o

Despite the “girl from ipanema” reference it actually sounds a lot like 50s/60s rock n roll songs... a case has been made by mashing up with Ramon Ayala’s cover of Despeinada by Los Hooligans.

Here’s the original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DCBSI5m8fY

Here’s the Ramon Ayala cover v Bad Bunny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN7R6rFSsI8

It’s a bit forced but I can definitely hear what the person who did the mashup heard first.

Los Angeles has long had ( so I have read) a radio program that plays 50s rock and doo wop music that is aimed to a Latin audience. That may be the case elsewhere too. Bachata has also drawn from 50s sounds, and there are likely Latin pioneers who deserve props. So all of the above makes sense. Thanks Moka.

Kali Uchis draws from the old school Cuban Los Zafiros doo wop and 50s style Sleepwalk guitar a bit on her latest.

I don’t turn to Ann Powers at NPR generally for Latin picks, she is mostly into Americana & some r’n’b these days, but I am curious about Gabriel Garzon-Montano album Aquita that she included in her top 10 and she says has some reggaeton aspect to it

X-post - Norteno & reggaeton together at last

If you want to hear reggaeton in a different context, check out that Rita Indiana album I stanned for upthread.
Re the 50s, this album is fun---here's my 2007 Columbus OH show preview:
Los Straitjackets
Thursday @Little Brother’s

Mexican-wrestling-masked Los Straitjackets specialize in mad-to-mellow surfabilly instrumentals, but their new Rock En Espaňol, Volume One sports several vivacious guest vocalists on reborn 60s Spanish-language radio hit versions of contemporaneous Top 40 hits, dance pop all the way. Los Lobos’ Cesar Rosas gets “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” into (and out of) “El Microscopico Bikini”; Little Willie G., of East L.A. mainstays Thee Midnighters, lilts and tilts “Dame Una Sena”(“Gimme Little Sign”); and “Calor” (AKA “Slow Down”) is cool-rocked by Big Sandy, special guest on Los Straitjackets’ current tour.

Well, 60s, yeah, but continuing from the 50s, like "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Slow Down" were Larry Williams records in the 50s, covered by the Beatles etc.

Good radio interview: Tracks include "De Dia y de Noche" ("All Day and All Night"), popularized by the Kinks, "La Hiedra Venenosa" ("Poison Ivy"), made famous by the Coasters, and many more. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10936204

A couple of years later, they came back:
Los Straitjackets
Launched via surf and desert twang, masked instrumental combo Los Straitjackets embody giddy light years of rock ‘n’ roll history, including its recurring Latin inflections. “My Heart Will Go On” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” are also welcomed to the pulp jungle. Their latest album, The Further Adventures, channels z-movie soundtracks, garage punk and other radical radiation into LS originals. Guitarist Daddy O Grande is currently unable to tour, but his cousin Gregorio has stepped up.
09/11 @ The Rumba Cafe, 2507 Summit St.
9 p.m.

Los Straightjackets are good , but are coming at it from a different cultural perspective- white guys into rockabilly, surf, Mexican wrestling masks and more.

At least I think they’re all Anglo.

But you’re right that via their Rock En Espanol effort what they’re doing is related.

All of the records and live sets that I've heard tend to go toward what John Storm Roberts called the Spanish tinge of American pop-rock continuity, in the time frame they draw from----I mean for inst, in the surfabilly stuff, Dick Dale was not shy about crediting the influence of his Middle Eastern background, but that of course also goes around the Med to Spain, Mexico, California, surfacing also in their Spaghetti Western themes and so on---they're not deep, or trying to be, but it's fun and they know what they're doing.

(Although I'm no doubt subject to the power of suggestion as well.)

Via author/musician Ned Sublette's newsletter: Israel Berriel González died of a heart attack in Jovellanos, Cuba Dec 18. A top Cuban rumba & ritual singer/composer of Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, & previously w/Afro Cuba de Matanzas, Berriel was born on Sept 21, 1937

Burning Ambulances (unperson) tweeted:

@burn_amb
Watched the first episode of the Netflix series ROMPAN TODO - a 6 part documentary about Latin American rock - and it's pretty great, going all the way back to the late '50s and ending in about 1970-71. Reviews suggest later episodes are patchier, but I'm liking it so far.
retweet w comment:
@owlred 7m
Also check for inst Caifanes, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Soda Stereo, 60s bands like Traffic Sound.

burning ambulance (NOW A RECORD LABEL!)
@burn_amb
· 17h
The Latin rock of the 1990s and early 2000s really was something. Café Tacvba played one of the best live shows I've ever seen, and even on a latter-day reunion tour, Maldita Vecindad were amazing.
Show this thread

X-post — I wrote up Los Munequitos back in 2002 when they came to DC. Was a good show as I recall. Traditional Cuban rumba with great percussion that was danceable

Got turned onto the Ranil compilation via Bandcamp's year-end list, it's sweet.

https://analogafrica.bandcamp.com/album/ranil-y-su-conjunto-tropical-limited-dance-edition

https://theundefeated.com/features/jazz-musicians-see-signs-of-hope-despite-repeated-questions-about-its-popularity/

I enjoyed this the few times I watched. Am guessing James Redd watched em even more. From the Undefeated article:

Arturo O’Farrill, for instance, launched a weekly Virtual Birdland Concert Series as he led the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, a labor-intensive effort that involved 18 musicians filming and recording their individual parts before turning their work over to a sound engineer and video editor who worked 40-hour weeks to put on a concert.

The series, an extension of the orchestra’s normal Sunday night gig at New York’s Birdland club, was launched to raise money for an emergency musicians fund organized by O’Farrill, a four-time Grammy winner, and his nonprofit Afro Latin Jazz Alliance.

“We had musicians giving of themselves when they themselves were hurting, all in order to help their colleagues,” O’Farrill said. “We’ve had episodes with musicians in five different countries participating — a percussionist in Kuwait, a singer in Paris, a trumpet player in London, and a guitar player in Abu Dhabi, and musicians here — all performing one piece at the same time in a way that you couldn’t do except by amassing a huge debt in airplane tickets.

“Initially we didn’t think this would live in the confines of a computer,” O’Farrill said. “But it has reached people who could never afford in a thousand years to come to New York to the real Birdland. This has truly been one of the very best things I’ve ever experienced.”

x-post- ooh , will give a listen to Ranil,70s era Peruvian cumbia w/ influences from Brazil and Colombia

You guessed right, although I took a break for a while.

Seems like there is a special Xmas one starting right now.

Cuban salsa and timba lives:

HIT PARADE (LISTA DE ÉXITOS) DE SALSA Y TIMBA, OCTUBRE 2020
1.DEJA LA MAGIA (Pupy y los que son) 2.- ME DA LA GANA, Barbaro Y MAYIMBE 3.- RAZA – @HavanaDePrimera 4.- SUFRIENDO TU AMOR- @elnino_laverdad 5.- LABIO DE MIEL , Leo Vera 6.- CALLAITOS . @PauloFGoficial pic.twitter.com/BqJmjLKq7x

— SALSA Y TIMBA OFICIAL (@salsaytimbaperu) October 31, 2020

I saw Cuban timba group Pupy y Los Que Son years ago and they were great. I think Pupy was once in Los Van Van

only found out about this banger just now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCufThTuB3M
El Alfa ft. Chael Produciendo • Singapur

because of this remix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3niVHCdB1wA
El Alfa ft. Chencho Corleone, Myke Towers & Justin Quiles (& Farruko) • Singapur (Remix)

¡¡¡Singapurrrrrr!!!

(note to self: this happens when you only pay very casual attention to reggaeton)