Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2023: Reggaeton, Salsa,Bachata, Bomba, Latin Jazz, Merengue, Urbano and more Latinx

Kazzabe from Honduras are touring the US . They like to have twerking dancers in most of their videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI2GQtw0hrk

Combo Chimbita have gotten the hipster seal of approval. A gig tonight in a small DC rock club with an electro-hiphop opener and then off to the Big Ears fest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNoD-bGLths

X-post - Kazzabe are a Garifuna band playing Punta . They have not been invited to Big Ears alas, not even sure if they’re on the radar of reggaeton fans . Been around for a bit too, so not sure if they have tik tok attention

Charlie Aponte who sang with El Gran Combo for years is now touring and doing a gig in DC area with Orquesta Galvan at the Palace. Salsa gigs are fun at that place

Starting to get into the torchy Chilean pop singer Mon Laferte as a result of my recent explorations of Soda Stereo and Latino karaoke.

I guess she’s a Mexican citizen now.

Focusing first on her 2015 album Mon Laferte Vol. 1.

Now checking out some more recent ones. There are also some slightly bizarre videos of her out there doing battle on a Mexican Idol-type show called Yo Soy against a Peruvian Amy Winehouse imitator named Ana or Ani Rodríguez.

Norma was supposedly recorded in one day in Capitol Studio A with no overdubs. Sounding pretty good upon first listen.

Seems like she got her first big break on a Chilean Idol show called Rojo when she came in third and became part of the Clan Rojo. She was calling herself Monserrat Bustamante at the time. Her full name is Norma Monserrat Bustamante Laferte. She's got a big voice and it seems she can sing almost anything.

She is holding a big onion on the cover of Norma like she is about to cut it. Wonder if it symbolizes música cebolla, a genre I never heard until I just looked her up a little while ago.

She's won four Latin Grammys so far.

Loving this collabo with iLe from last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHe7DSZWFEY

Her Metallica cover is good too. Okay I’ll stop for now.

Maybe I should start a separate thread, but who will read it? Probably as many as read this or the Cerati/Soda Stereo thread.

Unperson mentioned her doing a political protest against Chile on the Latin Grammys some years ago. I noted in 2021 that Jon Pareles of New York Times had her album as one of his faves for the year. I also saw a Washington Post article about her interest in various Mexican traditional regional styles.

Laferte is very dramatic sometimes and theatrical. A powerful voice.

Yes I saw all that in the archives, but useful to have it summarized here. I am starting to relate to some of her material directly instead of just being wowed by the big voice and image which is nice.

Because I think maybe the chops and stylistic diversity can distract from the actual talent that also seems to be there.

Really digging her SoCal LA album, 1940 Carmen. Which has three extremely personal songs in Google Translate English.

“Química Mayor” quotes her favorite Soda Stereo song, or at least I assume it must be, since that’s the one she was doing on the Gracias Totales tour. The overall effect of the album for me as if various David Lynch chanteuses such as The Radiator Girl, Rebekah Del Rio and the Connie Francis ringer(s) all escaped through the Mulholland Drive wormhole and struck out on their own.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/current-trends-in-cuban-music-tickets-596027563487

Current trends in Cuban music panel 6 to 8 pm eastern time tonight Tuesday April 18, live in NYC and online streaming

I missed it unfortunately. Would have been nice to hear the takes of: CHRISTOPHER WASHBURNE is a Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Columbia University and the Founder of Columbia’s Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program.

BENJAMIN LAPIDUS is a Professor of Music at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate Center of the City of New York (CUNY).

I wonder if either have been to Cuba lately

My wife played this song for me the other day and now I want to hear the whole album. It's from 1975, and apparently the only album this group ever made, ironically called Reincarnation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgqURgit0m8

https://www.discogs.com/artist/1477688-Orquesta-Narvaez

Wasn't familiar with Orquesta Narvaez, but yeah in that song they have that great mid-1970s NYC rooted salsa horns and percussion danceable sound

the recent crossover moment for regional mexican music's young stars is kicking into overdrive with "ella baila sola" by eslabon armado and peso pluma just reaching top 10 on the hot 100 and #1 on spotify both in the us and globally. bad bunny just released a song w/ grupo frontera that replaced "ella baila sola" at #1 on the global spotify chart and is also #1 on us apple music. peso pluma has 5 other songs on the hot 100 (tho the second highest-charting one, the remix to yng lvcas's "la bebe", is reggaeton). i imagine the managers of a few anglo artists are salivating

Thanks. Fascinating to see this happen, as despite same language the genres have always seemed so separate.

feels like that started here: natanael cano and corridos tumbados

Pop Conference talks Sun Apr 30

Gathering Together Under a Dembow Beat: The Cultural Politics of Reggaeton in the Global Arena
Room 202, 370 Jay Street
María Elena Cepeda, “What Does J Balvin Suffer From?: The Interlocking Discourses of Race, Region and Mental Disability in The Boy From Medellín”
Luis Rivera Figueroa, “Negotiating the Pan-Latin/x American Identity: Karol G’s Star Image in Puerto Rico”
Christopher Joseph Westgate, “Ana Macho’s Archipelago: Toward a Reggaeton Fluido for Puerto Rico

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kiko-el-crazy-pilae-teteo/

Is Dominican Kiko el Crazy as influential to Rosalia and Bad Bunny as stated in this article?

Kiko is doing a gig near me.

been meaning to listen to his album. sometimes you just need some relentless dembow bass to blast the bad feelings away

first 2 cuts are definitely relentless. "Pichirry" has some El Alfa like sped up vocals

el alfa guests on that one, no?

produced by his favorite producer Chael Produciendo too

x-post-- I guess so, I [ducks head] was listening on Spotify on my phone and it didn't list guest vocalists there

After first listen I wish album had more variety in tempos, and not just mostly "relentless" . There are a few cuts that kinda vary

i almost always listen to dembow when i'm in the mood to listen to dembow. i don't mind the constant "relentlessness" because it scratches a very specific itch for me.

I missed it unfortunately. Would have been nice to hear the takes of: CHRISTOPHER WASHBURNE is a Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Columbia University and the Founder of Columbia’s Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program.

BENJAMIN LAPIDUS is a Professor of Music at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and The Graduate Center of the City of New York (CUNY).

I wonder if either have been to Cuba lately

In his recent book Ben calls out Chris about something in his book, which I asked Chris about last year. Let’s see if I can tell this.

The story is that when bassist Bobby Rodriguez was asked if he knew Charlie Parker he said “Know him? I helped kill him!” (By dealing him drugs)

Another musician also told me about Bobby Rodriguez saying this to him on a plane flight. Last summer I saw the other guy and Chris playing with Bobby Sanabria at a free show in midtown. I asked Chris “did he tell you that story?” And Chris said “no, Bobby (Rodriguez) told it to me himself.” They had been on a plane together, Chris asked Bobby if he could interview him and said something like “you’ve played with a lot of famous people what can you tell me blah blah blah” and Bobby R volunteered the “Charlie Parker? Know him, I helped kill him!” story. I guess anybody who sat next to him on an airplane would hear this story. Ben Lapidus has several pages of analysis about what made Bobby Rodriguez such a great bass player to counterbalance this tag line.

I don’t own a copy of Chris’s book, I read a library copy, so I can’t refer to it. I enjoyed it but felt it was more of a sociological book whereas Ben Lapidus’s book seems to have a lot more musical and historical detail.

I am referring to Sounding Salsa here. I do have Latin Jazz: The Other Jazz. I have dipped into it but haven’t read it properly. There seem to be a lot of good detailed case studies.

Lapidus thinks the Cuban music panel with Washburne was filmed and they may make it available online. Will let you know. I haven't read either's book yet, but as always they're on my list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1nGgM7F81g

I found it . But first 7 minutes or so are of a intro and some tech issues. Will check out this "Trends in Cuban Music " panel later

Where do you follow Lapidus?

p4k included rosa pistola's cumbiaton total on their list of overlooked albums. short, 20-min survey of mexico city's "cumbiaton" scene (mix of reggaeton beats with cumbia instrumentation, occasionally also with hyperpop vocals and various animal noises). no surprise it bangs, particularly the first song "mamita sensual"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv9YP5OyT3A

it feels close to the spirit of first-wave reggaeton, with spare beats created by hard, primitive synthesizers and elevated by the sheer audacity of the beats and charisma of the vocals.

x-post to James Redd-- I follow prof and musician Lapidus on Instagram and his musician page on Facebook

Isabelia Herrera wrote about both Kiko El Crazy and Rosa Pistola's Cumbiaton total for P4k