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- [00:00]
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay, now I'm recording.
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Felix Contreras
Oh, you weren't recording?
- [00:18]
Ana Maria Sayer
No.
- [00:20]
Felix Contreras
That was a nice transition, though, right?
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Ana Maria Sayer
It wasn't one of your best? Felix?
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Felix Contreras
Was.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Was good. It was great. I was impressed.
- [00:29]
Felix Contreras
From NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix.
- [00:32]
Ana Maria Sayer
And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Let the chisme begin. Felix, what do you have for me this week? You've been gone, so you gotta have something good.
- [00:44]
Felix Contreras
I've been gone. I was sick for about a week or so. Almost two weeks, actually. I was laying low, just trying to get better. So what I wanted to do this week is share my process, my healing process of how I use music for my healing process.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Is that officially verified, confirmed, diagnosed by your doctor? Yeah, they said, felix, here's your playlist for recovery.
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Felix Contreras
I actually, I could be handing out these playlists, but anyway, I have this process of, like, okay, I'm gonna start listening to stuff that will help me heal. And it's always different, different genres, different takes, just different personal sides of what I listen to. So that's what I want to play this week.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay, Well, I have a theme, too.
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Felix Contreras
Okay. What is your theme?
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Ana Maria Sayer
It's a competing theme.
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Felix Contreras
What is it?
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Ana Maria Sayer
It's really not. It's about love. Well, it's love and also really pretty songs and also peace for the soul. So I think it's actually quite compatible with your theme.
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Felix Contreras
Why am I not surprised?
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Ana Maria Sayer
It's very out of character. I know.
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Felix Contreras
Let's see. You go first, because I want to go last.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay. I had a completely different theme for today, but then I woke up in tears. Well, okay, I didn't wake up in tears, but almost immediately after waking up, I started to cry because everyone was sending me the new Blood Orange album. But more specifically, there is a song on the album that is featuring Mabe Frati and Mustafa, which is like the level of collaboration that I didn't even know the earth was capable of having. So this is the song. It's called I Can Go.
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Felix Contreras
I can go, I can go Nights that flow you into the I can go.
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Ana Maria Sayer
So for years, the two biggest fans of Mabe Frati on the music team were me and Bob Boylan. Like, truly, she is so prolific. She is so captivating. And, like, the thing about her is that she's not universal because she's Making herself palatable. Like, you cannot predict what Mabe is going to do or say in any given moment. And I have seen sat in many a hot, falling apart, overcrowded room and watched Mabe just improvise. And that is what she does, that is her gift, that is her glory. It's her cello and her voice and just everything is fair game. She plays with everything, she works with everything. She. The way she collaborates with every artist is so distinct because it's never anything else she's done before. And I think that that really sticks with people. I mean, she's like as independent as any artist can be. Like, she doesn't have management, she doesn't have a label. Like, she literally is just her showing up with her cello and blood orange, casually calling her and being like, hey, do you want to be on my record? And she goes and she does it and it works because she is so authentically, truly an artist. And I think when people talk about music being significant, being revolutionary, a lot of that is really just being what Mabe is, which is just whatever art comes out of her in any given moment, like, that's what it is and that's what it sticks. And I think people can feel that and they really, really gravitate towards that.
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Felix Contreras
It's interesting that you and I both come to her for basically the same reason, but from different angles. Because I come to her from like the experimental avant garde, jazz, improvised performance, Laurie Anderson type stuff that I heard years and years ago. And she falls within that, perfectly within that timeline for all the reasons that you just said.
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Ana Maria Sayer
But I think that's also. It's different places, but the same, right, Felix? Because an artist like Mabe can make someone like me fall in love with and have a cracked door for everything that you're describing. Because that was my experience is, like I said, sitting there, witnessing the power of being in the room as Mabe's improvising. And I've been to a ton of her. Like, she'll do improvised jam sessions in Mexico. I've sat in her house and she's like, this is just the essence of her music. And that was what for me was like, holy improvised jazz, avant garde. Like all of the things that she does. I was like, wow, I want to understand more of what this is, because there's just like this intangible chispa to what that is. It's like unbridled passion. It's just. Woo.
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Felix Contreras
Big fan, big fan here.
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Ana Maria Sayer
That was. I can go off of the new Blood Orange album. Featuring Mabe Frati and Mustafa.
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Felix Contreras
Okay. That was a very rare out Latino crossfade. Just like an old time, like a regular radio show for once. No whiplash is insane because when you played that track. And again, we have to go back a little bit. We're coming to this show today, and neither one of us knows what we're getting the other's gonna play because this is music that we're listening to. It's not necessarily new stuff, but you brought a new track in. So I brought in this track that we're listening to now by artist named Draco Rosa. The album's called sound healing. 111 or 1 hour, 11 minutes. This is a track called Quiero vivir como nunca e vivido. Let's hear a little bit and then I'll tell you all about. There's so much to say about this. Okay. Draco Rosa, for those folks who don't know, to me, he's one of the most fascinating personalities in Latin music. He started as the lead singer of the Puerto Rican boy band Menudo back in the 80s, which also featured Ricky Martin. They were huge back in the day. And he's fascinating to me because of his musical curiosity. He's a musician, producer, composer, and over the years he's been associated with rock, Latin, alternative, mainstream pop, and mainstream pop in a big way, man. He was a composer and producer for Ricky Martin's tracks Living La Vida Loca, the Cup of Life, She Bangs. I mean, big giant stuff, right? The thing to know about him too, is that he had two bouts with cancer, non Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2011, he was diagnosed and he went through treatments and he beat it. Then he came back in 2013, more treatment, and then he beat it. And as of 2019, it's his fifth year of being in remission. So healing is a big part of his perspective on life. This particular album, sound healing, 111 or 1 hour and 11 minutes, because that's how long the album is. He's using these sonic frequencies that are beneficial for healing the body, the heart, the spirit. You know, some of that sound bath frequency stuff that's. That people do that I've done, electronic instruments, acoustic instruments, sounds of nature that were recorded there in Puerto Rico. It's my go to this record for Healing when I need to recharge and I need to. Recenter, we heard just a little snippet of it, but there's so many different layers to it, and I think it's one of his most fascinating records. I had a conversation with him just after the pandemic. This record was made during the pandemic. It came out in 2021.
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Ana Maria Sayer
And.
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Felix Contreras
And I've listened to all his other stuff in the past, Vagabundo, all the other stuff that he did. But this stuff right here really speaks to me. So when I'm coming out of this, you know, my own personal. I'm. I've been sick or I've been down or for whatever reason, this record, man, is on the loop with some other stuff I mix it in. It's the perfect, perfect sanacion.
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Ana Maria Sayer
So, Felix, if I had to have guessed what you were going to bring on today, I would put Draco Rosa in the ring for sure. And with very good reason, honestly. Like. Like, the way I see it, this here on this plane exists all of the music of Puerto Rico, right? It's like you have your reton over here. You have some of your pop stuff over here. You have like your Ricky Martin and all that camp over here. And they all, like, kind of talk to each other, but also they're all doing their own thing. And then Draco Rosa just exists in this plane that is just on a whole other level. And you can hear everything, right? Like, you can hear his pop influences. You can hear, like, the rock. I'm thinking, like, 666 is coming to mind. Like, all of these people who were part of that movement at that time. And like, he keeps that very much alive, very much present. I mean, he's really still innovating in this entirely, not completely Puerto Rican way or specifically, like, it has to come from the island kind of way. But when you think about it harder, it makes sense that it does. I mean, everything he does is just very, very Draco Rosa.
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Felix Contreras
And I think too many people sleep on him. And I think that that's the way he likes it. He's. You know, it doesn't get any bigger than living la vida loca in terms of pop music. He's proven that he can do that. He's into whatever he's going to do in the creative space. Exactly the way you describe it. That was a track called Quiero vivir como nunca e vivido. I want to live like I've never lived. The album's called sound healing 111, or an hour and 11 minutes. The artist is Draco Rosa.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Very spiritual, very metaphysical, very spiritual, very Felix.
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Felix Contreras
Okay, your turn. What are you gonna combine with that?
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Ana Maria Sayer
Okay. You would think, how am I gonna top that? But just wait. Today on this Day. And this is why, partially my theme had to be love. I come to you with a track from the great, the amazing Caetano Veloso. And this track is called Voce Linda.
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Felix Contreras
It's always a treat to listen to a musician who is so fundamental to his or her respective culture or background or history. And Caetano Veloso is like, he is Brazil.
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Ana Maria Sayer
He's done so much right. Like, he's rock, pop, Tropicalia. Like, the man was exiled from Brazil for a while for his music. Like, there's so many things to say about him. But the fact that above all else, the love songs are what he is like most, most, most still listened to for. I think that says a lot about both him as an artist and who he chooses to be and how he chooses to be, and also what. How powerful and revolutionary love songs can be. I mean, Voce Elinda, it's deceptively simple, right? You Are Beautiful is literally the title of the track, but it's anything but that. I mean, the chorus says, beautiful, you know how to live, and you make me happy. This song is just to say. And it says. But then he goes on and he has these stunningly beautiful Shakespearean level, poetic lyrics. He's like, you're all the songs I've yet to listen to. And one of the reasons that I love Brazilian music, which I've been listening to a lot of lately, and that's why I brought him. And I have one other person that I'm going to show you, Felix, is because this is a really broad generalization and you can maybe challenge me on this, Felix. But I feel as though the way that Brazilians write about love is very distinct from a lot of parts of Latin America. I think especially of, like, the Mexican classics, which I'm going to play a model of that for you later on, in that there's kind of this more liberated take on it than you see in most of Latin America. Like, there's a reverence when they speak about womanliness. Especially, like, he does a lot of that where he's kind of like, it's from this more admiring perspective, as opposed to, like, a lot of Mexican. The most classic are beautiful, but they come from a more like, ownership perspective. And Cataino does exactly the opposite of that in every way. It's like woman as nature, almost like with that same kind of reverence. And so now I have to play something else.
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Felix Contreras
Okay.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Which is a cheat, but I have to play because I've been also listening to a ton of Tim Bernares. Do you know who that is?
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Felix Contreras
No.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Tim Bernardes is basically like, Next Generation is what it is. He's actually. He has collaborated with Catono Veloso a lot of times. He has been around since his first album was in 2017, and then he made us wait five more years before releasing another album in 2022. The universe breaks every time Tim releases an album. Because. Because his lyricism, I would argue Felix, is like, maybe rivaling a Jorge Drexler level of just beautiful. So I'm gonna play you a song from him. This track is called BB Parentheses Garupa de Moto Amarela.
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Felix Contreras
You say thank you. You're absolutely right, man. It's like, to be continued. It's part two, Right? An extension.
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Ana Maria Sayer
No, it's right there. Right. Like, you listen to the lyrics of that song, and it's very closely parallel to what I just played. And it is this reminder. And I don't know if you would disagree with this, Felix, but it does feel to me as though in this moment, there is maybe, like, an unprecedented level of pressure on musicians to create at a particular speed. It's very competitive in terms of, like, staying relevant because things shift so quickly, like the turnover so quick. To always be creating, creating, creating, producing something new, producing something different so that people won't forget about you. And I think it's an important reminder that the really good things are worth waiting for, and you have to wait for. I think there's a couple artists. Tim's an example. Silvana is a great example of this. Like, people who are still managing, fighting to take years and years and years to create. And you can feel the difference in the product. Like, you can feel the difference in the expression, the slowness, even with which he expresses is there. And that would only be possible if he were allowed to take his time. I want to play one more song from him. Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry.
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Felix Contreras
Oh, my gosh. Okay, go ahead.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I have to. It's called Otima Ves.
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Felix Contreras
And this, in fact, will be the last time.
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Ana Maria Sayer
That was good.
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Felix Contreras
I am going to be representative of the audience for all the folks who have never heard him before and say thank you for introducing me to him.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I need you to go look up the lyrics to that song, Felix, because it's an odyssey. That was music by Tim Bernares and Caetano de Loso.
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Felix Contreras
We're gonna take a break so I can go look up those lyrics. We'll be right.
- [19:33]
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- [20:24]
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- [20:56]
Ana Maria Sayer
They have kids under 18, so, like, time is very limited. That's why at BetterHelp, our therapists try to have sessions, sometimes at night, depending on the therapist, or during the weekend. So I think that's what we need to tell the parents. You're not alone. We can help you out.
- [21:12]
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- [21:24]
Ana Maria Sayer
And we're back. What'd you think, Felix?
- [21:26]
Felix Contreras
I'm. I'm moved. I'm totally moved.
- [21:29]
Ana Maria Sayer
All right, what do you have?
- [21:30]
Felix Contreras
Okay, so I'm gonna play a track by Santana, and Santana is always like, my life reset. Because the band, the music, the guitar, it reminds me of who I am in the most fundamental way. It's like resetting, reestablishing my DNA. And, you know, I love the drums and percussion, and his bands were my main inspiration for playing that percussion. But it always comes back to his guitar, his tone, that unmistakable sound of his guitar. Like Miles Davis, one note and you know who it is. This is a song called Goodness and Mercy from the album Spirits Dancing in the Flesh, featuring Chester Thompson on the keyboards.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Felix, remember the Hermanos Gutierrez interview? The weeping guitar?
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Felix Contreras
Yeah. This song, I've been listening to it, obviously, since it came out, 1990 and. And over the years, I want to say it's like, for me, it's like a song of rebirth, which is why I listen to it when. A lot of times when. After I've been sick and I want to pull myself together again. But it's also become like the sound of. When someone in this plane makes the transition to light, when we transition to the other, to the world of spirits. And you listen to the whole song, you can hear the journey of going through this existence, and then when you actually see the light. And so it's like a song of rebirth. And for me, you know, like, there's so. Like I said, there's so much to admire and love about his bands over the years, but it always comes down to his guitar. And it's like a. Like you said, the weeping guitar. It's like a voice. It's like a gospel singer, a ranchera singer. It's like a blues singer. And it always comes back to the blues for Carlos. And that's what this song is. It's just. It's so emotionally powerful.
- [24:22]
Ana Maria Sayer
I was talking to a friend recently, a couple months ago, and she was saying that there's this tiny bar in Oxnard. Oxnard, California, that she loves to go to. Because basically it's like a free for all ranchera night. Like, it's. You know what I mean? Like, it's where all the guys go, and it's the end of the night and everyone's drinking their chelas and everyone's on their own journey, you know, singing these songs like you're all there together, but you're all experiencing it separately. And I think there's something about a select few types of music and artists, they're so soaked in grief. Like, the sound is so just absolutely absorbed in grief that I think you're. I was thinking about what you were saying about the rebirth, and it's like there's only. The only way out of that is to be born again. I think you're right. Like, that is the signaling of that sound of just to fully embrace a ranchera or to fully embrace the weep of Carlos's guitar is to find new.
- [25:25]
Felix Contreras
Life and the joy.
- [25:26]
Ana Maria Sayer
Absolutely amazing.
- [25:29]
Felix Contreras
That track is called Goodness and Mercy. The album's called Spirits Dancing in the flesh. 1990. Killer era for the band, by the way, and that is Santana.
- [25:39]
Ana Maria Sayer
Well, speaking of Mexican, slightly toxic, but mostly beautiful Mexican love songs, this is Ojitos de Miel by Javi. So, admittedly, it is an example of what I described earlier with those opening lines, which is like, he goes, I die for a kiss from your lips I want to be the owner of your eyes. Which is in the style, right? Like, it does call back to a Gente or, you know, any of the Aguilars. It reminds me of. When did I tell you this story? I asked. No. And I asked my grandma what her favorite song was, and she goes, el Haycente. Because I remember my dad singing it, serenading my mom with it all the time. And I'm like, oh, what's it about? She's like, oh, it's this guy losing his wife and then saying he wants to forget about her, but the mariachi and the tequila won't let him. I was like, oh, that's so romantic. She was like, isn't that beautiful? I was like. I was like, oh, and your dad's saying that to your mom. Okay. Which there's all kinds of theories from Octavio Paz about why that is and how this all came to be. But the point is, it's beautiful. And the fact that these 19, 20, 21, 23, 25 year old kids, which is the people that wrote this book, music, are able to capture the essence of that. And I came back to the song, actually, I think because I played a Javi song on the show recently, and I was talking about how beautiful his voice is and all these things. And I've really always loved what he does. He's always, as in he's been making music for like three years. But there's something about his essence, both the voice and the music, that really does capture quite well, I think, the spirit of this kind of sound. But actually, the song was not written by him. It was written by this group. They're called Tercer Elemento and they're signed to Dell Records, which is the same label as, like, Eslamon Armado of Ella, Baila Sola, all of these kind of guys. And they just, I don't know, they know how to write really good songs. Like, I listened to this song again because I had found it a while ago, and I was like, wait, this is like maybe one of the most beautiful, clean, amazing contemporary love songs, especially out of this genre. It's simple in itself and it's stunning.
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Felix Contreras
This one is just like you said, it falls into the yeah, I want to leave, but the tequila and the won't let me genre that's like, I'm.
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Ana Maria Sayer
Gonna quit smoking for you, Nevermind, Mentira. But you know, that was Ojitos de Miel by Javi.
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Felix Contreras
Okay. The theme this week has been music that we're listening to. And I explained that I was sick, wasn't feeling well, and I was coming out of it. I Was all in my feels But I know I'm feeling better. I know I'm on the road to recovery. When my body wants to move in the way that my body moves. I'm not like doing flash dance or anything, but I am. My body wants to move. So there's a song I always come to and how much more Felix, can you get with Los Lobos playing a Grateful Dead song? This is called Bertha. Check it out.
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Ana Maria Sayer
I had a heartburn running from your window.
- [30:07]
Felix Contreras
I was all out running.
- [30:11]
Ana Maria Sayer
But I wonder if you can. I had a running run around Had a run down.
- [30:29]
Felix Contreras
Run around the corner.
- [30:34]
Ana Maria Sayer
But I rush back into a tree I had to move, really had to move. That's right. I'm on my bed don't you come around here anymore.
- [30:58]
Felix Contreras
This is the song. When I would play it in the car, the boys were always like, okay, this is daddy's happy song. Right. It's just everything. There's no reason. It's just because it's Los Lobos. There was a period of time where they were opening for the Dead, and those audiences commingled the Dead heads and people who were listening to Los Lobos and Felix clones. Yeah. You know, and it just, like seeing that all together at the same time was. Was pretty magical. And it's just. It's just a happy tune. It's a nice little upbeat tune. And even now when you go see them and they start playing Bertha, people get all excited and everything because it's such a gem. It's such a deep track thing. So, yeah, there's nothing there besides, other than it's a great tune. It helps get me moving, helps bring me out of where I've been being sick. Right. Mental space. Let's party, man. Let's get it on.
- [31:47]
Ana Maria Sayer
Is there an order, Felix? Is there like a. You have to take the Draco Rosa song first, and then you listen to the Santa Annette song and then you finally come to this song, or is it just pretty much. Yeah, it feels that way.
- [32:00]
Felix Contreras
Yeah. I have. I. Like I said, I have some healing sanacion that I combine the Draco Rosa with the Santana song, as I said.
- [32:07]
Ana Maria Sayer
You know, and then you're reborn with Santana.
- [32:09]
Felix Contreras
Yeah.
- [32:10]
Ana Maria Sayer
And then you party out.
- [32:11]
Felix Contreras
Let's just move around. Straight down the road with the windows rolled out. That was Bertha from the album Just Another band from East LA. A compilation from 1993. That was Los Lobos playing the Grateful Dead. You have been listening to Alt Latino from NPR Music. Our audio is produced by Noah Caldwell.
- [32:34]
Ana Maria Sayer
The executive producer of NPR music is Soraya Muhammad.
- [32:37]
Felix Contreras
I'm Felix Contreras.
- [32:38]
Ana Maria Sayer
And I'm Ana Maria Sayer.
- [32:40]
Felix Contreras
Thank you for listening.
- [32:59]
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