NPR Music - Alt.Latino: A Brazilian summer and a lost Mexican masterpiece

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

So, I was away for a bit and the new music just piled up during the holidays, and while we were watching Bad Bunny make headlines at the Grammys and the Super Bowl. Our first new music episode of the new year has quite a variety of styles from lots of different countries. We could say that about just about every new music show we produce. But what are we to do when the amount of creativity that comes our way pretty much overwhelms us? Jump in for a summertime journey through the many sounds of Brazil, a fusion of indigenous and contemporary styles, and a lost relic of Mexican rock from the 1970s. - Felix Artists and albums:(00:00) Introduction(01:20) Amaro Freitas, Criolo, and Dino D'Santiago, 'CRIOLO, AMARO E DINO'(09:19) Javier Jara, 'Our Rhythms, Our Voices'(13:19) Infinito Latente, 'Sem Início Nem Fim'(19:19) Ernan Roch Con Las Voces Frescas, 'La Onda Pesada'(24:52) João Menezes &  Paulo Novaes, 'Coisa Híbrida'(30:02) Líber Terán, 'Canciones Del Desierto'This podcast episode was produced by Noah Caldwell. The executive producer of NPR Music is Suraya Mohamed.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

I think I am ready. Are you ready? I'm back. You're back. I had to take some time off. Don't mind saying I had a hip replacement and had to take some time off. It was, I asked the doctor to insert a hip bone that would make me a better dancer. Have you tested it yet?

No, I'm still limping around with a cane. Felix, new hip, new you. It's it, man. Felix, I miss you. I miss doing this, yeah. Mostly. I miss doing this. I miss you too.

Yeah, okay, I'll say it. Good. Thank you. From infior music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Let the chiseme begin. Oh, my God. It's so nice not to have to be the one to lead that off. Thank you, Felix. It's a hard job. It's been forever. So we got a lot of new music. That's what we're doing this week.

I gave you the first choice. So go ahead. Take it away. It's my turn. And let me introduce you to my today's theme. Ooh. It's summer in Brazil. Oh my gosh. That sounds fun. Carnival is happening. I'm not there. You're not there.

But we can pretend we're there. I brought all Brazilian artists today, Felix. And I'm so excited because I think you don't know any of them. And that makes me even more excited. Okay. To start us off. This is an album. I'm not even going to give you the name yet.

But it's three absolute giants in the Brazilian and Portuguese language alternative scene that came together. I'm going to tell you the story. But first, I'll play you a little bit of music. Okay, ready? So here's story time. So I'm going to introduce you to each of these three artists. The first being Amaro Freitas. Amaro is basically this prodigy of a jazz pianist.

He's someone who's been absolutely conquering the country. He's doing this new, fresh style, Felix that you'll hear throughout the album. I actually spoke with him at the Latin Grammys, and he put into context the overwhelming size and by extension the diversity of Brazil. But you can find various Brazis. He told me Brazil is an incredible country, but you can find several Brazils. This is something that he's known since he started his career, Felix, and so he began with this curiosity about the diversity of his country, and it led him to starting to explore different parts. He went to the Amazon first. The question I asked myself when I went was,

there are more than 300 languages, but why do I only speak Portuguese, he told me. He had this theory about why that cultural reduction happened in Brazil. So that explains a little bit about the colonization plan in our country, he told me. When I was studying at school, I didn't learn about the colonization plan in our country, he told me. Amazon and the indigenous people who live there today. I didn't learn about their language. I didn't see it as important. It's important for us to understand indigenous culture.

It's important for us to understand African culture. So, Felix, that's when Amaro decided to develop this plan. He told me, today in my musical work, it has been very important to connect my work with indigenous culture and African culture and somehow represent that. Okay, so Felix, this is where Amaro left off starting his career. Fast forward to two years ago, and he's touring Portugal with Criolo, who's this other major giant featured on the album. He's an absolute legend in the hip-hop and MVP space, completely distinct from where Amato comes from.

He got his start in freestyle work around the country in the 90s and has made a name for himself mixing hip-hop with MVP Samba and Brega. So Criolo, he tells Amaro, you have to know about this guy. His name is Dino di Santiago. He's a Portuguese artist from Cabo Verde. This is Giant Number 3. He's a leader of the Afro-Electronics scene in Lisbon blending Mornah, Batuku, and Funana, all basically traditional sounds from Cabo Verde with electronic sounds.

He also Felix happens to collaborate with Madonna a lot. So it's rare in general that you see Brazilian and Portuguese artists collaborating in big ways. So they set out to make this album. It's simply called Criolo Amaro Edino. more from that first song I played you. Sica. I love that backstory. You know, when you think about Brazil, and I don't know that people think about it often, it's so big, and there's so many different musical cultures there. You could spend your whole life just exploring each little small cultural tradition there.

It's just so fascinating, so big, and I love when they bring all this other stuff together. Man, okay, you got my attention. And that's the beauty of it, right? Felix, like you're talking about three of the greatest minds in the world of Portuguese language music coming together and taking all the disparate or seemingly disparate roots of a past Brazil, of a present Brazil, and making them not only coexist in this record, but, like, really make a beautiful musical sense. I do want to play you another track. It's called Novento de Noche. So for a canto, lado, a song that comes in a place, tries the peso of past.

And the desire to be to find. You know, even fin that's I can't but I'm in a silence a world entire to can't the

voices of the people call the soul of the dance a mondada with

the sombre I see the light that laugri that can't you know that the acoustic piano

and the acoustic guitar on that track it reminds It reminds me of a Brazilian artist, Esberto Gizmonte, who built his whole musical career and style on drawing from those cultures, those musical cultures and mixing it with jazz and classical. I get a little hint of that on this, and just as much a sense of discovery from these guys. Really, man, what a great record. It's such a natural blend, and that chorus there feelings, they say, ah, the wind of us, the voices in the earth call out, the skin in the voice, the dream. of the soul dance.

I mean, there's beautiful writing here too, which is fundamental to Brazil. I have to have us go out on one last track that I think you're going to absolutely love Felix. It's called Menina de Coco de Carite. Criolo Amaro Edino the record by Criolo Amaro Freitas Idino di Santiago.

Very nice. Okay, your turn. Okay, so speaking of indigenous music and indigenous references, again, boy, it takes some time off and we're still connected that way. We didn't even discuss this. I've got a record by a musician by the name of Javier Hara,

and he's a Latin American folk singer from Ecuador based in Austin, Texas, and he had a very cool project. It was a series of profiles of people from Latin America set to song. And the music is from... Girl, I almost brought this record in. Oh, my God. So you know, then let me tell the rest of the listeners. The music is from various Latin American folk traditions.

The album's called Our Rhythms, Our Voices. This is a track called Ahuan or 2-1. This is Javier Harah. This is one of Potosi, Bolivia, that's a river This is one of those multi-platform projects That I'm really, I'm very fond of. I think they did a great job with this.

If you go to his website, you'll see photos of people and brief explanation of their lives, which represents each track on the album. And you click on a photo, you see a short bio, and a link to a live performance of the song that he did in Austin. This track called Ahuan, Artu, Juan, is a story about a guy named Juan, who is from Yayaagua, Potosi, and Bolivia. You can hear in the lyric. He comes from very, very rural mining family. But his last quote really got my attention. He says, I like the norms, the laws of the United States, the cleanliness that exists in the rivers.

When I saw for the first time the clear water of the river, it was impressive. I was impressed by the streets, the grass, the education about taking care of the environment, the cleanliness that everyone cared so much about. That impressed me a lot. And even though you might not believe me, I like to pay taxes to feel part of this society. Right? And the whole record is like if you click on a. I listened to the whole thing.

I clicked on each picture. I listened to the songs. The whole thing, it's an important album and message in this moment when our immigrant neighbors and friends are being hunted down and kidnapped. It's a reminder of the human lives that are being threatened right now. And this music and the stories bring all of that together and remind us about that. The album's called Our Rhythms, Our Voices, Great Photography, Great Lyrics. The music's by Javier Haram.

And the website is Our Rhythms, Our Voices.com. It's worth checking out. Felix, I'm laughing because I listen to all of your songs except that one. And I was like, oh, I guess I didn't hear this one. And I heard the whole record. I listened to the whole thing. And I love the concept. I love this idea of, like, him collecting sound in this way.

And it doesn't always work, right? Like I've heard some people do this more kind of almost like anthropological research-oriented, one could say, type of record. And it doesn't sound as authentic. and I think there's something about him and how he approaches it, that it really fits into the spirit of all of the things he's trying to embody. Yeah, it's a really, it's a great record. I'm glad we found it.

I'm glad we found it. Wow, you really have been away a while. You're not even trying to fight for full credit on this one. Well, you heard it too. Okay, your turn. Okay, my turn. Okay, so we're going back to Brazil. We're now going to Brazil's countryside.

side, this place called the Valé, and I'm, by the way, this is a disclaimer. I'm probably butchering every single Portuguese word. I now have it in my head that I'm going to take a Portuguese intensive after this, okay? So, just bear with me. Valé de Parabha region, which is in the Sao Paulo state. This is a super, super new baby band. It's called Infinito Latente, and I'm going to play you a little bit of this song first. It's called Amanas, a Swiss.

Very different Very different from the first track. Very different from the first track. As we established, Brazil is very diverse. That chorus, Felix, so beautiful. It says, despite missing you so much, you make your presence felt so strong. I know how many days there are in a month, which gives me maybe reasons to believe again in the world you promised me from the depth of your eyes, a thousand blue tomorrows.

Oh my gosh. I know. So one of the things that Amato told me that I found fascinating is he's like, I actually have trouble as someone who does improvisation sometimes finding an audience in Brazil because there's this absolutely incredible songwriting culture in Brazil. And the things that really people love is a simple, straight, beautiful melody that people can just lay these absolutely decadent, gorgeous, poetic lyrics over. And that's this band, really.

I mean, it was formed by this singer-songwriter, Maida Bastos, and this musician, Jaudu Sam. They came together in the countryside and the region. I described Valle de Parayba. And what they did is they just came together as a voice and a guitar. And the project is really rooted in the region's really strong, independent songwriting culture. So then, you know, they formed this band. They put together a full thing.

I'm going to play you one more track off this album. It's called Gota por Gota. The drum track is mesmerizing. Snare hits on an offbeat just brings you in, man. And I think what's really cool about this, Felix, is there's this kind of, I wouldn't say musical divide in Brazil, but there is really this distinction between kind of like the rural pastoral, kind of rooted music and they have kind of a dominance in a large part of the country.

I've discussed this with a lot of people and then the music you hear coming out of the cities. And so what they actually did is they recorded this record between Sao Paulo City and then Sao Luis de Pataringa, which is a kind of historic town. It's known for kind of having a lot of rich culture and music. And they really do do this blend. They don't lose that kind of rural songwriting Raiz that they have, but then they blend it with kind of like indie pop and lofi texture and all of these things. And also, you know, MPB, Brazilian popular music, which I mentioned earlier.

And you get this really interesting contemporary sound, but it's still so rich with so much of what, you know, makes the rural parts of Brazil shine. And I love they describe it as translating existential restlessness and everyday reflections into music, which you can feel, I think, actually. Yeah. I'm by that. So that was the record. Sem Enissio Nemphim by the very brand new band, Infinito Latente. And I think it's time for a break, Felix. Do you remember those?

Okay, if we have to, because I got some really cool stuff, even more cool stuff coming up. We'll be right back. Okay, Felix, we're back from break. How does it feel? You're still here. You made it. I'm still here.

My hip's feeling good. The music feeling great. So let's just keep going. You're going to dance for us at the end of this. You realize that, right? Not, not yet, man. I still have my cane. Okay.

I get something pretty special. It's all special, but this next record is a re-release of something that was never really released. Okay? What? Listen, hear me out. It's an ideal time capsule of rock music in Latin America from back in 1971. There's lots to talk about, but first, to music. This is a track called Life of Love by Ernan Rock with Las Boses Frescas.

from Mexico. Check it out. Okay, where to start? All right. Calm your emotion, Felix. It's really a fascinating backstory. This album was released in 1971, like I said. Ernan Rock, that's R-O-C-H. He's from Mexico.

His name is Hernando Rocha from Monterey. As a teenager, he lived in the U.S. in the late 60s, and he was heavily influenced by the music scene back there. Now, think about it. In 1970 alone, the release is, where let it be, bridge over troubled waters, the Doors Morrison Hotel, grateful dead, working events, dead, American beauty.

It's fascinating to hear the impact of all that music on this young guy from Mexico who, in addition to all that, decides to sing in English. It's just a mix of stuff, and it really reflects what was going on in Mexican rock at that time. A lot of it was in English. The whole Spanish-language thing was still in development. I brought another track. Check this out.

This is called Sitting on the Side of the Ocean. It has a sitting on the dock of the bay kind of feel in a way. Uh-huh. Right? Oh, my God, yeah. Okay, so now let's talk about the album release and why we never heard of this record. 1971 was a pivotal year for the burgeoning Mexican rock scene.

There was a woodstock-styled festival called Avandaro. And this drew over 300,000 kids showed up. Lots of bands. also lots of drugs and other stuff the young people were doing back then. It was just like Woodstock. Not you, Felix. Yeah, not me, never.

Except the Mexican government at that time wasn't as permissive of what was going on here in the United States and they really started this crackdown on the Mexican rock scene. A lot of people were thrown in jail. The government called the music cultural imperialism. So this album was released, but it had a limited release and then it completely disappeared into the vaults.

It's re-released now by one of my favorite record labels I got to give them a shout out. I always do Monster Records, Vopi, Saul, out of Madrid. And I mention her name because they're experts at finding these significant archival albums and bands and releasing them with exhaustive liner notes and background info. You'll hear that a lot of these Mexican rock bands, and if you look online in some of the streaming services,

you can find these bands, heavily influenced the rock and hispaniol movement about 20 years later in the 1990s. Again, this is Hernan Rock with Las Voces Fresas, The album's called La Onda Pesada. Oh, Felix, we're really in story mode today. I know. Well, you know, the backstories of the music is always the stuff that fascinates me.

The music's great. And then when you know the backstory, like all the Brazilian stuff you're talking about, you know. 100%. Okay, take it away. Oh, my God. We're already in my last track. Okay. So we're going to fly again because, as you know, Felix.

Brazil is so. big. You really, like, you have to fly every... I've actually been told by some Brazilian artists it is easier to fly to the U.S. and Europe to tour than it is to fly around Brazil touring sometimes. Like, that is how large it is. Wow. Yeah. So, we're going to fly to Lagoas, which is in the northeast part of Brazil, because I'm going to talk about an album that's a collaboration between Zhao Menezes,

who's an amazing composer from that region, with another amazing artist, Paolo Noveas. This album is called Coisa ibrida, literally hybrid thing, and this song is called Uma Canza, a song. You know what's going to be You know it, You know it, Anna Yes. I'm thinking about all the people who complained of,

Not to bring them up again, but all the people who complained, and not to bring them up again, but all the people who complained about Bad Bunny Halftime Show because they couldn't understand the lyrics. Sure. Neither you or I speak Portuguese. Exactly. But I think we always appreciate the beauty of the music itself and the sound of the language and the flow and all that.

So not understanding something is just an excuse for a lot of other things. But there's also like just there's a lot of beauty and being able to hear something new for the first time that's new to you and learn to appreciate it. Felix, I honestly, I couldn't agree more. That's one of the things that I love about listening to Brazilian and Portuguese music in general is it kind of does take you and put you back in that position of, you know, maybe other people who don't understand a lot of the music that we bring in the sense of understanding Spanish. And it takes you back to the purpose of music. Music speaks music. I mean, I'm going to music, the thing, right? The collection of sounds speaks beyond lyrics. And I think that so much of. of yeah, exactly what I brought today. You can hear that. And not to bring it back to Amaro, but man,

that he's so wise. And I was spending time with that interview. And he did tell me, he was like, part of what I love about instrumental music is that I can be thinking of a sunset or an ocean. And someone else, you know, thinks of a sunrise or a mountain. And all of those things are valid, right? Like all of those things are an honest interpretation of my music. And so I think that, too, is if the core of the sound is there, if the core of the sound is beautiful enough to invoke something, anything, it's doing its job, even if it's not taking you to the original,

you know, idea of the composer. And what's beautiful about this project, Felix, is you once again have this marriage of multiple parts of a Brazilian identity. So like I said, we're spending time in the north because the composer, Zhao, he's from the north. The other artist, Paolo, he's from Sao Paulo. So they actually described it

as a superposition of disqualification of, different universes without effort because they met the two of them. Jiao had only ever released one EP in 2018. He's mostly just a composer. And Paolo, you know, he's a more prolific artist. He's won a Latin Grammy, so he has a little bit more of a presence. And they just came together and they found this beautiful friendship that turned into an album. That wasn't the intention. But they just came together and were like, let's make things together. Paolo having this city sensibility and Jiao, this kind of, you know, northern coastal sensibility. And what you get is this beautiful a project that is supposed to be, yes, evoking, you know, summer and sunshine and coast and all of

these beautiful things that I think you can hear, but also it's really just whatever you want it to be. And I think that when you bring two distinct and different, disparate things together, it's easier to imagine a lot of possibilities. We have the best jobs, man. Dude, literally, I walked around listening to like five albums for like three hours yesterday. was incredible. Someone's got to do it, man. Someone's got to do the work.

That was the album Coisa Ibrida by Jao Meneses and Paolo Novex. Okay. Felix, take us home. Okay, I've got another Mexican artist, a contemporary Mexican artist, a guy named Libertaran. It's Mexican folk, North American folk. He's been around for a while, and he's collaborated with a bunch of people, including members of Cafetta Cuba. He's got an upcoming album called Cansiones Deserto. This is a single called Deja El Ayer.

Felix never not on his country kick. In the lament, I go in the record, no I can't leave the day in the eye. Between the entrains of my sentiment and I'm doing tomb without being.

This album leans a little bit more country. It's more intentional than some of his past work. But this track in particular, what really struck me is just how perfectly Spanish fits into a banjo riff. It really does. The fanatics of Spanish fit into the whole banjo thing. You know, fans of Mexican rock might recognize his name as a former lead singer of a band called Los Del A Bacho,

a ska band. and he's also known as Western Guittano. I don't know why, but that's what he's called. He's got a series of albums exploring the folk traditions from both sides of the border, and I'm really very interested to know what the rest of the album sounds like. Again, the artist is Liberteran Deja Elayr is the name of the track, and the album's going to be called Cantiones Desiartos coming out in a couple weeks.

That's all I got. That's all you got, Felix? A new hip, and that's all you got? It's all I could carry with my new hip. You have been listening to Alt Latino. Our audio editor is Noah Caldwell. The executive producer of NPR Music is Saraya Mohamed. Executive director is Senali Meta.

I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Thank you for listening.