NPR Music - Alt.Latino: Electrónica rising in Mexico

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Mexico isn't the first place you think of as the cutting edge of experimental electronic music. But two new projects show that might be changing. LATIN MAFIA recently teamed up with British producer Fred again.. to make a bold new album featuring collaborators like Mabe Fratti and Lil Yachty. And the up-and-coming duo RØZ -- comprised of producers Manolo Cabrera and Hugo Lara -- just released their debut album, spinning a dazzling mix of hip hop, gospel and glitchy electronica. This week's episode also features a comically brilliant track from El David Aguilar, cumbia jam rockers Dos Santos, a cover from La Zorra Zapata, and a deep dive from Felix on the many interpretations of Consuela Velazquez's classic "Verdad Amarga."Artists and albums featured in this episode:(00:43) LATIN MAFIA & Fred again.., '9 months & 50 hours'(07:40) Dos Santos, 'Es Amor'(13:12) El David Aguilar, 'VIGENTE'(18:42) Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo, 'El Arte de Bolero, Vol. 3'(25:23) RØZ, 'SE ESTÁ HACIENDO TARDE'(29:11) La Zorra Zapata, 'I Love You Baby'This podcast episode was produced by Noah Caldwell. Suraya Mohamed is the executive producer of NPR Music.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.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

Just a warning, this episode contains explicit language. From NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Anna Maria Ser. And I'm Felix Contreras. Since you left, I'm in the first chair. I am first chair hosts. So do I get to say, let the chisement begin? Exactly.

Oh, I missed my cue. The chisement this week is new music. You know, I was very busy doing another project on The Grateful Day with Isabella, Gomez-Armiento. And so all this really great music from me. over the summer has accumulated. We're almost done with this summer, and the music just kept coming in left and right. So I want to get right to it.

I think you're first this week. Okay. So this is a song that I brought on actually last week, but you missed it, so I'm bringing it on again because I wanted to make sure that you heard it. In Mexico City recently, there was a Fred again. Are you familiar with Fred again, Felix? Yes.

Oh my God. Amazing. Okay. So Fred again, really big electronic artist, collaborated with Latin Mafia, which is one of the most exciting on the rise, kind of experimental, electronic sounds from Mexico. You've played them. I have played them.

Wow, you're so Uwikado, Felix. So I'm going to play you a song from this new album that they did together and then explain it to you. This song is called, come on. To that is all I can't say You can't say Please make it

Please make it Aeronara They're using the voices as percussion for the rhythm. Which is traditionally something that Latin Mafia has done. I mean, they're a group of three brothers, right? So that's kind of their strength. We've talked about brothers on the show before, specifically, siblings, and how they kind of have this fluidis with how they create together.

and that's something that has worked in their project since its inception. And then you take an artist like Fred again, who uses vocals also as a tool, but in a different way, where he takes voices and he kind of contorts and plays with them and pulls from the world. So then to see them collaborate together, I was really curious when I saw that they were going to do something together because it wasn't clear to me how it would work,

but it works really nicely. thing about it, Felix, so it was the three brothers, it was Fred again, and then it was also his brother. So it was five brothers making a record together. Wow. Yeah. Cool. And then they brought together. So that song was with Brian Eno, which is long, long, long time. Wait, wait. Brian Eno produced that track? Brian Eno was on that track, yeah. Oh my God. He's like the pioneer founder of ambient music. Exactly. So that's the really cool thing is that basically with this album, they brought on all these really interesting. collaborating. I want to play you one song specifically called Mave.

So what was really cool to me about this track is Mave historically, like you have seen Mave live. Every time I've seen Mabe live, most of the times. Mabe Frate. Mave Frati from Guatemala. The amazing Guatemalan cell. She's known for her cello, which you actually do hear her cello in multiple places on this album, which also amazing for her. I mean, she's been, she was on the Blood Orange record. Like she's been really interestingly incorporated in a lot of big albums in the past year. But more than that, something she always does is she plays with pedal, she plays with her vocal. She uses her vocal and she distorts it. Like when she's in

these really small live music settings, it's always different. It's always a little improvised. And she uses it to surround her cello. And so to take that out, isolate it, and then put it onto a track with Latin Mafia. And Fred again was like brain explosion for me. And that's the thing is they brought on any collaborator they wanted to that was really just what made sense for them. I'm going to play one more track. It's called Halo because they did this one with Little Yadi, who also historically has done really interesting collaborative electronic ambient and other things. Also that just starting with that guitar and then the piano feels so little yaddy to me. It all feels very signature of the artists that they brought in and yet it's it's somehow

both of their styles very much so. And that's the thing that is I have always loved about Latin Mafias. They really do do whatever just occurs to them and that they care about it. They've been able to make an incredibly successful career of it in Mexico, which is not considered the place that is like the ripe landscape for, you know, electronic experimentation and growth. And so it was really exciting to me to see this record come out. Okay. I'm going to go look for it.

I'm going to listen to the whole thing. I'm going to make a playlist around it. I'm sure. Of course you are. Oh, my God. That's when you know. That's what you know. I love it.

Okay. I've got something from a band called Dos Santos, and this is a band that I've been following for a very, very long time. It's their first new album in five years. They're from Chicago. They're what I call a cumbia jam band. Okay? I first saw them in South by...

Very Chicago. I first saw them in South by Southwest around 2014, 2015. I can't even remember. Their new record is coming out the end of August. It's called Es Amor. this is a track called Manika Okay, you know, from the beginning

these guys have been like I said, a cumbia jam band What they do though is they mix it up There's like psychedelic cumbia from Peru There's roots cumbia from Colombia that they do There's also Mexican cumbia So there's all these different adaptations of the cumbia groove that they specialize in. And they were one of the earliest groups to use cumbia in the indie scene as a means of identity.

Right? Like I said, they've been playing for a while. And so they were always using the cumbia. And then they mix them. They do son harocho. They do funk. They do jazz. What's their relationship to all these different types of cumbia?

Because I think that that's an interesting point you bring up, Felix. So many people talk about cumbia, you've talked about. cumbia as this unifier as this universal thing in Latin America, but really, it is a super nuance, despite it being the same, that, that, that, that, that, that, very different, depending on where it comes from and who's using it. And so it's hard, I think, to find a band that can properly blend different varieties of cumbia to make something cohesive, and this sounds cohesive and beautiful. So I'm wondering what their makeup is that makes them capable of that.

They are various ethnic backgrounds based in Chicago, I think there's Puerto Rico. percussionist. I think he was a Puerto Rican member. Alex Chavez is the leader of the band. He's a guitar player and lead vocalist. He is an anthropologist. He's got his Ph.D. in anthropology. So he studied all this stuff, right? This is like his ongoing PhD thesis or whatever, right? Okay, so here's the back story. So he's studied all this music. He's a very, very talented guitar player. Like when I saw them live back then, just long jams, great leads you can hear. And coming from, drawing from all these different traditions.

So I had a beer with them when I met them years ago, and I had a beer with Alex. This is a sidebar, all right? And it goes to how he's dedicated himself to his studies. I was talking to him. He, from West Texas, he did his undergrad, his master's and his PhD at the University of Texas in Austin. And one of his mentors and one of his professors was the late Dr. Manuel Peña, who was an expert on Norteño, Cumbia. expert on music from Mexico in different forms. Remember I told you years ago that I taught the music of

Mexico and southwest at Fresno State, like in the 90s? I was teaching Manuel Pena's class. No. No, because he took leave from Fresno State to go to UT Austin to get his PhD. Because Manuel Pena is an old friend of mine, right? He was an old friend. And so when I met Alex Chavez, we were talking, blah, blah, blah. He says, I studied with Dr. Manuel Pena. I said, I'm no Manuel Pena, he, from when I was a freshman in college, and I've even played with him a few times. So yeah, it was like full circle. And it makes sense because the dedication that he and the rest of the band put into the son harocho, the funk, the jazz, it just comes naturally to them.

So to answer your question, it's just part of, you know, their existence, part of their life and it's part of their own identity. But I think that is a key point, the academic background there, because we've talked about people who study academia, spend time in that world, and then try to incorporate that in their music in a lyrical way or in a conceptual way. And I think that this specifically is a really beautiful, light touch, but authentic way to do it, right? To study and understand the diversity of these sounds and then incorporate that musically, rhythmically, into what you're doing is really, I think it works quite well. And in this case, with Dos Santos, yeah, I've been a big fan of them. Like I said, since I met him in South by, Alex, Dr. Alex Chavez, Alex also teaches at Notre Dame where my son went to school so I know that they've had some connections there.

So, yeah, like, it's nice to hear from them. And I'm really excited that they have a new record coming out. The new record's called Es Amor, and the band is Dos Santos. Okay. So this next track album that I'm going to play you, you're going to recognize. Absolute songwriting legend,

Mexican El David Aguilar, has a new record. And it's really, interesting. I want to play you this first track. It's called Estefania, not Stephanie. I will try to say to you how much I love you in the simplest way. I'm not interested in finding something cool. It's just a letter song. Let's take a walk. Let's do things like all the people do. We don't to be special because it already feels special as fuck I don't need complex chorus to show what I'm feeling only verses from my heart's deep beating with

my friend Boju who's producing the whole thing and helping me out because I don't speak English well but it's a present I'd love it. I knew you would love this feeling. That's Stephanie. This guy is... One of the most prolific, romantic songwriters of Latin America today. And he releases his new record and he's like,

I need help with my English. I want to write your love song about doing normal things. Brilliant, actually. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. It is brilliant. I have never heard anything like that. And it's just such a great idea.

I mean, he's written, like, to contextualize, He's kind of one of those, like, famous industry or famous underground. Underground. Like, everyone who knows, exactly. Everyone who knows, you know, either makes music or knows really well, kind of like the Latin American songwriting singing is absolutely knows who he is. But he's secretly behind some of the best biggest, beautiful, flowery, poetic, romance songs. And then his record is Stefania, not Stephanie.

And he's really, like, really, like, I'm really. Like, I went to the supermarket. Exactly. I was going to. I love this. And that is, you know, the beauty of someone like in El David is he spent so many years writing. He's so, so aware of, oh, what makes a good song, what makes people like a song, what he's, the craft has been mastered. Craft is the good word, right.

Yeah, what do you do once you've mastered the craft? Will you play with it? Right. Because now you know how to make a love song. that everyone's going to die for. But that's not interesting to you anymore. What you want to do is play with form and play with all the different ways

that someone could make a song that aren't necessarily about, like, how can I convince everyone to love? Like, he didn't make that song because everyone's, it's going to go viral or because, you know, a million people are going to hear it. He made it because that's his art. It's almost like, you know,

like an intellectual exploration of how he deconstructed. the songwriting process to the most simplest form it's just it's like listening to a text or that as you're building up to the chorus and he does this

he like breaks the form a little bit but so because that part where he's talking about his English because I need help with my English and it almost doesn't fit like he almost makes like he's almost making it a bad song you know what I mean like he almost breaks it

so much that you're like is he going to get is he going to get there Is this going to work as a song? But because he's him, he can, it's almost like jazz. It's like taking the wrong note, but as a songwriter, right? Making it right. And making it right.

Like he's so good at what he does that he can take the wrong structure. And he's like, but let me make it sound good. And I'm like reading the phone book while I do it. Yeah. Amazing. Jinks. Man, awesome. Good call, man.

Amazing. That is El David Aguilar's new record, Vigente. Okay, we're going to have to think about that. We're going to take a break now. No, not for you, Felix. Not for you. Sorry, El Dvue. You're just, you're a mere mortal like the rest of them.

You don't get to do that. It's good to know. We'll be right back. Okay, and we're back. I'm going to stop saying time for jazz because. Yeah, like as if you never. Because let's just consider it a regular part of the Alt Latino musical diet. Okay?

I'm sorry. You're just making declarations. I'm just making declarations. I thought I was first chair. No, I'm just making declarations. Because I have a new album from saxophonist Miguel Zenon, who's from Puerto Rico, and pianist Luis Perdomo, who's from Venezuela. They have three albums of jazz explorations of the Bolero.

And the albums have been called El Arte de Bolero. We're up to volume three. This is their take on the classic Verdae Amarga, Peter Truth. You know, that's my thing these days is jazz musicians from Latin American Caribbean countries, even Spain, that are interpreting

jazz through their own cultural lens. And, I mean... These days. It's... That's been your thing since the beginning of time. Well, it's more so because I think it's hitting critical mass these days. There's a lot more musicians I played the young woman from...

A couple weeks ago. But Miguel Zenaan has been doing it almost from the beginning when he started his career. I think going back to 2005, he's always had that. Why do I know that name? Miguel Zanan? Because he's... Everywhere. Yeah.

It's Puerto Rican. He's been doing a lot of stuff. A lot of the musicians, the younger musicians in Puerto Rico that you've known and met, they've either studied with him or know about him. So, yeah, he's a big deal. So, and I've been talking about this on the show about how, yeah, it's the Latin American songbook. But what I wanted to do this time was let's go through, let's do this. Let's go through.

Let's play that introduction again. Let's hear Miguel Zana. I'm playing that melody with Luis Bredomo underneath. And then I want to play like these other versions from different countries so you can see how one song takes on different identities based on the musician and the culture in the country. So this, again, we're going to hear Miguel play that beautiful melody of the song Verdad Amarga. Okay, Mexican composer Consuela Velazquez, remember that name, wrote this in the early 40s, and this is what it sounded like when Mexican vocalist Maria Luisa Landin recorded it shortly after and made it a hit in Mexico.

Kind of a big band set up, all that stuff. In Cuba, it sounded like this when Pablo Milanese made a version in the Cuban feeling style. Oh, I've got to say to tell. Okay, me dole the Alme, Okay, in Spain, I'm just mal

For pretend call her Okay, In Spain, vocalist Martidio recorded a version with the New Yorker Jazz trumpeter

Jerry Gonzalez. Check this one out. I have to tell you the truth Okay, back here in the good one No I want to I guess me judge you

mal For pretend call her Linda Ronstad recorded it on her frenzsche album in 1992 I have to tell you the

no care that then after I'm just guess And to show how popular it was in Mexico, the great mariachi singer Antonio Aguilar recorded a mariachi meets Banda version. Check this up. No. Look, everything that's old is new again.

Wow. Right? Again, Miguel Zenan and Luis Perdomo have amassed three volumes of these songs. These are songs that, like this one here, like we just heard, resonate throughout the Spanish-speaking world. The boleros are born in Cuba, but they're everywhere. And that's an example. This album is just full of these things. And side note,

Consuela Velasquez, she wrote Bessame Much also. I know that, and I actually said it on last week's show. Oh, okay. Well, I'm sad. That shows, I didn't. I haven't listened yet. Because you know what else she did? She wrote a bunch of songs on Cole Español for Nat King Cole.

I have to listen to the show. I'm sorry. Outed. You have to listen to the show. Outed. Outed. That was the song Verdaar Amarga from Miguel Zenon and Luis Perdomo from the album El Arte de Bolero, which is coming out on August 28th.

Okay, so we're going electronic experimental again. Oh my gosh, let's go. This is a duo Manolo Cabrera and Hugo Lara. The name of the duo is Ros. They've established themselves honestly as a pretty big force. Again, like I said, there's not necessarily this most robust abundant Mexican electronic scene, but they've been doing it. This is their debut album, It's Astona, and this song is called Daytona.

Do you recognize that voice, T'all you. Let me help you. Okay, I'll need more help than that. Who is it? Pesso Pluma. Get out of here. Pesso Pluma, who has, I know.

Who has more and more been exploring other spaces. But that's the thing that I love about these guys is they really do very successfully kind of like bring artists into a different context. And they do it quite well. I'm going to play you another song. It's called Yo Gospel. Yeah, the time to talk, so my voice. Yeah no more. Now we're both.

And that you dole the pecho, Mintra you Sonriyo While I'm sure Yeah Two Mexican dudes Doing like this kind of interesting Gospel electronic thing

That switches it up To sound very like American trap While most of this record Is actually them playing With like Sonidero cumbia styles It's just a lot of

They're playing Yeah They're playing And it's working Sonic Landscapes man I know There's no rules anymore Right

There are no more rules That's what makes this job so great, man. It's like finding this stuff. Are you kidding? You're sharing it with everybody? There are no rules, man. That was a couple tracks from the new Rose album, Cesta, Asieno Tardé.

Okay, I've been dying to share this with you since we started the show because the next track I have is an artist that again uses the voice as an instrument in the studio and in live performances. This is an artist. she calls herself La Zora Zapata. She's from Lima.

She's based in Mexico. I didn't know her before, but I'm glad I know her now. She's got an album called I Love You, Baby. We're going to hear, Echame a me La Culp. Sabes me better than nobody that

I felled. That what you promised to you She almost her She almost has a Juliette Venegas tone to her Okay, yeah, and she does

And in other tracks, she does this layering thing And it's sort of very, it reminds you of Lucela Mendoza from Ilabamba But more specifically Very experimental in her affectations, I would say And she very much sounds like Juanamolina from Argentina. Totally. Who's very, very well known for that.

And we've loved her on Alt Latino for a long time. The whole record is full of all of these great sonic sensibilities, these great cover songs from a lot of different artists from a lot of different countries. Again, the artist is La Zora Zapata. The album was called I Love You Baby. It's already out, so go check it out. You have been listening to Alt Latino from NPR Music. Our audio editor is Noah Caldwell.

The executive producer of NPR Music is Sarah Muhammad. Sonali Meta is the executive director. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Send us an email. Say more than that. If you like what you heard, send us an email. Send us an email.

Just stay in touch with us. We really love to hear from you guys. We're only. Yeah. Felix doesn't have a lot of friends. Alt Latino at npr.org.