NPR Music - Alt.Latino: Chicano soul, Canary Islands merengue and a percussion supergroup

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

This week on Alt.Latino, it's another new music episode with a global panorama: Canary Islands merengue, Chicano soul, Afro-Brazilian roots and more. Plus, a percussion supergroup that Felix could listen to for hours.Featured artists and albums:(00:00) Introduction(01:05) Quevedo, 'NI BORRACHO'(05:12) Joey Quiñones, 'In a Soul Situation'(12:34) Carolina Mama, 'Amina'(15:41) Elipsis, 'Elipsis'(19:32) Da Cruz, 'Som Sistema'(23:56) Sofía Rei, 'Antónima'This podcast episode was produced by Noah Caldwell. Suraya Mohamed is the executive producer of NPR Music.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

Okay, before we start on it, we have to tell our listener something. You may have noticed that there's been a change in the all songs considered podcast feed. That feed is now just called NPR Music. You're right, Felix. It's got a fancy new look. Cool, new artwork and a new name, but don't freak out. You'll still hear the same and pair music shows you already know and love. All songs considered on Tuesdays, all Latino on Wednesdays, and New Music Friday on Fridays.

Only now with a name that sums up the fact that you already know, you're getting all of Empire music shows in one place. And don't worry, Felix, Felix, stop worrying. The Alt Latino podcast feed is still around, so no changes there. Exciting. Okay, from NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer.

Let the Chisema begin. The Chisema is still new music. I have so much stuff left over from when I was out, and it keeps piling up. So we got to get through this because there's a ton of great stuff. You're first. But I went first last week. Okay, fine. So, I brought in a song that I think is going to perfectly set off the tone for this episode.

It's called Ni Borracho, and it's by Kevedo. Yeah, suenas the cymbales, The pinto and the cures that come in carnival I'm a morrow in every corner in the Echina, the no is a city to castor to be going to get to the ruin Azul, a mario and black, I know that's clear, that combine

I know when it's when it's a fiesta, but no, when it's termina. A me me enchanted your cower, and my a nina, I'm a cacho, I still doing a pivititou, even I've seen facho, in bollio,

b-o-o-o-o-choo, I'm so I'm c'-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-o, and, I'm so-mood, Starting out Slow, I see. Felix, do you remember when you said that Merengue's too fast to dance too? I will never forget.

For me? I can merengue till the end of time, Felix. Well, maybe with my hip replacement, maybe, ooh, I ought to try it. Ooh. Maybe they give me a menaenge hip. So I brought this song because I love a merengue, and this is a very contemporary merengue. It's by Quevedo. I don't know if he knows who he has, Felix, but he's like a very famous singer.

He's a Spanish singer, probably one of the most, if not the most famous singer in Spain right now, or male singer, maybe Rosalia would be female. But he's had a bunch of huge hits in Latin America using Latin American sounds. And so when I heard this song, I was like, wow, he does a really good merengue. But you listen to the lyrics and he's from the Canary Islands. And you can hear that everywhere. It's like filled, filled, filled with all these very specific references. He names different islands, different cities.

He uses all the local slang. And I was like how weird that he would make a merengue as this like homage to Spain to the Canary Islands. So I looked this up, Felix. Encyclopedia Britannica did tell me. Apparently. So Dominican music, most Dominican music is this really interesting, beautiful blend of African sound and then Spanish sound. Apparently, most of the immigrants from Spain migrated from the Canary Islands to the Dominican Republic. And they brought a early variant of merengue with them.

So merengue is actually, while yes, definitely from the Dominican Republic, has some really strong origins specifically in the Canary Islands. And they're also part of that is Chuinus, which I don't know if you know Chuinas, it's like that traditional Dominican kind of like poetic singing. And Mangolina, which kind of sounds like an earlier, it's a dance form in the Dominican Republic that kind of has an earlier merengue sound to it. Both of those also came in part from the Canary Islands. So in the Canary Islands, merengue is still incredibly popular. And they have a carnival every year, which is happening about right now. And it's like all merengue, the whole carnival is what they play. So this was released with the idea of him being a participant, quote unquote, in the Canary Islands carnival and immediately became the most listened to song in Spain.

It completely blows my mind about that trace, that journey that music makes from there and how it gets mixed up. It's another example. I'm just kind of taken aback because I never would have associated Merengue with the Canary Island with Spain, yeah, at all. I didn't even think Spanish people dance. Yeah. And they came menenge Anyways, that was My Borracho

By Kedemey Okay, I'm going to change it up a little bit Whiplash time There's a new solo album Coming from Joy Quignones He's the lead singer of Becincere's The Southern California, Chicano, Seoul with an oldies tent

kind of band A great new record, it sounds like There's a single out, it's called Drifton We'll talk a little bit about it after we listen to it. Felix, I'm imagining now. It's bringing back all the memories for you, watching all the cool guys with the cool cars ride around other girls.

Meet with my mom and dad's car. Oh, you watched from afar and listened to the souls fill out the windows. Such a sad truth, man. I wasn't even there and I know. You know, it's crazy for me to even say the classic Chicano soul because with this music, we're only talking about maybe 10 years, right? The whole Southern California oldies thing. Sure.

And it goes back to, like you said, like my high school days, the 70s, like when music that was heavily influenced by R&B and everything else, like this whole Chicano soul thing was just an expression of African-Americans and Chicano's living side by side and making music together and listening to a lot of the same stuff. I want to play something. It's a song and style

that influenced Chicano soul and when I heard drifting, it reminds me of this. It's called Yes I'm Ready by Barbara Mason from 1965. Check it out. You see that connection? I mean, it's...

Yeah, a thousand percent. It's just such a big part of that sound and I'm always fascinated. I'm really... I didn't appreciate it when I was younger. It was like, Yeah, the oldies thing, yeah. As they got older and understand a little bit more about music

and about, you know, sociocultural things, like it just completely makes sense and it's just such a profound statement that oldies low-rider music reflects that OG cultural mashup. Like I said, between African-Americans and Chicano's. These young people that are making that music out there in California, I'm there for it, man. I love this distinction.

Chicano SoulSourges is this really important to me, distinguishing marker two of, like, the purity of Chicano culture. Like I think the fact that it is so heavily influenced by and really just like right next to what at the time is, is soul music being made by black people in this country, shows really like the disparateness of the cultures, right? From Mexico. I was talking to someone over the weekend.

She's from Sinaloa. She lives in Nashville. And she was like, I moved to Nashville because I felt more at home in Nashville than I did in California because Chicano culture feels so distinct to me from the culture of my upbringing in Sinaloa. Like the southern culture feels a lot closer. And I think that that is a really important thing that at this point in time in history, right, when this is happening in the 60s, there is a deep integration, especially

I think with African American communities in Southern California specifically because of what is now its own distinct California culture that has, yes, Mexican. roots and Mexican influence on the front end, but really becomes its own thing. And that's, you can hear it in the music. You can you hear it in the way that people make what they write, what comes naturally to them. At this point, there's such a deep integration into that California culture that includes the African-American communities.

And it's always been there. As long as people live next to each other, I mean, a generation before this was the Pachuco boogie, right? The R&B, like post-World War II, big band boogie, R&B rock and roll thing. it's always there. And like you said, it continues on through to even right now. And Joey's, I mean, such a cool example of this. And I love that he's working more in his solar project because it's not just the Sinceres.

I mean, he is the all-tins. I mean, all of these kind of baby bands that have sprung from this newer movement of Chicano Sol in Los Angeles. He is like the leader. He is the, you know, spearheader. I mean, people know the Sacred Souls now more broadly nationally. And he was the impetus. He was the starter of that. I mean, he has his own imprint record label that we've talked about before.

And so he's been really a fundamental part of bringing back this music. And also, especially now, even more and more and more and more gentification, becomes an issue in Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles. And they're really using this music as a way to say, hey, we've been here. We're established in this community and look at the lineage that we have here. You know, because a cultural lineage from the 50s, 60s is a pretty big. deal for California.

And I will, you know, you bring up a sore spot, I will admit it, because when I hear stuff like this, I love the music, but it also reminds you of those days and just standing on the side, like, everybody else is cool but me. I'm just standing on the side with my mom and dad's car.

We've had this conversation before, Felix. The drummers are the ones that get the girls, and I don't understand what your problem was. That's another? You're like, no, it's the guitar player. Another topic for. for another podcast. Let's move on. That is Drifting from Joey Quignanis. He has a full album coming

out. It's called In a Soul Situation. It's going to be out in May. So he's dropping these singles, and I'm here for it. Okay, my turn again. Oh, I'm really excited about this one. You're going to like it. Okay. Argentine singer, her name is Carolina Mama, and she produced this entire album with La Noah. I don't know if you remember her. She came and played a tiny desk, amazing Brazilian artist, and Emily Albert. She's an American artist. She was part of Esperon. Zanzas Spalding's experimental jazz and theater project. So she has her own whole life that she's lived. This song in particular is off of her first album called Amina, and this is the title track, Amina.

You're still in the Brazilian moon from last week, man. My next cut is Brazilian, too. What can I say? The Brazilians do well. Although she's Argentine, but clearly production influence from Laonoa and in general from the region. And I think that this also, too, to me, like, hearing this kind of sound in the record of an Argentine singer to me is like, oh, Brazil really is being exported in some interesting ways these days. I mean, obviously, I'm literally trying to put it out there by bringing on all these Brazilian records. And I think more and more I'm hearing some of that.

But a stylistic crossover to me, like a production crossover, a more subtle crossover is, like, that's always a sign that we're really on our way to blending. Like I always name, I reference when I talk about reggaeton crossing over to the U.S. for the first time, it's like I say there's Dembo Insari, the Justin Bieber song, right? Like hearing the beats, hearing the rhythms, hearing the production first, come out before an artist, necessarily a Brazilian artist, but just that those sounds make its way. That's a blend in Latin America. We haven't really seen as much in the past. Brazil's always isolated, always. So anyways, I loved this record.

I like the folkloric instruments, the acoustic. Barumbao, the shakers, the kashi-ishi, all of that stuff, all the percussion stuff, which I have locked up in stores right now. But I just love hearing all of the intricacies because it's all rhythm, but it's part of the whole pastiche. It's like a quilt, right? Like you take one little shaker out and the whole thing falls apart. That was the title track Amina off of the new record Amina by Carolina Mama.

I think it's time for a break, Felix. Okay, one break coming up. Okay. All right, Felix. I have a power trio. It's sort of an all-star group. It's a couple of drummers and a bass player, keyboard guy, synthesizer guy. The group is called Elipsis.

Features Michael League, Pedrito Martinez, Antonio Sanchez. This track is called Suru. It's Felix's dream record, man. It's like an all-drum record. But there's a lot to listen, okay? Check it out. And then we'll talk about it. Okay, that is the voice of Pedrito Martinez.

He's one of the members of this group. He's a solo artist. He's a side man. He's one of the best contemporary Rumbaero performers, vocalists out there. He's a masterful command of Afro-Cuban folkloric drumming and singing, as you heard there. References, Yoruba culture, all that stuff. The band also includes Antonio Sanchez, who plays drums and electronics and electronic percussion. He's played for a very, very long time with jazz musician Pat Mathini.

He's done film soundtracks. He has his own band called Bad Ombre. It's just, he's really attuned to a lot of different intricacies, right? And then the third guy is Michael League. He's the leader, bass player of a band called Snarky Puppy, big-time jazz fusion band, big fan of that band. They're just, these guys, they just, Antonio Sanchez and Michael League live in Barcelona.

And they get together and they played and they did some stuff. And they say, you know, we ought to do something. So they invited Pedro Martinez to do it. You know, I said it's an awesome. drum record and people are going to like, oh my God, I couldn't listen to a whole album worth of drums, maybe. But I guess there's different ways to listen to it because you could listen for the great example of the Afro-Cuban drumming that he does on every track. There's a lot of different ways to do it. You can also like listen to the mash-up of the musical traditions. Antonio Sanchez, he's from Mexico

City. He grew up in the Mexican jazz scene and he came to the United States, went to Berkeley, and he's just opened up the expansion of the role of the drum set because it's so melodic and keeps time but it's also part of the melody. And then Michael League has this whole thing of just this amazing snarky puppy band that he started and so many different influences from 70s funk and jazz and fusion and all this other stuff. If you listen to the whole record, there's a lot of different ways to get into it and all the different mashups of traditions and cultures. and it's not a traditional song.

Like it doesn't have been in the beginning and end, a bridge and all that other stuff. It's like a big giant jam session with all these wonderful, wonderful elements. It may just be a Felix thing, but I know they're out there touring right now doing a lot of different stuff. So other people like it. You know, Felix, honestly, who cares if the drummers are the ones that get the girls when you can just stay at home and learn the conga parts on every Pedrito Martinez song, you know? Something to think about. Better use some time.

I do want to remind everybody that Pedrito Martinez, Antonio Sanchez's Bad Ombre, and Snarky Puppy, they all have tiny desks. So go look for them. Because you can see them individually, and then you listen and you see how they mash up. The album's called Elypsis, and the group is Elypsis. My colleague, Perito Martinez, and Antonio Sanchez. Okay. Wow. We already made it to the end.

Oh, this one's really good. Okay. So my spoiler from earlier was that I am bringing another Brazilian artist. This is really not on purpose, okay? It just keeps happening. Anyways, this artist, her name is Da Cruz. So, the artist's name is Da Cruz, which is short for Mariana da Cruz. She is currently living in Bern, Switzerland, but she is from Brazil.

She's an Afro-Brazilian artist that basically mixes samba, funk, all these different styles. And she's come out with this album called Somme Sistema. It's this exploration of all of the sounds of the African music. diaspora, not all of them, but many of them. I'm going to play you a little bit off this track called Chata. Bringing the mash-ups, man. So, I mean, you can hear a little bit of it, but on this record, she switches from South African, Amapiano, Brazilian balee funk, Caribbean Shata, new African club music.

There's also Brazilian trap in there, Angolan Cuduro. I mean, she really does do this like survey of African diaspora. And again, like talking about Brazil leaving Brazil, what better way to do it than through this vehicle of the exploration of the roots of Afro-Brazilian sound, right? And I mean, she is a person who is so impressive. She grew up on the outskirts of Sao Paulo. She's the seventh daughter of a cook and a cotton picker. She's been releasing music since 2008, Felix.

And basically this album, it talks all about the long-term effects of colonialism, social upheaval, land grabbing from indigenous people in Brazil. So she's talking about all the themes, but she does it in this really danceable, really exciting, really fun way. I want to play you one other song. It's called Tudobame, mas complicate. You know when you think about it's not a lot different from the album Elipsies with all the drumming because there's just, like I hear African clubby in this one right at the top,

Doom check, check, check, doom check. But that's fine. That's by le funk too. That's exactly what that is. Everything just kind of layers on top of everything, just like on the other record. They're just doing it with vocals.

You know what I mean? Yes. That's what I brought up last week too when you were like, oh, this is Afro-Cuban. These sounds and I'm like, no, this is an artist who's actually pulling from traditional sounds

from Cabo Verde, who actually has nothing, has about to say, nothing to say, nothing to ver. He doesn't have anything to do with Afro-Cuban music, really. What you're hearing is... Africa. You're hearing Africa.

And you can call it all these different, like, now diasporic names we have for it, Afro-Cubin, Afro-Bazillion, Baile-Funk, music in Cabo Verde, but it's really all the same thing. It's some of the most dynamic music out there, honestly, when you can think about all these different ways to do it. Those are some songs from the album,

some systema by the artist da Cruz. Okay, I'm going to end the show with something very, very special. Okay, Sophia Ray is a vocalist from Argentina. She's originally from Buenos Aires. She's lived in New York for many, many years. She's always been an inventive vocalist on her own. She's all these different collaborations, these mix-ups and everything. She has a new record coming out.

It's all collaborations with a variety of vocalists from various Latin American countries. It's coming out in April. There are two singles out right now. I want to squeeze both of them in. The first one is with Daimé Arrosena. It's called ZigZag. Check this out. As beautiful as this is, watch what happens a little later in the song.

Which is the sound that we're more used to hearing Daimea Autosena Performing. She's an Afro-Cuban vocalist. Amazing. She's been on the show. She's been a tiny desk. But that beginning part is just a way, it's just Sophia Ray raising the bar for music that

explores a human voice. Not just singing, but layering like a choir. Like, we've heard other people do it. And she's just harmonizing with these different musical textures and instruments. That zigzag song starts with the harmonizing. Then you heard what it goes into later on. But it's like, it's the point.

is like these two voices come together and they create a new one on their own, right? And that's what happens at the beginning. The collaborations on this record, oh my god, Daimé, Mireya Ramos, Pedrito Martinez, again. Juanal Luna,

Zinio Rubinos, a group from Columbia, Carlos Ayes, Mariana Barrage, Argentine vocalist, so many different things. She's really killing it. We have to play the track with Gabby Moreno. This is called Routulo. check it out.

I can't wait to hear the rest of the record. You know, I think it was sometime last year they had a performance in New York where a lot of the vocalists, it must have been around the time they were making the record. They were able to go and perform on one night, and it just killed me that I couldn't make it there that night in New York. I had something else going on. But Sophia Rayman, I've been a fan of hers for such a long time.

The way she uses her voice so creatively and all these different contacts with different musicians. But this one, man, there's something about this. It's just really, I think this is going to be one of my favorites of the year

at the end of the year because, like I said, she's raising the bar on what she does with the human voice. I just went to look at who produced. I was curious. And it seems like it's mostly just her.

Which is amazing. I mean, she has always been like a very good manager of her project. And I say manager in the sense of, like, it's really very much artistically directed and enjoy.

driven by her. I was shocked by that Daimé track, Felix. It's so outside of anything I've ever heard her do. It was almost like bordering on a Bjork style type of thing. And to hear Daimé do that is like completely independent of her usual style. It's really, really cool. The album's called Antonima. It's coming out in April.

Again, we just heard two singles, ZigZag with Daimai Arocena and Rotulo with Gabby Moreno. You have been listening to Alt Latino. Our audio producer is Noah Caldwell. Executive producer for NPR music is Saria Mohamed. And the executive director of NPR music is Sonali Meta. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Sayre. Thank you for listening.