Stars are Born

Recording her debut album, Imperfect/Imperfecta, at Crescent Moon, producers Gustavo Menendez and Sebastian Krys hear Natasha's voice mature day by day. Can you take that up an octave, at full voice? they test her. No problem. She is a sponge, soaking up the influence of Elsten Torres from Fulano and Martin Chan from Volumen Cero, two of the co-writers Menendez recruits for her at his day job as head of Warner-Chappell publishing. I never knew Latin music could be so cool, Natasha confesses. Krys notices that she absent-mindedly taps out parts for drums, bass, and keyboards on her guitar during down time at the studio. I hear the whole song in my head, she explains. So the producer lifts many of the arrangements directly from her.

This is the Miami sound, too. Not everyone is trying to hear it, though. When JD Natasha previews Imperfect/Imperfecta at Hoy Como Ayer during the songwriter showcase Esencia last month, she is second on the bill before the headliner Kike Santander. As the sixteen-year-old sings, the great man sits in the front row, talking on his cell phone.

Wearing a black top hat with three abstract tear drops drawn next to her right eye, JD Natasha looks more like a character from A Clockwork Orange than the impeccably proper stars Kike produces. Not Thalia. Not Paulina. Not even a Sabado Gigante spokesmodel. JD Natasha is pretty in a punked-out Debbie Harry way. I'm not a Barbie made out of plastic/I have a soul, she sings in Spanish on "Plastico." Tossing her voice from her head to her chest, she veers from a screech to a whisper. Her complete control sounds like utter abandon. A typical teen, she shifts from defiance to despair, asking in English on the title track: What if I didn't scream in public? What if I were perfect?

If she were "perfect," JD Natasha would never reach the legion of young teenage Latinos who ignore Latin music because they think it has to be overly sentimental and cheesy. But as Imperfect/Imperfecta proves, you can be a Latina and still rock out.