transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[00:30] Hey, Ana, you know who I saw the other night? Who? Natalia Laforcada in her Concert Meta Tour. Amazing. It was really fascinating and so strong. The give and take with the audience was just really impressed. It was spectacular.

Speaker 3:
[00:46] She's one of those. We have a few of them. We can count them. We can name them.

Speaker 2:
[00:51] Yeah. It's fascinating to watch her develop and continue to develop. Even more than developing.

Speaker 3:
[00:56] Now she's a mom.

Speaker 2:
[00:57] Yeah. She's a mom and she's expressing it. She's full on developed. Oh my gosh. Anyway, that's my chisme. We haven't done the first part. From NPR Music, this is Alt.Latino. I'm Felix Contreras.

Speaker 3:
[01:08] I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Let the chisme begin. This week, Felix, we're doing a music. But my first pick is a new music mixed with chisme. A chisme about a new music.

Speaker 2:
[01:21] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[01:23] So I did a little bit of an investigation because are you familiar with the duo Chino y Nacho from Venezuela?

Speaker 2:
[01:29] No.

Speaker 3:
[01:29] Okay. Super popular. In their day, one of the big names making reggaeton urban music extremely big in Venezuela, in a lot of South America, Beyond. They broke up in 2017. To my surprise, a couple of days ago, I discovered that they had released a new album. I was like, where did this come from? I started doing my investigations. I still can't tell you why they've come back together, but what's really interesting is the mixed reviews that I got from a lot of my Venezuelan friends. I'm going to play you a track from the album, and then we're going to talk about it. This song in particular is called Corales, and it's off their new album, Radio Venezuela. So, they released this album, Radio Venezuela. You can hear Beto from Ravallana on that track. Every single track pretty much features a current big name, a Denny Ocean, there's a Lasso track, there's an Elena Rose track, whatever all of the pop names in Venezuela right now. And I went and asked a lot of people, I was like, why have I not been hearing more about this release? It feels like a significant moment. They were one of the first big acts out of Venezuela to win a Latin Grammy in the urban category. And everyone was kind of like, they don't really represent us, is like the overarching thing that I heard. And it's an interesting thing that, what I wanted to talk about specifically is this phenomenon in Venezuela of like, what feels to me like sometimes it disconnects because a lot of things got stopped. A lot of creation has been stopped at different stages of migration over the years. And sometimes these artists that are llegando a these niveles, like they're really becoming the big stars, or they're coming back, or trying to come back, represent something aren't necessarily what a lot of people continue to identify with especially as they collect in other parts of the world. And one of the trademark things that I hear from a lot of people is that in Venezuela, it's like the Venezuelan thing is to listen to all types of music. And so sometimes there becomes a disconnect between what's still being made by some of the biggest Venezuelan artists and what's being appreciated. I liked, you know, it's a fun, danceable record. It has all the touches of Merengue and Reggaeton and all these things that are fun to dance to and it has all the big names. But a lot of people that I, the Venezuelans that I spoke with, were not as excited about, about the kind of like reigniting or restarting of two big names from the country.

Speaker 2:
[04:51] Simply because they're not current or contemporary, or they've been away too long, or the sound doesn't reflect.

Speaker 3:
[04:57] I think the third would be the closest, that the sound doesn't reflect and that they don't reflect, more than anything. Them as figures is something that I heard. They were like, we don't really feel identified with, with them themselves, Chino and Nacho, which is an interesting thing to me.

Speaker 2:
[05:12] So I guess the test would be, you know, how successful this album becomes on its own.

Speaker 3:
[05:19] Totally. It might connect with other people who aren't Venezuelan, but I would have expected the first people to be championing. And usually, you know, I don't bring on a record that's explicitly not something that people are loving or that we're loving. You know, I found it fun and dancable, but I really thought this kind of like separation, it's not something I hear about very often. Usually, you hear about a big kind of return by a duo or a band or something that felt like it was at least big at the time and in a specific country and there's a lot of pride for that. But this specifically feels distinct from that, which is interesting.

Speaker 2:
[05:51] Yeah. Start the clock. Let's see what happens.

Speaker 3:
[05:54] So that was a track off of the new Chino y Nacho album, Radio Venezuela.

Speaker 2:
[06:01] Okay. Time for another typical Alt.Latino whiplash. We're going to play some Latin punk. We're going to hear a track from the new album coming from the band Faya from San Antonio. They've been around since 2015 after bassist Jen Alva and drummer Fanny Diaz moved on from their original band, the band that we love, Girl in a Coma. Along with Letty Martinez and Adrienne Connor, they have been Faya for a number of years and their new album is coming in May. This is called Careful. We've played their music before. We've played Fea before. And I'm a big fan of Jen and Fani. And I think why I'm just continually amazed by what they do is that, you know, originally in the 70s, whatever that punk ethos, whenever it was happening, it was like you didn't need to know how to play your instrument. Sex Pistols were famously like not good musicians. And that was like the prototype of all that. Jen and Fani are such amazing musicians. I had a chance to see them here in Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of DC a while back with Girl in a Coma. Their musicality is so strong right now and strong in the sense that it's so ferocious. It's like it's nonstop. It's just like right there, high energy, but with a lot of musicality. And it's just like they put a nice sheen on the whole punk thing, because they've been produced by Joan Jett, they've been produced by Alice Bagg, famously by Alice Bagg. So their punk credentials are there, but their musicality, man, and I never, never get tired of listening to what they're singing about. There's a ferociousness about, still tied into the punk ethos of challenging societal ill with music and lyrics and attitude and snarling and growling and all that. And they do that on their records. They epitomize that idea. They've taken on misogyny, they've taken on femicide, they've taken on heartbreak, they've even joy of life. With just, again, like a musicality, this just gets stronger and stronger every time.

Speaker 3:
[09:16] There's nothing better than Felix getting emotional about a pop punk girl's group. You know, I absolutely love, I love a good kind of like punky, rocky, intense female vocal. And the closest thing it makes me think of to what I hear, because you don't hear a lot of that in any part really of Latin America. The closest it makes me think of is all these girl groups out of Spain.

Speaker 2:
[09:43] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[09:44] That's where you hear it the most. It makes me think a lot of, you remember I went to that conference Monkey Week in like Tippy Tippy Tippy Sur of Espana near Cadiz. And there was a group I saw at like one in the morning, super punky, super fun that reminded me a lot energetically of them. And there's something really like, I don't know, it's very liberating that comes from hearing a group that makes music like that, that you don't always get to I think feel as liberated in certain parts of Latin America, where in Spain it gets to happen and then with them they get to do it. So it's always fun to hear.

Speaker 2:
[10:21] My punk listening playlists are very short. I will admit that, but Fea is always at the top. I think that they are the standard bearer for punk in general, not just Latino punk, but punk in general. The band is called Fea. The album's called The Nerve. The track we heard is called Careful. Their album's coming out in May, so check it out.

Speaker 3:
[10:39] Me now?

Speaker 2:
[10:40] Yes, you now.

Speaker 3:
[10:41] Okay, this one I'm really excited about. I have talked about this artist before. Actually, Felix, I forgot until this very second. We saw her together in Spain, in Bilbao, Paula Prieto.

Speaker 2:
[10:53] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[10:53] She's Texas-born Argentine artist. She now lives in Buenos Aires. I've always been in love with her voice, in love with, I think her songs are beautiful. Her songwriting is gorgeous. Until now, in this year, 2026 has not released a full-length album. So imagine my excitement when I realized she released an album, that she's decided she won't be releasing on platforms like Apple, Spotify, all your traditional expected platforms. So it took me a while to find the album. I tried to reach out and ask her for it, and she said she would send me a CD. So in the meantime, CD has not arrived. I found the album, we bought the album. I'm going to play you a song off the album that's called Bill Etc.

Speaker 2:
[12:49] This is not what we heard in Bill Bow.

Speaker 3:
[12:51] No. I was like, is this what you remember, Felix?

Speaker 2:
[12:54] Not at all.

Speaker 3:
[12:55] No, not at all. She's been inching towards this a little bit. Like if you go to her whole collection, Dump of a Million Songs on Spotify, there's kind of like some wonky production choices, whatever. Do not fret, Felix. If you liked what you heard in Bill Bow, there are tracks for you on this record. But I wanted to bring that on because I think it's really fun. She really is experimenting in a lot of ways with production on this record. Obviously, some funky off-kilter production. But also more than that, she's a really wonderful guitarist as well, both electric and acoustic. What you saw was her doing her bare stripped down songwritery, acoustic and vocal thing, and she has gorgeous vocals. But she's a rocker. She plays the guitar. She loves a good percussion. To me, it was pretty exciting to hear this final presented, this is my album, my extended full-length album, and I'm going to do some things that aren't necessarily what my existing fans are expecting or necessarily maybe want from me. I don't know. She's built a so far career as this pretty singer-songwritery person. I don't know. To debut an album with a lot of other stuff in it is risky. To debut an album not on where most people find their albums is the most risky. But I think it's great and it's really nice to listen to. I'm going to play you one more track that is more in the traditional Paula Vane. It's called Invierno.

Speaker 2:
[15:34] I'm always a sucker for those cool sonic textures, especially on the first track you play. I'm even more of a fan now.

Speaker 3:
[15:42] She's gonna be something, Felix. It's just that the battle is, I really do respect it, not releasing on the traditional platforms, but it's like all the artists you love the most, hate them the most and wanna do it on their own the most, and that's amazing. And also it's a really difficult uphill battle to do it outside of those things. I'd like to believe that that gets rewarded somehow, but I haven't totally seen that yet. But more and more artists are trying to find ways to do it.

Speaker 2:
[16:12] You gotta send me the link to buy the CD, cause I just bought a portable CD player with Bluetooth for my car so that I can start playing.

Speaker 4:
[16:20] Stop.

Speaker 2:
[16:21] Oh my old CD.

Speaker 3:
[16:21] A portable CD, is it like you plug it in with USB or you like bought it, like you put it in the car?

Speaker 2:
[16:27] It's like a new Walkman, and you can plug it in with an Oxford, but it also has Bluetooth and I'm trying to figure out how to hook it up to my stereo in the cars.

Speaker 3:
[16:36] Felix, I think we need to buy ourselves, gift to you, gift to me, a Walkman. We each need one. Oh my God, there's so many options. I'm literally looking.

Speaker 2:
[16:46] Are you looking right now?

Speaker 4:
[16:47] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[16:50] Okay, we're going to take a break so that I can go online and see if I can get an even better portable CD player. We'll be right back.

Speaker 4:
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Speaker 5:
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Speaker 4:
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Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[18:18] Okay, we're back with more music. Okay, we're going to take a little bit of time with this one because there's a story to tell. You know, I play a lot of jazz on the show and it's usually small group. I've been fascinated with the whole small group thing. This week, I'm bringing in a big, glorious big band. It's Bobby Sanabria's Multiverse Big Band. They have a new album dedicated to Afro-Cuban music pioneer Arsenio Rodriguez. The album's called Arsenio And Beyond. This is a track called No Quiero. Okay, before I go into my little explanation of who Arsenio was, listen to the original version. This is his version of No Quiero. So, obviously, a smaller version. There's so much to talk about Arsenio Rodriguez. We could do a whole show on him, because he was an Afro-Cuban musician, bandleader, composer. He was credited with some musical innovations that are the backbone of South San. And in particular, check this out on it, in the 1940s, he added the conga to the small group that used to exist known as Conjunto. Before he did it, nobody played the conga in that format, in the Cuban son. So, it was largely folkloric, the conga was largely folkloric, playing the kind of rumba you saw in Callejón Hama in Havana. But he brought it in, that was one of his musical innovations. You know, he was well known in Cuba, he came to the United States in 52, and his career never really took off after that. He was like well known as like an originator or a pioneer. But even as the salsa boom started to take off, you know, his innovations were, you know, he was largely like not part of that scene for whatever reason. So, this album brings a spotlight back on to the kind of things that he was known for. His compositions, the great arrangements, all of that stuff. Obviously, the big band has a lot more trumpets and trombones and saxophones than the two trumpets in the conjunto. And Arsenio Rodriguez was the goat, the ground zero for the Cuban tres. We've had a lot of Cuban tres players on Tiny Desk Concerts over the years, different formats, different sounds, different bands. Arsenio Rodriguez is the go-to, the ground zero. Check this out. I've brought in a little clip of something that's from another album that was recorded in the 1950s here in the United States, but with all Cuban musicians. This is him playing the tres in a track called Razzulia de Maravillosa. And again, I can never say enough about Arsenio Rodriguez. There's so much there in this album. I think Bobby Sanabria is a bandleader, educator, cultural warrior, radio host at NPR Station in New Jersey. He's so many things, but he's most of all a proponent of great Afro-Cuban music, The Roots of Salsa, that's his thing. And I just saw Bobby Sanabria last night at this reception here in DC at the Smithsonian for this amazing exhibit called Puro Ritmo, The Musical Journey of Salsa. Great, great collection of artifacts and instruments, and Celia's dresses and shoes, all this great stuff. And I saw the Mambo Legends Orchestra there last night. It was just a celebration of that moment, like the Palladium era, just before it became Salsa, when it was still Afro-Cuban dance music that Arsenio had led up to in the 50s. That's what was happening last night. So it was kind of fun to be able to play this record again today, after hearing that last night. The album is called Arsenio and Beyond. The band is Bobby Sanabria Multiverse Big Band, and the track we heard was No Quiero.

Speaker 3:
[24:21] Okay. This next one, this song is called À Flor da Pele, and it's a collaboration between Midnight Cafe and Marina B.

Speaker 2:
[25:29] I hear all kinds of stuff in that one.

Speaker 3:
[25:31] All kinds of stuff in that one, right?

Speaker 2:
[25:33] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[25:33] So, this is kind of like a random baby project that's been happening. This is one of a couple songs that have been a collaboration between Midnight Cafe and Marina B. Now, Midnight Cafe is the solo project of this artist named Oliver Pash. He's a member of this band called Skin Shape. It's a British band. He's British, and he's a songwriter and a producer who's, I don't really know why, ended up producing for a lot of Brazilian artists. He has a big audience in Brazil. For a couple of tracks, he's teamed up with this really tiny, beautiful artist, who I've actually been following for a bit. Her name is Marina B. She's just this gorgeous singer-songwriter from Brazil. They created this collection of songs that they've been slowly releasing. I heard this one. I just love it. There's something about the exact perfect combination, I think especially for him, that he's been interested in Brazil, working in Brazil, he's not Brazilian himself, to find that right voice to collaborate with. Not only, obviously the production here is very sophisticated and beautiful, and there's a lot there and it's like this Brazilian jazz MPB, beautiful perfect little collage painting, but I think even vocally, they mesh really beautifully on this track. So I'm excited. I hope they keep making more music together.

Speaker 2:
[26:51] You know what I heard? I heard Beatles.

Speaker 3:
[26:53] That's hilarious. I mean, that's the British in him, right?

Speaker 2:
[26:56] You know what?

Speaker 3:
[26:58] No, but I think you're right. I agree with you. You're totally right.

Speaker 2:
[27:01] You know, that whole guitar thing at the intro of that song.

Speaker 3:
[27:04] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[27:05] Maybe a little like Blackbird or something like that.

Speaker 3:
[27:07] It is a little Beatles-y.

Speaker 2:
[27:09] But the nature, the sunny nature of the melodies.

Speaker 3:
[27:13] Also.

Speaker 2:
[27:15] I could hear that being played by the Beatles.

Speaker 3:
[27:17] That was the song À Flor da Pele, in parentheses actually, Lonely Man, by Midnight Cafe and Marina B.

Speaker 2:
[27:25] Okay. I'm going to close it out with an artist from Guatemala. This is an artist who calls himself Doctor Nativo. He's got an album called Barrio Candela. This is a track called Caminantes, and it features Roco Pachukote. I'll tell you who he is if you don't know him after we hear the track. Check it out. We don't get to a lot of musicians from Central America, in particular Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. And so I'm always interested to hear music from there and how they mix things up. And in particular, Doctor Nativo, he mixes his music with things like cumbia, reggae, ska, as we heard other forms. He released his first album in 2018, this new one was released in March. He's absorbed this rich history of rock and espadrille, especially from Mexico. And in particular, Roco Pachukote is the lead singer of the seminal band Maldita Vencindad. He's the lead singer and like this crazy iconic figure in his whole thing about Pachuko, about being Mexican, about being all of that stuff. So he's featured on his track. Again, the track is called Caminantes, the artist is Doctor Nativo. The album is called Barrio Candela. Worth checking out.

Speaker 3:
[29:35] I love how some of these artists who are so pivotal and instrumental in the creation of certain scenes or just even in the creation of the scene of a country, they continue to iterate in all these kind of funny ways and create with each other. You weren't here last week or whatever it was whenever you were away. When I had Isan and I brought on a Macha y Bloque Depresivo track from their album that they released, which is the same as Chico Trujillo. Macha is part of the whole universe that is that. There's something about as they keep creating and iterating, there's always an essence that's there of what they are. This reminds me of some of that in a way.

Speaker 2:
[30:16] Yeah. What do you do when you created your footprint, let's say in the late 90s, and you're still doing this and you made a big noise, and you have to still continue to create and do things, but still maintain an essence of yourself. Something we talk about all the time, so yeah, I'm glad you pointed that out. You have been listening to Alt.Latino from NPR Music. Our audio editor is Noah Caldwell.

Speaker 3:
[30:44] The executive producer of NPR Music is Suraya Mohamed.

Speaker 2:
[30:47] And executive director is Sonali Megha. I'm Felix Contreras.

Speaker 3:
[30:52] And I'm Anamaria Sayer.

Speaker 4:
[30:54] Thank you for listening.

Speaker 2:
[30:55] Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 4:
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