While it’s true that Afro-Cuban music is the music of West Africa filtered through a distinctly Cuban lens, it’s only part of the story; Cuban music has profoundly influenced musical styles all over the continent of Africa. This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in Congolese rumba (which mutated into…
Totó la Momposina is a one-woman walking encyclopedia of Colombian musical folklore. She’s also something of a perfectionist. A band with the chops and horn section wielded by her ensemble could easily have cranked out an entire disc of the blazing salsa-influenced raveup that opens Pacantó. The title cut transforms…
As soon as we get there, we’ll call Emilio/I have a friend who’s a friend of a friend/With a direct line to the heaven of so many stars/After that I’ll be running here and there/With Paulina Rubio and Alejandro Sanz/Relax, honey, Paulina’s just a friend. Jorge Villamizar swears it’s true…
Chilean chanteuse Nicole never knew quite what to expect when she arrived at Fun Machine, the studio of producer Andres Levin. The Venezuelan track-doctor behind major projects with Amigos Invisibles, Aterciopelados, and Nicole’s labelmate Jorge Moreno — to say nothing of turns with Nirvana and Tina Turner — could propose…
The atmosphere is a little delirious at Volumen Cero’s rehearsal space in Miami Beach. After ten years of holding together one rock outfit or another, the quartet can hardly stand to wait one more week for Luces (Lights), its major-label debut, to hit the street. To prepare for all the…
They met at a local open-mike night in 1997, and although they grew up across the country from each other, they felt an instant connection, almost as if they were related. An Oklahoma native, Amy Carol Webb learned to raise her voice early, crooning around the Southwest with her three…
Everything you’d ever want to know about Momus — the effeminate, eye-patched, Scottish-born composer, singer, and essayist — is available for your perusal. Through interviews, pop-culture magazine columns, and a voluminous output of smarmy, hermetically sealed electronic-pop albums (more than fifteen since 1982, with more on the way), Momus has…
There is a never-ending debate over who’s the best rapper of all time. The arguments always change, but the names somehow remain constant. Rakim, ‘Pac, Biggie, Jay-Z, and Nasir Jones — a.k.a. Nas — are consistently considered rap’s lyrical upper class. Of these five emcees, though, Nas is probably your…
“They say he went to Europe and when he got there — incredible disillusion,” begins the title track of Orishas’ Emigrante, an intense mix of fierce grooves, melodic breaks, and highly expressive lyrics born of both rap’s urban political consciousness and the running social commentary characteristic of Cuban son. On…
It seems appropriate that the first single from Luis Fonsi’s English-language debut should be called “Secret.” Although the video suggests the song is about a beautiful model/singer/movie star who must hide her love for our little hottie — tucking him away in a warehouse where he must execute stylized hip-hop…
Things are getting rowdy around the sound board at the old ICAIC (Cuban Film Institute) recording studio in Havana. While the percussionist listens to instruction from the engineer, five or six other musicians, singers, dancers, and friends crowd onto the worn couches in the control room, passing around a soda…
Laura Quinlan will not stray from her mission. “I am trying to get Miami more on the music scene of the touring summer concert series,” she proclaims as she opens another series of performances under the stars at the 73rd Street Bandshell. “The Bandshell series is our version of Central…
Issac Delgado’s Miami concert at Rancho Gaspar last month was advertised only through radio bemba, the Cuban grapevine, and by a vague sign at the entrance to the nightclub-cum-ranch that read “Live Music Today” in Spanish. But by dusk on a hot Sunday afternoon, more than 3000 people had come…
Hip-hop has always had a soft spot for outlandish, over-the-top antics. With that in mind, you kinda wonder why more artists don’t take aim at this big fat target. Atlanta’s Ying Yang Twins, on the other hand, have this part of the hip-hop universe in their laser sights, driving that…
Don’t be surprised if Peace Division’s latest mix compilation becomes the beginner’s manual for DJs looking to save a night gone wrong. DJ/producers Clive Henry and Justin Drake have been at the decks since the late Eighties and their skills have been lent to such acclaimed electronic artists as Moby,…
At 50, Argentine rock legend Charly Garcia is back with Influencia, his best work in a decade. The album is based on the song “Influenza,” originally included in Todd Rundgren’s The Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect. As odd as it may sound, the title of that album released in 1983…
Driving away from the scene of an accident, windows glittered in rain, David J contemplates the power and celebrity causing the pileup. The Guitar Man is this conceptual narrative in hardback, an EP of beautifully orchestrated eyeliner folk that should satisfy the Love and Rockets faithful. The curtain opens with…
Orlando “Maraca” Valle segued easily from his years as a prodigious flute player with Cuban jazz heavyweights Bobby Carcasses, Emiliano Salvador, and Irakere to leading his own band, Otra Vision, purveyors of well-crafted good-time music. Performing a brand of popular Cuban music with wide appeal, Maraca and Otra Vision have,…
In 1998 Mr. Vegas busted upon the dancehall community in a huge way with his unstoppable hit “Heads High” and his new sing-jay style. Creativity and unique delivery almost always ensure success — provided the outcome is good. However, oftentimes these occurrences result from a fluke. Vegas (Clifford Smith) had…
A soul as sensitive as Dan Gellar’s would be expected to shy away from controversy and cave in when the PC brigade comes rallying round. After all, the twee music that Gellar champions — both as co-founder of the influential indie label Kindercore and leader of the electro-pop duo I…
Unless you’re friends with puppets or you know the ice cream man, you won’t find a more enjoyably inconsequential way to spend your Friday night this week than with Louisville, Kentucky’s VHS or Beta, a quartet of disco survivalists determined to fill a darkening world with the brightest, most day-glo…
Few folks are liable to turn handsprings at the thought of a double-CD of traditional music from East and Central Asia. It suggests a listening experience loaded with nutritional value but perilously low on the enjoyment scale. But The Silk Road (Smithsonian/Folkways) plows new ground by opening disc one with…
