NPR Music - Alt.Latino: What We Missed In 2025

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

The sheer volume and variety of Spanish-language music released every year is breathtaking. Even those of us with our ears to the ground are bound to miss things. So, in this episode we travel back through the year to resurface some of the remarkable albums that somehow didn't make it on the show. Catch Afro-Caribbean jazz, a history-spanning classical strings project, the return of Juana Molina and much, much more.Artists and albums featured in this episode:- Alex Cuba, 'Índole'- Enyel C, 'Nuevo Caribe'- Berta Rojas, 'La Huella de las Cuerdas'- Cazzu, 'Latinaje'- Conrad Herwig, Eddie Palmieri and Luques Curtis, 'Reflections-Facing South'- Juana Molina, 'DOGA'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

Felix. Anna. I miss you. I haven't seen you in a week. Where are you these days? Oh, you know, the great city of Mexico. That works, right? Yeah.

It's always, you know what's like I get here and then I hear 5,000 new things that I'm like, wow. It's just the city musically is like evolving every point five seconds, truly. Well, it's all my friends that I said hello. I will. All your friends. All of them. From NPR music, this is all Latino. Felix Contreras.

And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Let the Chisemet begin. Felix. Obviously, I'm in Mexico, so I have a lot of Chisemay. I can't say any of it on the show. So let's just get into music we missed this year. It's impossible to catch everything that comes out. Absolutely.

Yeah. And one of the things I do at the end of the year is just like look back. Like, oh my God, I forgot about this one. I forgot about that one. So that's what we're going to do this week. It's actually one of the most thrilling things to me, Felix. Like one of my favorite parts of the year is not going back. and remembering all the things I loved,

but really doing the digging of like, but what are all the things that I didn't... It's like this explosion of all this amazing music that I just somehow missed or never had time to listen to. And it's like, oh, wow. It's like a whole new... I get to relive the year again, but with a whole new lens, it's amazing.

And even then we're still missing. It's still missing a lot of stuff. But anyway, we do the best we could, and we're going to start out. I get to start this week. What? Why? I put the songs in the order. You made the Google Doc.

Yes, I did. Yeah, okay. Okay, so, you know, one of our favorites, Alex Cuba, released a record, and it was just in November, but it was one of those records where there was, I think it was during the time when there were so many other things happening, and we were looking at a lot of different things. It may have been around Latin Grammy time, too, where we're doing the coverage and all that. This is his 11th album, believe it or not. It was released in November.

The album's called Indole. This is a thing called Espiritu Temba, featuring the great Roberto Biscayino Jr. Check it out. I have a spiritu into me. E, ah, is a, it's a tempa. All what I do is the . Yeah, is a a a a is a tempo. I have a spirit in my spirit

into me, a co-a is a a tempo. My form of camiral, my form of thinking, even my form of a a a way a way to a my form of camiral

my form of my form of my form of to to a a way to a a, I have a I, I have a, You know, it's a tempo,

all what I do my form of walking to walk to walk in the way to talk in the past my form of

my form of to think to warachar it is a temp You know the music that Alex Cooper has made in the past has like relied heavily on acoustic and

guitar, very melodic, and he hasn't really spent a lot of time digging into the Afro-Latino part of his heritage. And this record is pointedly leaning into all the rhythm, all the traditions, all the stuff that come from that part of the world and from that island specifically. No, that's exactly what I noted right off the bat is like it feels so deeply, I mean, the Caribbean part of the Afro-Caribbean is really key. Like, it is that form of percussion that is evolved for the set of islands that exist in this place. I mean, you can hear that across Puerto Rico, the DR. I mean, it sounds like a lot of things I've heard in these different places, but it runs a really strong current in this song. I haven't heard the record, which now I'm

very motivated to, but it's really present and at the forefront of what he's making here. And he has a couple of special guests on the record. In this particular cut, I mentioned Roberto Viscayino, Jr. who is a percussionist vocalist. Most notably, I met him and I've seen him a number of times with the great Chucho Uyahuildes in his quartet. Amazing percussionist, conga player, timbali player, all the stuff. It's one of those kind of guys that can play different things with each limb and everything's going at once. And then when he's just soloing on the conga, it's just amazing. He's one of these musicians who are moving that art and that craft forward into the future and well beyond. He's an amazing percussionist.

He also has a trio that he performs with with two of his friends on the island, and it's more of a percussion vocal thing and a little bit of music. It's a whole different thing. He's incredibly talented, and he's the son of Roberto Viscayino, Sr., who was, again, another amazing percussionist

probably from the 70s, the 80s was when I first heard him on some of these recordings. So, digging deep into that well of percussive knowledge on the island in a lot of different ways. And sprinkled on top of all that is Alex Cuba's wonderful songs, very melodic, great guitar playing, just a very, very nice combo. I really liked this record a lot.

It's called Indole, and it's one of the ones that we missed, but we're catching up on. Okay, Felix. So given what I just heard, what do they say? Is it pulling an audible? Is that what they say? Yeah. Calling an audible. Calling an audible and switching it up because I have something that I really want to follow with what you just played that might not at first listen feel like it's compatible, but I swear it is.

This is Puerto Rican artist Enel C, and this is the track Nuevo Carribe off his album, Nuevo Carribe. I hear of Rhythm I think a lot of And I'm chivalte chavo And chas chas chas chas But I hear so much on this one So much. There's so much. Yeah.

Like I said, Puerto Rican artist and producer, Anil Se, I actually don't know why I didn't bring this on the show because I did listen to it this year and I was hearing about it and I can't believe I'm just now bringing it. But yeah, Felix, I mean, I'm curious to hear what you're thinking about it. But one, I mean, the whole record is deeply Puerto Rican to me. I mean, the slang, the sound, all of it in a lot of different ways. It also feels very Caribbean to me. I think that there's kind of in the vein of what you were talking about. Like with reggaeton, we often love to talk about certain parts of the roots, the raises, the kind of like the different sonic landscapes that people are drawing from more on like the Dembo side, the Panamanian side.

But we don't talk as much about those reggae roots talking about reggae dance hall thinking of the Caribbean, you know, thinking of Jamaica, thinking of where it sits in that sense. And I thought that this record did that in this really fun, but like sonically easy kind of way. It caught my attention, especially when they break it down and you can hear. That old school reggae beat, sound with a lot of reverb and all that. And, you know, it reminds me of during the, I guess it was the early 90s, during the whole rock and espional thing, where there were a handful of bands coming out of Mexico

that were just straight ahead, like deeply. in the reggae and ska. And then they use this exact same beat and flow in their music. And it's that part where, you know, again, like I said, there's a lot of echo and it just sort of floats out there. Man, this is what it reminds me of. I really like this. Well, and, you know, that undercurrent, too, Felix, as a sidebar in Mexico City

is still very present. Like one of my favorite bars, clubs in the city is this kind of really weird, old dinky, like four-story all reggae all the time bar in el c'clock it's called coutro roots and it's like totally I mean it's nothing pretty to see but it has this really like it's one of these core kind of city side scenes and so I think that that pops up in different parts of Latin America actually in a really interesting way something about the beats and the rhythm that that people are still attracted to and this artist in particular I mean again I come back to this idea of his easiness.

Like, it's an easy listening experience, but it's also in that same sense. He makes some significant statements, too, in this very palatable way. I think a great example of this is this song on the record I love. It's called Palo de Limon. In my ultimate life, I'm a palo de limon. For this day of now, I'm tremendous cabron. And if reincarnal no, I want to be a tiburon to come to me a pair of gringoes in the I'm so they're

And is that they're They're going to My isla Come here Come here and tell And where'd be I'm so there for this man This is so cool right?

amazing. And these lyrics, I mean, it's like so silly but so clear the statement he says there, if I'm reincarnated, I want to be a shark to eat a few gringoes on the shore of Boqueron, which Boqueron is basically the bay around Cabo Rojo, which I don't know if you remember this, Felix, but when we talked about Chewy earlier in the year when we talked about PJs Enzuela, this is a zone on the west side of Puerto Rico that both these are, many artists have spoken about because it's the site of this really contentious debate right now around this really big development of condominions and resorts on the west side of the island that a lot of local people are opposed to. So it's this very clear thing from him where he later

goes on to say, they say they want to take over my island and I don't know, come here and tell me where's your grandma? And it's this very clear, quick, like, really? Are you sure? So he just, everything about what he does is really, really compelling to me, honestly. It's really quite, quite well done. That was a couple songs from the album Nuevo Carribe by Emil C. Okay, I'm taking a deep breath because I'm excited about all the music, but this one here really caught my attention. Okay. There is a guitar. She is a classical guitarist, really one of the leading classical guitarist in the world. Her name is Bertha Roja. She's from Paraguay. and she has released a bunch of records.

She's been in the business for a long time. She took on this project. It was two years into making. It's called La Juea de las Querdas, like the journey of the strings. And it's the history of stringed instruments in the new world. It's multi-platform,

and there's a bunch of guest artists. I've run a track called Sada, and it's written by a Puerto Rican composer, actually, Angel Mislan. And it features Berto Rojas on the guitar and our friend Fabiola Mendez under Puerto Rican Quatro. Check this one out.

You know, it's not something we normally play on the show, but, you know, I just had to bring it in because I just really admired her taking on this project. Like I said, over two years into making, she went to 10 different Latin American countries. There's 17 musicians performing on various native strings, instruments from wherever they happen to be from.

In fact, one of them includes Gustavo Santo Olaya. All 11 tracks can be seen. on the YouTube channel because when they recorded the album, they also recorded a video so you can see them actually making the record. Each track has its own song, its own video. The final package, it's a box set. It comes with the booklet with narrative notes and history. I'm a history freak, so I really dug into that.

It's really spectacular. And check yourself. There's a QR code in the book, and it brings up an AI image where you can run your finger digitally across the strings of different instruments. instruments and hear what they sound like. It's really immersive and it's a really beautiful project. Again, Bertaroja, she's from Paraguay.

She's done a lot of different stuff for classical music and just the idea of her taking on this 500 years of history. You know, it's like you think we have problems trying to remember what came across in the last year. I'm sure she must have had a very difficult time trying to decide which tracks she was going to include on the record. It is cool to think to how close to the person to the human, the stringed instruments across Latin America are thinking of the quattro, thinking of even the guitar, I guess, thinking of all these variants of what that is. It's like it's almost the voice, but not quite.

It's like the second best thing. It's the second best version of communicating a story of an emotion of a history. And so it is so closely held in so many places. And it's so, so varied. This is really interesting. Yeah, and it's part of the, you know, when we talk about the history with Spain and colonization, all that stuff, there's certainly a lot of stuff to think about. But, you know, the other thing that came out of this was just amazing music and art and sculpture and like visual arts, writing, all this stuff. But in particular, the music and the way it was interpreted and reinterpreted and reinterpreted and reimagined once it got here and just creates everything that we cover, right?

Like we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all of that history. 100%. There you go. So cool. Berta Rojas is her name. The name of the record is La Juella de Las Cuerdas, and that particular track was called Sarah. I think we need to take a break.

All right, let's do it. Take a break so I can look at this booklet again. And we're back, and to remind people, we are listening to stuff that kind of slipped by us this year. Anna, you're next. All right, Felix. Here we go. Argentine singer Kazu

came out with a new album this year called Latina G. She is known in much of the world as basically this huge force in urban music. I mean, if you haven't heard of her, she's one of these artists that is up there in the ranks

of kind of some of the biggest, I guess pop, but really, yeah, like urban-sounding musicians. She's from Argentina. She released an album this year that, again, I listened to to and I loved, and I don't know what was going on, but here it is.

The album is called Latinaj, and this track is called Malasuerde. I was I could do and that never more you remember of how I you know I'm sope that I'm I'm Nassie, with a Mala Suerty

I'm afraid of Perdete I'm Nassi with Tanta Mala Suerte I'm MEDo to

MIRDT Morrow Felix, if you don't know her project, this is a pretty sharp pivot for her. I mean, it's usually, like, she's a rapper, effectively, is really what her sound has been. And so this album had, like, cumbia, more pop sounds, funk, Corrios Tumbados,

which was very shocking for me to hear from an Argentine artist. So a lot for her in terms of the ex-examian. exploration of a very different sound, obviously on trend with this whole, you know, exploring more integral folkier, longer standing, let's say, sounds from different parts of Latin America. There was a lot of attention on this record because she did have this very high profile relationship, dramatic Christian Nodal, and then it kind of devolved into this whole chisement of, well, it's a whole thing.

You can look it up on TikTok, Felix. But the point is that I think a lot of people work. really looking towards this record to get some of the details on that relationship, which, yes, she did talk pretty personally about him in some ways. You can kind of hear it in La Letra. But really, my focus more is just her exploration of the different sounds. There's different songs on here where you can kind of hear some crowd ambience. It feels like it was recorded in more of a live space. I think she was really going for that. And I think to me really, Argentina as a whole, is really supportive. I've found, you can look at the Milojota album of people exploring kind of off-kilter

popular sounds, not just the straight-ahead, you know, reggaeton, the straight-ahead urban rap. They really have been, especially in the last few years, I think really respectful of the idea of incorporating traditional sounds into a pop record. And so I think that that's where a lot of that is happening and it's been exciting to see happen over and over and over again. This particular track reminds me of just how easily the Afro-Caribbean, in this case it's an Afro-Cuban beat that she's playing underneath,

like a median tempo, almost like a fast-bo-letter, but a median tempo, cha-cha-cha. It's like it fits so perfectly with like Demboe, with hip-hop. It's just, it's so adaptable and you don't even have to change it. Yeah, it's like, it superimposes over this stuff.

I mean, I'm reminded of the first time I heard this, God, it was like 98 or so, But 99, when the Cuban artist X. Elfonso did an album where he sampled old Benny Morey and then put in hip-hop beats underneath and it just fit like a glove and it still does. That's what this reminds you of. That was the song Malasuerte from Casu's album Latinaj. Okay, Felix, last song. Okay, my last song. All right.

So this is an album called Reflections Facing South. And it's by a trombone player named Conrad Hurwig. and he is a veteran of the Afro-Caribbean music scene in New York, Latin jazz, salsa, jazz stuff. He's played with the biggest names. He has his own series of albums, the Latin side of Wayne Shore, the Latin side of Herbie Hancock, stuff like that, with all the Top Cats in New York playing. This one is a trio record, if you can believe it,

with Conrad Herwig on trombone, Lucas Curtis on bass, and the great Eddie Palmieri on piano. It was released just after Eddie Pomeri on piano. It was released just after Eddie passed in August at 88 years old. This is the title track, Reflections Facing South, and you can hear the interplay, and I'll explain a little bit more, but let's share a little bit of the music first.

Throughout his career, we've run out of ways to talk about just how important Eddie Pomeetti was to Afro-Caribbean music. And in this particular case, this album reminds me of this moment that we had at the DC Jazz Festival in Labor Day, weekend. Eddie Palmieri and his band were scheduled to close the festival out. They were the headliners of the last night of a weekend, two days worth of music on multiple stages. And it's

always, the headliner is always the one that blows everybody away. And Eddie and his band were supposed to play. And he passed before the gig. And the band decided, and the DC Jazz Festival organizers decided, you know what, let's just do this as a tribute to Eddie Palmieri. I was fortunate to be able to do like a panel discussion with the musicians, some of the musicians of the in the band in the afternoon, to talk about his legacy, as to talk about his impact. Anna, emotions were still so raw because these were all young guys and a couple of guys who've been playing with them probably since like the 80s. And he was the chief, he was a guy.

He was, you know, he was their surrogate father. He was their uncle. He was everything. He was their band leader. He was their friend. He was all of that. During the session, it was very emotional, and everybody was talking about how they joined the band

and their reaction to him. Lucas Curtis, who was bass player, Eddie called Lucas his left hand. Because, you know, when you're playing the piano, the left hand on the piano plays all the bass notes. So he didn't have to play a lot of stuff because Lucas had figured out a way with his own talent to play this part that fit perfectly with Eddie. And when he was explaining to that,

he got very emotional on the stage. Anna, when they played that night, Eddie's band was there. The guy Curtis was actually filling in for Eddie on piano. It was the most emotional thing I'd ever seen. They were practically playing through tears on that stage. Killing, I mean, like up-tempo, not just ballad stuff, just like up-tempo Eddie stuff. And to know that they recorded this record, you know,

probably earlier in the year, and then it came out just as he passed. You know, it's reflective. It shows everything about Eddie what he was, you know, his mother. melodicism, his emotion, the rhythm, the playfulness, everything about it. Listening to this record is kind of hard, but it's also, you know, this is what we need after losing him this year. The album's called Reflections Facing South. The artist is Conrad Herwig, Eddie Famieri, and Lucas Curtis. Okay, your turn.

Me? Yes. Juana Molina, Felix. You know the name. Oh, my God. Yes, I do. Did you hear this record because I somehow missed it. She released an album this year.

It's her first original music album in eight years, and we didn't think to listen to it or play it on the show. You know, man, I'm, I'm like... We're losing our minds. Yeah, she's probably giving us powpaw right now wherever she is. Because if you're not... For overlooking this. I'm completely embarrassed that we missed this one.

Well, I'm doing the good deed as our last piece of music, I think, that we'll play on the show this year, Felix. It feels only appropriate to close out with the incredible Argentine. How do you even describe her? She's like spent so many years making really interesting alternative sounding music, always pushing the edge, the boundary, doing the new thing, doing a different thing, exploring her own kind of space and sound. And so this is the album.

It's called Doga. And this track is called La Pada Doja. Yeah, we should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be ashamed of ourselves. And to run it back on Juan Amolina and her story, I mean, she's been doing this since the 90s. This is her eighth album that she's released. And she actually started, and I don't know if you know this, feel like she started as a comedian. And that was kind of how she first got acclaim.

People in Argentina weren't as interested in her music early on. And it actually took her kind of getting some recognition outside of the country for people within it to start paying attention to her. But she really has always done things that are interesting, things that feel. distinct. This is a song that I really loved off the record. It's called siestas ai. It's also worth noting, Felix. We talk about Argentina a lot on this show. I mean, the way that we're constantly impressed by this new young wave of artists, a baccar elipa amoroso, of a milojota. And it's really, I think, important to always remember that Argentina has always had a really healthy alternative scene and if it weren't

for artists like Juanamolina, you know, they could not exist in the way that they do today. And there really is this consistent, again, like I said earlier, this respect for the place that music as an art form, but more as a boundary pusher, I think exists in the country. Like I was having this conversation yesterday that in Argentina, it has existed on the same plane as politics in the past. It has existed on the same plane as actual, you know, concrete public discourse. And so I think there's always this look towards music as a place to really kind of have conversation with yourself, with each other, and do things that feel a bit revolutionary in a way. So Juana's always been that to me. I had Juan Amalina on the show, maybe 2011 or so. And the reason why I had her on the show, because I saw her CD sitting around somewhere.

It was a brand new record. It was laying on a shelf somewhere, and I listened to it. And it opened up a completely new sonic world for me. and I was completely enraptured. And so I had her on the show, I knew that she was a comedian and had done this stuff on TV. So if you find the show,

I ask her to, I think she signed off on the show with the voice of the character that she did in the TV show. And I also need to remind people that we had her on the Tiny Desk in 2014. So yeah, we're big fans here at Alt Latino of Juanamolina,

which is why I'm embarrassed that I completely miss the record, man. It's okay That's what I'm here for Felix That was a few songs off of the new Juanamolina album

Doga Okay Felix That's it We did it The year It's over Oh my gosh Yay

Just to remind listeners We are going to take a couple weeks off For the holidays And go out And do our respective things But we will be back In the beginning of the year

But yeah Looking back I mean we talked About this last week I think it was a show Where we look back At the year You know what

Latin music was like all that other stuff. But just in general. I mean, it was action-packed. There was a lot of an amazing, amazing music. And again, it's like a lot of stuff slips by, and I'm glad we're able to catch up to it this week. Okay, Anna, I'll see you next year.

Yeah, right. You're going to text me tomorrow, today. You have been listening to Latino from NPR Music. Our audio editor is Noah Caldwell, and today in the booth, Danica Pines. Executive producer of NPR Music is Saraya Mohamed. Executive director of NPR music is Senali META.

I'm Felix Contreras, I think. And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. What? I don't know. We really are at the end of the year. I'm forgetting names, man. Oh, my gosh. Thank you for listening.

I think I need a break. I think I need a couple weeks off.