NPR Music - Alt.Latino: Natalia Lafourcade, Eladio Carrión, more

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Alt.Latino hosts Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre talk artistic growth and precocious talent.Featured artists and songs:• Natalia Lafourcade, "Cancionera"• Natalia Lafourcade & El David Aguilar, "Como Quisiera Quererte"• Natalia Lafourcade & Hermanos Gutierrez, "Luna Creciente"• Irene Diaz, "Anything For You"• Eladio Carrión & Myke Towers, "Vetements"• Eladio Carrión & Lia Kali, "Me Muero"• Kayatibu, LUIZGA & Yaka Huni Kuin, "Nai Basa Masheri"• Santi Sc, "Cuando Nos Besamos" (feat. Dirk)• Santi Sc, "Home Run"• Maria Marquez, "La Lagrima"CreditsAudio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Simon Rentner. Our project manager is Grace Chung. NPR Music's executive producer is Suraya Mohamed. Our VP of Music and Visuals is Keith Jenkins.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

A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. Felix, I tell you how I tore my hamstring. Okay, I want to hear this. Go ahead. So I was in yoga. Who gets entered in yoga? I was trying to do the splits, Felix. Oh, my God. Anyways, we're here now and we're alive, and it's fine.

Don't do the splits while we're recording this. It's kind of exactly what I was doing now. Let's get this show over with before you heard yourself. From NPR music, this is all Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer, let the chisemes begin, and Felix. Oh my God, I'm so excited. You know, you get why I'm so excited.

I mean, it's like, it's the day, it's the time, it's the event of the season, because Natalia La Furcada is finally releasing another album. It's called Cansionera, which translates directly to like a collection of songs or a songbook. It's the second album, Felix, that she's released, that has basically been her own music again. So as we all know, obviously Natalia has her whole story. history of being the spirit singer of Mexico, basically, reviving tradition. I'm like, how would you describe her? Exactly. Exactly, right? And she spent all these years doing covers, reviving, keeping traditional music alive. And then her last album was her first album that she'd done

in a very long time, that was her own music. This is now the second iteration of that. This album comes out in two days. I'm really excited about it because I do think it is her so returning to her I think that first album was an exploitation of her grandiosity. She's always very cinematic with all the strings and all these beautiful things. And this one, it's more raw. And so I want you to hear first a little bit of this track, the title track, Cancionera, because I think it encapsulates a lot of the energy she's putting here. Cancioner

Devulve me that Primaver Those Our nights Of course Of course Cantame

the Lunas Our Lune Canta Our Mars Canta The Lowe of the soul-edad. You're a songer,

Alma of your letters, allita my life, I'd you to you'd to give. You're a cancioner, calm of my penas, cantam me, and I always

I'll love I mean, obviously she's effervescent, she's Natalia, she does everything so precisely and perfectly. And even the lyricism here, Felix, like it's her, I guess, being this alter ego, being the songstress, but also I think speaking almost as though the songwriting itself is its own character. She says, you are a songstress, soul of your lyrics, I would like to give my whole life to you, You are a songstress, calm my sorrows, sing to me beautifully, and I will always love you. So much of her art, I think, is in the poissia. I mean, that's really where she shines.

But she also is precise with the sound. I was talking, Felix, this is actually really funny. I was talking to someone from her team recently, and she was telling the story about how she's so intense about the sound of things. Like, she's such an engineer. They were, like, doing sound checks at some concert or something. And she's, like, walking, like, marching around, being like, no, it sounds weird over here.

No, it sounds like this over here. Like, so precise with her art. And you can hear that in this record, too. I mean, there's this other beautiful song that I want to play a little bit of. It's her song with Elavir Aguilar. It's called Como Chisiera Kierrete. and I want you to hear just a little bit of this. Absolutely stunning.

Absolutely stunning. And it's simple. It's simple, but it's stunning, and it's clear. Like, it's so, so well thought out. Not to mention Elvite Aguilar is truly one of the best writers in Mexico right now. But I think I've been hearing him a lot on these tracks with these beautiful female vocalists lately. And I think there's such beauty to the way that he's able to just play with their voices and blend so gorgeously. I should have something to say.

but I'm stunned. I know, I'm like, Felix. What do you think? It just gets better and better, you know? I mean, we were playing her music on Alt Latino before, you know, she started doing the covers and the roots albums and stuff. So I remember playing her because I didn't know how to pronounce her name.

You know, I couldn't figure it out for a long time. So I'd been playing her music for a while. and the way she pivoted to the folk thing and the cover thing and did it so well, as you can see even on her tiny desk that she did, what I've heard so far, the two tracks you played are just stunningly beautiful and for all the reasons that you said. Can't wait to hear the rest of the record. It's just incredible.

Well, lucky for you, Felix. You get to hear a little more today because Natalia's team has been so kind as to allow us to exclusively play a little special preview of a song that I specifically picked because it blew my mind. We all know, Hermannos Gutierrez,

instrumental, gorgeous, we've talked to them before, they played a tiny desk. Remember when we interviewed them and it was like, oh, the guitar cries? And then it's like her voice cries and the two of them together,

I just, I need you to play it. Oh, my God, okay. It's just a solitaire of amas It's just strange It's just stunning.

Yeah. And I remember, She's a very good guitar player herself. She does, Felix, have one of those voices where it's like, you cannot put it on in the background. And there's always these, like, nature sounds that make their way in there, too. I mean, Felix, we have to remember where she lives. She's still in Veracruz. Her music always takes me back to what Silvana Estrada said to me, where she's, like,

nature is perfect, and we're all just trying to make art that can possibly try to live up to that. And what she does feels so essentially there to me. We're talking about Natalia Lafourcade's new album, Cansonera. We just played a few special selections for you all. Wow. Okay. Got the show off to a very, very cool start. We had to start with Natalia, Felix.

I've been holding this phone every week. I'm like, do I talk about it yet? Do I talk about it? I was like, no, it's not time. Now it's time. Anna, remember we did a show a while back? I moved and I found a bunch of CDs and stuff in the move. And I played a track by Irene Diaz,

from Southern California. Yes, of course. That was gorgeous. Yes, it still sits with me. So check this out. The day after we recorded that, her musical partner and her partner in General Carolyn wrote to me an email says,

hey, we have a new track out coming out, right? We have some new material coming out. It was like it was so perfect, it's so on time because we played this stuff from years ago. She's working on new material for a whole new record. I'll play the song and we'll talk about it later. This is called Anything for You.

This is Irene Diaz. Gorgeous, gorgeous, oldies thing. Her voice is perfect. It's like you could close your eyes. If you put little scratchy record sounds behind that recording, right? Like you're playing an old 45 from like 1954, it would fit perfectly. Her voice is so adaptable and it's perfect for the drama and the intensity and everything about these oldies, a arpeggio guitar.

are, dun, dang, dun, dun, right? Why didn't she just ask you to seriously? Like, Irene, remix. Sorry, Irene. You don't want to hear me in the back note. But anyway, I mean, I'm just such a fan of her voice. I bet all love could do. Because I would do anything, oh, anything, anything for you.

If your single is called Anything for You, the single is called Anything for You, vocalist is Irene Diaz. That single's going to be out on May 2nd, so check it out, man. Okay, your turn. My turn! A fun one. This is Eladio Carrion. We know him, we love him, we brought him to the tiny desk.

This new record that he released, I love it because it's so not trying to be anything else. You know, everyone, I think he's Puerto Rican. There's a lot of pressure maybe on the island right now to do something really unique and stand out next to a Benito record, all this stuff. And he's like, no, no, no. I'm just going back to my roots, I'm doing full trap. It has a lot of hip-hop and R&B influence.

He's always had a ton of American influence. It's called Vettements. If you'd have the contract of Nubarak, understand why no so Nike, yeah. If the meadow goes in the gavet, I have a gulliterer like Aikiyah. They're at a pass of the tortuga, no Leonardo, and Mikey, nah. Hey, if you me be, Phil O'Neaguer, this is Ben, man. Jove me, my diner, gore, my diner,

Like a TELA A pair of loco That's me TIRs No via more Kempah G5 with Kama

When I get YEL ELA Hey, Ela Like you do you do they're Siggins

They're scratching And you go's And prechending No I'm I'm

Mitty If my movie you're You know You Fumu a set

of Aster Asterer That's I'm Cote One Mitty Gens

I'm I'm I'm Boooooooo CIN Yeah That I I don't

So Felix, what I'm So Felix, what do you think? It wasn't what I expected. After having interviewed him and then seen him on his tiny desk and then talking to him a little bit about it offstage, I can hear that his love and his appreciation and his familiarity with just straight ahead hip-hop R&B, not from the island, but from the mainland,

and how he incorporates it into what he does. It's from the mainland and yet also, like, that is fully Puerto Rican. I want to play you really quickly. One more cut from this album, because this is the song that he previewed for us at the tiny desk with the insane, the most incredible, wonderful voice of Lia Cali,

because it's officially out on the record. So, more 3,000 nights of despelowal Our future in the airweceros I was about my voice in the pecho No see how to forget how to I want We've got too That's too

To use the ennoja stuff Me tam-balleo fruit of the DOLOR And of RON Engotelied in RON Casa that me ampar They're in a car Unucur

But not your cules Well, a little Ridicue Ridiculous. The way he is approximating the church organ in the background that comes from the R&B tradition, the church tradition, you know, that's not lost on me because that's the sound I grew up with in the 70s music.

Well, thank you, Melioreau by Eladio Carrión, off of his new record, Don Cabron. We're going to take a quick break. We're right back. So I found this record, and this is a collaboration between a group of indigenous musicians from the Amazon and Brazil. a Brazilian music producer whose name is Luis Gabriel Lopez, who goes by Luisga. Let's hear this song. I'm just going to phonetically say the word because it's in their particular language. And then we'll talk a little bit about afterwards.

This is Naibasa Masheri. Okay, that vocalist, her name is Yaka. This group of indigenous musicians are known as the Hunikouin people from the part of the rainforest of Brazil. that's near Peru. And this young vocalist, Yaka, she's also a visual artist. All the music on the album comes from the poetry and chants of these people

that celebrate the enchanted spirits of the forest. He spent years working with indigenous groups on a lot of different things, and then he decided to make some music with it. I really respect and admire the approach that he has on this record and how he's bridging these two cultures in a way, the little bit of the modern, a lot of the traditional.

And every track that I've heard so far on the record is just really spectacular. Absolutely stunning. That voice, just transfixing other world, like really love this. And it just reminds me. There was an album that was put out years and years ago. It was a soundtrack to the movie called El Norte. There's a funeral scene, and it takes place in the mountains of Guatemala. And there's a woman who's singing in his funeral chant,

And I just remember, like, she's not a professional singer. She's one of the actresses in the movie that were just sort of drafted to participate in this. But just think about all the places in the world and all the cultures where there's people with these amazing voices who are not in show business or are not making records. But they still have these amazing voices for that they share with their family, their friends, their community. You know, and that's what this reminds me of. Folks who just, they have this great gift. The project is called Kayativo. It's Luis Gabriel Lopez, who goes by Luisga,

and a group of indigenous musicians from the group of people known as the Huni Kuhn people. Gorgeous. And that track is called Naibasa Machete. Felix, thank you for bringing that in. I love it. So my last track, I'm really excited about this. Felix, you will see on the dock, I took my notes away because I have a surprise for you. Oh, my God.

So I'm going to play a little bit of this song and then we can talk about it. The song is called When No Sbesamos and it's by Santysak. Oh my God, he's like eight years old. Okay, he's 14. But he's a 14-year-old, Santi Sack, from Chile. This kid has exploded in Chile. Everyone is dying over him. He's all over.

He exploded on TikTok. He's from Puerto Varas. And I went to my friend, I was like, I don't understand the phenomenon of what's happening here because I heard this voice and it made me stop in my tracks. I was like, what is this the level of emotionality? I don't understand how a 14-year-old can carry that much. But then, Felix, listen to what his other tracks have been like. This was the first track he ever released called Home Run on Spotify.

Obviously, manso demon, nobody knows, but I know who's who I'm wrong, pass over, no, pass to the trap. I mean, I think of the original, I'm in the city, and I'm floged the salt, I'm in sierra. Manso demon, nobody knows, but I know who's who I'm sorry, lit up to my hom wrong, contaminant, and my songs. Manso demon, nobody know

but I know who knows, but I'm so, Obviously this kid is incredibly versatile So I talked to some of my friends who are up on Chilean culture And they were like I don't even know how to explain it It's basically what they said But they were like it's so distinctly Chilean Like there's just a level of seriousness

But also hilarity to everything that people in Chile become obsessed with Like even down to the language right It's like Chilean Spanish is a little bit ridiculous They have this expression that is so distinct because living at the end of the world and having this dark history that it's like nothing is off limits

and nothing is too ridiculous. And this kid is just like doing this art that he can do all these different things like this most emotional love song, this really weird like rapping over trap beats that kind of works and everyone loves him. It's just this really fun pocket of what's happening in Chile right now.

Thank you. I mean it cut my attention, man. These people all over the world are making incredible stuff and they're getting the love and support from their neighbors, their family, their communities. I think you're going to be big one day, Felix. Santysak from Chile, watch out for him. We played them right here.

We played them right here in Alt Latino. I'm going to close out the show with something that's pretty close to my heart. There's a series of albums called Salsa de la Bayeia. This is all this great salsa music made by musicians from the Bay Area in California. There's a trombonist named Wayne Wallace who plays. He's a trombonist composer, band leader, music historian. He's played with a bunch of people in the Bay Area. There's also a woman named Rita Hargrove, who's a filmmaker and historian.

They work together on this record. It's like an archival record. These are all songs that have come out over the years, documenting the role of women in the salsa scene and the Afro-Caribbean scene in the Bay Area. So the album's called Salsa de la Bahia, Volume 3, Renegade Queens. This is a track.

The vocalist's name is Maria Marquez. She's from Venezuela. This track is called La Lagrima. We're going to hear it, and then we'll talk a little bit more about it. Love that. That voice, man. Incredible. And, I mean, the rhythms, it's just so tight, so beautiful.

The Renegade Queens is a title of a film that I read a hard graph made that is basically a history of the women's role in the Latin music in the Bay Area. It just looks so intriguing and it looks very, very comprehensive. And again, the Bay Area has a long history of Afro-Caribbean music. Of course, the majority of the people out west are all Mexican-American. But the Bay Area, for some reason, had this influx of people from all over. the Caribbean, Nicaragua, all over the place. And so this music that came out of the Bay Area was very special.

And this record goes back and documents a lot of those bands and a lot of the women-led bands. Maria Marcus, like I said, man, the album that she put out in 2004 is called Princessa de la Naturalesa. I fell in love with the voice back then. It's still haunting me right now. And I'm glad that they re-released it. Again, the album's called Salsa de la Bahia,

Volume 3, Renegate Queens. And that was the track, La Lagrima. featuring Maria Marcus. So you know what? There was a theme, though, kind of. Again, we did it again. We had this... I know.

We're in sync. These voices, these voices that come from all over that just are so distinct. You have been listening to Out Latino from NPR Music. Our audio producer is Simon Rentner. The woman who keeps us on track is Grace Chung. Soraya Mohammed is executive producer of NPR Music.

And Keith is VP of music and visuals. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Thank you for listening.