Ana Maria Sayer (2:55)

So I brought this song because I love a merengue. And this is a very contemporary merengue. It's by Quevedo. He's. I don't know if you know who he has, 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 Spanish sound. Apparently most of the immigrants from Spain migrated to the. From the Canary Islands to the Dominican Republic and they brought a 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 chuiness, 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.

Felix Contreras (4:59)

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 island, with Spain. Yeah, at all.

Ana Maria Sayer (5:15)

I didn't even think Spanish people dance.

Felix Contreras (5:17)

Yeah.

Ana Maria Sayer (5:18)

And they que merengue. Anyways, that was Ni Borracho by Quevedo.

Felix Contreras (5:25)

Okay, I'm going to change it up a little bit. Whiplash time. There's a new solo album coming from Joey Quinones. He's the lead singer of the Sincere, 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 Driftin'. We'll talk a little bit about it after we listen to it.

Guest or Music Clip Vocalist (5:50)

When I tell you that I've been thinkin I'm still dreaming of the memory do you remember how it used to be, Jim? Can you feel it? Can you feel it? We're drifting out the memories

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I keep

Guest or Music Clip Vocalist (6:29)

on Charge my baby Keep on, keep on and on to the good time in the back. And if it's memories that we're drifting on Just let me drift away. I'm still here I'm still here I'm still here

Ana Maria Sayer (7:16)

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, other girls, me

Felix Contreras (7:28)

with my mom and dad While you

Ana Maria Sayer (7:29)

watched from afar and listened to the souls fill out the windows

Felix Contreras (7:37)

Such a sad truth, man.

Ana Maria Sayer (7:42)

I wasn't even there. And I know, you know, it's crazy

Felix Contreras (7:46)

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.

Guest or Music Clip Vocalist (7:55)

Sure.

Felix Contreras (7:56)

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. An expression of African Americans and Chicanos living side by side and making music together, listening to a lot of the same stuff. I want to play something. It's a song and style that influenced Chicano soul. And it. When I heard Drifting, it reminded me of this. It's called yes, I'm Ready by Barbara Mason from 1965. Check it out.

Guest or Music Clip Vocalist (8:27)

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.

Felix Contreras (9:00)

So you see that connection, I mean, it's.

Ana Maria Sayer (9:03)

Yeah. Thousand percent.

Felix Contreras (9:04)

It's just such a. 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 I. As I got older and understand a little bit more about music and about, you know, socio cultural things, like, 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.

Ana Maria Sayer (9:32)

I love this distinction. Chicano soul serves as this really important to me, distinguishing marker too, of like, the purity of Chicano culture. Like, I think the fact that it is so heavily influenced by. And really just like 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 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 the front end, but really becomes its own thing. And that's. You can hear it in the music. You can hear it 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.

Felix Contreras (10:55)

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 and B, like Post World War II, Big Band Boogie, R and B, rock and roll thing. It's always there. And like you said, it continues on through to even right now.

Ana Maria Sayer (11:12)

And Joey's. I mean, such a cool example of this. And I love that he's working more on his solar project, because it's not just the Sinceres. I mean, he is the Altons. 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. I mean, 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.

Felix Contreras (12:09)

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.

Ana Maria Sayer (12:25)

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, like, now it's the guitar players.

Felix Contreras (12:35)

Another topic for another podcast. Let's move on. That is drifting from Joey Quinones. He has a full album coming out 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.

Ana Maria Sayer (12:48)

Okay, my turn again. Oh, I'm really excited about this one. You're gonna like it. Okay. Argentine singer. Her name is Carolina Mama, and she produced this entire album with La 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 Spalding'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.

Guest or Music Clip Vocalist (13:45)

Hello.

Felix Contreras (14:04)

You're still in a Brazilian mood from last week, man.

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice (14:07)

My next cut is Brazilian too.

Ana Maria Sayer (14:10)

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 single, 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 Tembo 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's a blend in Latin America. We haven't really seen. Seen as much in the past. Brazil is always isolated, always. So, anyways, I loved this record.

Felix Contreras (15:13)

I like the. The folkloric instruments, the. The acoustic bedumba, the shakers, the kashishi, all of that stuff, all the percussion stuff, which I have locked up in storage right now. But I just love hearing all of the. The. The intricacies because it's. It's. It's all rhythm, but it's. 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.

Ana Maria Sayer (15:37)

That was the title track Amina, off of the new record Amina by Carolina Mama. I think it's time for a break, Felix.

Felix Contreras (15:45)

Okay, one break. Coming up,

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Ana Maria Sayer (16:34)

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Felix Contreras (17:50)

Okay.

Ana Maria Sayer (17:50)

All right, Felix.

Felix Contreras (17:51)

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. 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 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 Matheny. 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. 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 Pedrito Martinez to do it. You know, I said, it's an all drum record and people are gonna like, oh, my God. I couldn't listen to a whole album worth of drums, maybe. But I gotta 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, like, listen to the. 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 his. The expansion, the role of the drum set because it's so melodic and 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. It's 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 have beginning and end, a 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 there touring right now doing a lot of different stuff, so other people like it.

Ana Maria Sayer (21:08)

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,

Felix Contreras (21:18)

that's something to think about.

Ana Maria Sayer (21:20)

Better use of time.

Felix Contreras (21:22)

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. And then you listen and you see how they mash up. The album's called Ellipsis and the group is Ellipsis. Michael Lee, Pedrito Martinez and Antonio Sanchez.

Ana Maria Sayer (21:41)

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 Chatta.

Felix Contreras (23:03)

Bringing the mashups, man.

Ana Maria Sayer (23:04)

So I mean you can hear a little bit of it. But on this record she switches from South African amapiano, Brazilian bailiff, funk, Caribbean chatta, new African club music. There's also Brazilian trap in there, Angolan culuto. 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 Complicad.

Felix Contreras (24:51)

You know, when you think about it is it's. It's not a lot different from the album Ellipses with all the drumming. Because there's just. Because there's just like I hear Afro Cuban clavi in this one right at the top. They just.

Ana Maria Sayer (25:07)

But that's fine. That's Bailiff Funk too. That's what. That's exactly what.

Felix Contreras (25:11)

That's all. Everything. Everything just kind of 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?

Ana Maria Sayer (25:20)

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. He doesn't have anything to do with Afro Cuban music. Really. What you're hearing is Africa. You're hearing Africa.

Felix Contreras (25:46)

Yeah.

Ana Maria Sayer (25:47)

And you can call it all these different, like now diasporic names we have for it. Afro Cuban, Afro Brazilian, Bailiffunk music in Cabo Verde. But it's really all the same thing.

Felix Contreras (25:56)

It's some of the most dynamic music out there. Honestly, when you can think about all these different ways to do it.

Ana Maria Sayer (26:01)

Those are some songs from the album Som Sistema by the artist Da Cruz.

Felix Contreras (26:06)

Okay, I'm gonna end the show with something very, very special. Okay. Sophia Ray is a vocalist from Argentina. She 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 Daime Arosena. It's called Zigzag. Check this out.

Guest or Music Clip Vocalist (27:02)

Exosure Closeness leaves us bruised.

Felix Contreras (27:19)

As beautiful as this is, watch what happens a little later in the song, Which is the sound that we're more used to hearing Daime Auto center perform in. Right. She's Afro Cuban vocalist. Amazing. She's been on the show. She's been a tiny desk. But that beginning part is just the way. It's just Sophia Ray raising the bar for music that explores the human voice. Not just singing, but layering like a choir. Like we've heard other people. 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. Daime Mire Ramos Pedrito Martinez again Juana Luna Zinnio Rubinos Group from Colombia, Carlos Anez Mariana Barrage, 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.

Guest or Music Clip Vocalist (29:19)

Fr.

Felix Contreras (29:54)

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 in 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, 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 it's like I said, she's raising the bar on what she does with the human voice.

Ana Maria Sayer (30:30)

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.

Felix Contreras (31:05)

The album's called Antonima. It's coming out in April. Again, we just heard two singles, Zigzag with Daimeo Rosena and Rotulo with Gabby Moreno. You have been listening to alt latino.

Ana Maria Sayer (31:24)

Our audio producer is noah caldwell.

Felix Contreras (31:26)

Executive producer for npr music is saraya mohamed.

Ana Maria Sayer (31:29)

And the executive director of npr music is sonali mehta.

Felix Contreras (31:33)

I'm felix contreras.

Ana Maria Sayer (31:34)

And I'm ana maria sayer.

Felix Contreras (31:36)

Thank you for listening.

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