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Democracy Now! Audio
"Helado Tropical": Helado Negro & Reyna Tropical Discuss Collaboration & Perform at DN! Studio
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- [00:04]
A
This is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Elado Tropical, that's the name of the new collaborative album by our next two guests. Roberto Carlos Langhe is known by his stage name, Elado Negro. In English, it's Black Ice Cream. He's an award winning musician who's the son of Ecuadoran immigrants. His recent ep, the Last Sound on Earth reflects on despair, hope and inspiration against the backdrop of a planet in crisis. And Fabi Reyna is a Mexican born, Texas raised musician, activist, entrepreneur and guitarist. Best recognized as the front person of Reina Tropical. She's also the editor in chief of she Shreds magazine, the world's first and only print publication dedicated to women guitarists. Elado Negro and Reyna Tropical have release their debut collaborative album Elado Tropical and they join us in our Democracy now studio. Welcome. It's so great to have you with us.
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B
Thank you.
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A
Roberto, why don't you start talk about how this collaboration happened.
- [01:18]
B
Yeah, Eladropical or this collaboration between Favi and me was put together was kind of like a blind date in some respects. A friend of ours sent out an email and was like, do you guys want to make us some a song? Literally just one song. We were just so chill about it. We were like, yeah, let's do this. And we got together and it kind of just rolled into this like three day session of just like us spontaneously creating and making things that we hadn't even prepared. It was just in the moment mostly and just. And we kind of fell in love with the whole process and wanted to finish something together.
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A
And Lorena, what was it like for you?
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C
I mean, I think one of the best things about meeting Roberto is that for whatever reason it brings out this like kid at recess side of me. So I remember it kind of like being a little bunny that was bouncing around everywhere and very.
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A
Were you the bunny or was he?
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C
We were both different bunnies and yeah, it just was really fun. Spontaneous, in the moment, adventurous.
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A
You both have such interesting histories. You, Roberto, born in the United States and you were born Reyna in Mexico. Talk about your growing up and your parents from Ecuador.
- [02:35]
B
Yeah, I think, well, their story is their story, you know, and them telling me about their world and moving to New York and being in New York and then moving to South Florida. And I think my whole world of what I think of them is like being in Florida and Miami and growing up in this like what I always say is like the capital of Latin America. And for me it was always, like, infused with everything down there. And so I never. It wasn't until I left South Florida, going to, like, college, and I saw everyone. It was so. The United States was so different. I was. I kind of just thought Miami and South Florida was the same. And so in that respect, I never really understood it until I got out. And when I did get out, I was like. It blew me away how different the United States really is. And so that's. I mean, in my perspective, that's. I guess that's the best I can say about it.
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A
And Lorena, you were born in Mexico?
- [03:23]
C
Yeah, I was born in Mexico, and I was raised on the border in McAllen, Texas. Yeah.
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A
And you grew up here?
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C
I grew up in Texas, yeah. Between Texas. I mean, it's five minutes from Mexico, so going across the border all the time and. Yeah.
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A
And so your thoughts on what's happened? I mean, we're doing this interview right as your record is being released. And a Mexican man, Lorenzo Salgado Raojo, in Texas also, but in Houston, killed by ICE agents. His younger brother in the car with him, Victor.
- [03:59]
C
Yeah, I mean, I have a lot to say about that. And I sort of. My purpose in music is to remind us of the joy and the pleasure that we not only exist in every day, but that our ancestors, that we inherited from our ancestors, and that's our form of survival, you know, so we can't forget where we come from and that we have the tools for liberation through music and dance and community, you know? And so as long as I think if we can keep our focus on that and celebrate the joy, really celebrate the joy together, I mean, we're gonna survive.
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A
And do you see Roberto music as resistance?
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B
100%. I mean, the. I made music in this. My parents, what they would do is have these parties on the weekends, and everyone from everywhere would come to the house and everyone would sing and dance until, like, six in the morning. And this was like, almost every weekend. And then I would be asked or told that I had no choice but to, like, sing in front of everybody. So I'd have my guitar and I'd be covering songs in front of people. And so I saw that as, like, a way that my parents always brought together. Not just like, Ecuadorian families, but people from everywhere. And I always kind of got a chance to understand that that was the way you existed. There was, like, you centered. We centered our lives. We weren't thinking about anybody else's lives in terms of, like, whatever the narrative is in terms of the United States. It was like we were always centering our joy and our fun and our music together.
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A
And before you tell us about the songs you chose and the album that you have created together, what about your names? Alado Negro and Reyna Tropical. Start Reyna with yours. How you came.
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C
Well, Reina is my last name. It also means Queen, but it's also just the name I was birthed with. And Tropical, because that's where what my body longs for. It's where I was born, it's what my ancestors know, and it's where I glow and shine and what I always want to go back to.
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A
And it's Tropical Queen.
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C
Yeah, exactly.
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B
Yeah. And Elao Negro was just this kind of, like, manifested out of nothing. It was just like this idea of, like, at the time, there wasn't an Elado Negro black ice cream. And it was like I was fascinated by the idea of, like, a mysterious flavor that could be anything, you know? And I feel like with music and sound, that's like something that I've always, like, longed for with my process.
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C
And I think, like, El Ao Tropical. I just feel like these names just chose us, you know, And I feel like when something like that, just so instantly, it's obviously, you're just. You have to walk down that path.
- [06:43]
A
So talk about the songs on your new album, Sensation.
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C
Yeah, I mean, like I was saying earlier, you know, for me, growing up in Texas as a woman, as a queer femme person, I grew up in the surviving femicides, you know, and I grew up with a lot of shame, watching, witnessing, growing up with a lot of shame and guilt for pleasure and the suppression of women experiencing that pleasure, whether it's not even doesn't. Whether it's through community or self awareness, you know, the suppression of that is really intense. So for me, part of recycling that composting, that is to be in my fullest expression of pleasure, in my fullest expression period. So there's a lot of sensuality in this album. There's a lot of sensuality in my work. And together, I think we bring the spectrum of. Of holding that space and composting it into play, composting it into swimming and, you know, swimming in the air. And so I feel like Sensation is a really great song to ground us into that experience.
- [07:51]
A
En Soledad.
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B
Soledad. Wow. That's Fabi's favorite song.
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C
Sure is.
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B
And that one's really beautiful because it came out of this, like, midnight moment where we're in the studio a lot, and just all of a sudden we're just like, we're still there. Like, let's try something else. And Fabi had this beautiful line written, melodic line on the piano, on the swirlitzer. And I was like, let's just put this drum machine. We just kind of, like, were merging this idea in real time and just like, jamming, per se, you know?
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A
And it means solitude.
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B
It means solitude. And then I think we've been thinking and talking about this a lot now that we're talking about these songs after the fact. And just like, this aloneness, but the aloneness of not being lonely and not the aloneness of being without something. It's like you can be alone with people and be also dancing alone and always feeling it, even though people are around. I feel like going back to this party idea. I hadn't thought about this in a long time, but even these family parties, the amount of people that would dance by themselves and then other people are dancing, you know what I mean? There's a joy where you're watching somebody dance and you're like, damn, I'm so happy I'm watching them dance alone. There's also these, like, ripples. And I think that's kind of part of these ideas of soledad. So it's like in soledad, the words are, damu momento con muy soledad. Like, give me a moment with, like, you know, so it's like, even, like, you pull away from someone, you're like, I just want to dance right now by myself, you know, and talk about
- [09:17]
A
the video, the music video, and the colors that you made. Did you do that for all your songs?
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C
I did it for three of them. Tokando, which was our first release sensation, our second, and Soledad, what's coming out on Friday. And we just wanted to create a world where we could play, you know, and we can go back also to the sensation of being present and in the moment. And this kind of idea of analog, like, just analog, you know, let's do things with our hands. Let's texture things. Let's bring things back to the experience of touching and feeling and using our senses. And though I would say those are. That's the thing that these. All these videos and our world have in common.
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A
And tocando means both touching but also playing.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, yeah. I mean, I think that song so greatly embodies. Embodies that. You know, I mean, I don't know if you want to say it's a brilliant color, definitely. Yeah, yeah.
- [10:13]
B
No, I mean, there's so much even just like, Fabi talking about this analog process idea of just like, there's so much automation and people prompting the world of whatever, artificial intelligence and these things. And I feel like I've come from a place of slow media, of wanting to feel things and have it be slow and have it happen over time. And that's how we made this record over the course of two years, and it happened over time.
- [10:43]
A
Can you talk about the difference between recording an album and performing?
- [10:51]
C
What a difference. What a difference. I mean, and I think we both kind of work this way. When we're recording or when we recorded, we weren't thinking about playing these songs live at all. And it was just feeling in the body, you know, And I think live, we know that we're going to be in connection, in movement with the audience. And it's sort of a lot about. About them, which I love, you know, I'm like, what is the best way to connect with someone? And so that we. They can leave saying, my life has changed, you know, because I think music is such a universal tool to completely. To wake someone up, to change someone, you know, and, yeah, that's my thought. What about you?
- [11:41]
B
That's a lot. That's great.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And, Fabi, you experienced tremendous loss in the last years. You're a musical partner. Can you talk about what happened and what it meant for you and the music you performed after, when you could perform, when you could sing again?
- [11:59]
C
Oh, man. I mean, one of the greatest gifts of, you know, an experience as great as loss and grief is the understanding of creation. I mean, I had no idea how big of an energy grief and anger was. I wasn't super aware of it. I knew that I had been practicing that and I had been using that growing up in my experience. But I understood with words that grief is one of the biggest, most powerful, energetic tools to create. And it's so instant, you know, and when you accept it as part of your life, it can really provide you the energy to change the world, you know, to believe in yourself, to trust again and to be reborn. And for me, yeah. Sumo Natalidias, who I started Rena Anthropical with. When he passed in 2022, I went through this process of death and rebirth myself and was able to create my first album under Reina Tropical and tour it the next two years. And that's how I actually met Roberto.
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A
And the song that you sang for him, inspired by him. This Will pass, right?
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C
Yeah. Yaba Pasar. That's actually the first song that I made, like, without him. And. Or, you know, with him as an energy field, I live really in the energy now. I'm just like the most psychedelic being that you can imagine. I'm just like, am I the sun today or am I the moon? And yeah, so just tapping into that, right? Like ancestral communication and just believing in it. I don't. It sounds like the craziest thing you can say, you know, but it's something that I really. I got to really get to know my ancestors through that process and I got to really be in the experience of believing them.
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A
And Fabi, talk about this magazine, she Shreds.
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C
Yeah.
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A
Why is it called she Shreds?
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C
It's the world's first and only print publication dedicated to women guitarists and bassists. And honestly, ultimately, like everything else that I do, I just wanted to create a space where people who hadn't seen themselves, hadn't heard themselves, had a place to go and see themselves in their fullest potential, see other people like them, be in community with other people. And at the time in 2012, there wasn't a community for women guitarists. There wasn't a community for women musicians or non binary musicians. And now I love the idea of this idea of shredding being sort of redefined. And what is shredding? It's the expression of an emotion. So just expanding and broadening our definitions of the language that we use.
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A
Well, let's go to your music. What's the first song you're going to play?
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B
I think we're going to play tocando, which means touching or feeling right. Or playing.
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C
Playing. I can make it.
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A
Okay, don't say.
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C
This song is called Sensation.
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B
Sa.
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A
Oh,
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C
Sam.
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B
Hola. We're Elao Tropical and this is our song. Soledad. Sa. Waiting. K.
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A
It's sam. Roberto carles langhe, elado negro, black ice cream. Fabi reyna reina tropical. That's tropical queen, their first collaborative album, elado tropical. Tropical ice cream, this is democracy now. I'm amy goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.