Switched on Pop - Anitta & Rosalía on the borders of Latin pop

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

When it comes to distinguishing what exactly Latin music is, what makes the cut? To some, it’s simply music from the Latin American region, and to others, it’s any music that is sung in Spanish �� but much like the pop canon, the phrase encapsulates so many different eras, styles, and genres. Like any distinction, there’s also music on the periphery: specifically, the music of Brazil, where the sounds are similar but the main language is different, and Spain, where the history of colonization looms over the country’s relationship with Latin America, raising controversial questions of appropriation.  Nonetheless though, music from both countries has made big waves amongst U.S. listeners on Latin radio stations and at award shows. Anitta’s record Versions of Me has been finding success on streaming and the radio, while Rosalía’s MOTOMAMI has become one of the most acclaimed records of the year, winning this year’s Album of the Year award at the Latin Grammys. This episode of Switched on Pop, we take a look at these artists and how they incorporate both native and Latin sounds in their tracks. Vote for the Signal Awards: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting#/2022/shows/general/music SONGS DISCUSSED:  Anitta – Girl From Rio Rosalía – DESPECHÁ Anitta, Ty Dolla $ign – Gimme Your Number MC Marcinho, DJ Marlboro – Glamourosa (Rap Glamurosa) M.I.A. – Bucky Done Gun Anitta, Papatinho, MC Kevin o Chris, Mr. Catra, YG – Que Rabão Anitta – Envolver Karol G – PROVENZA Rosalía – MALAMENTE - Cap.1: Augurio Rosalía – BULERÍAS Rosalía – DELIRIO DE GRANDEZA Justo Betancourt – Delirio De Grandeza Tego Calderon – Al Natural Rosalía – SAOKO Wisin, Daddy Yankee – Saoco Rosalía – CHICKEN TERIYAKI Rosalía – DIABLO Rosalía, TOKISCHA – LA COMBI VERSACE Rosalía, The Weeknd – La Fama Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome to Switch on Pop. I'm producer Rianna Cruz. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. So over the past few weeks, we've been covering a lot of lot of Latin music. Yeah, Bad Bunny, Calliuchis. Right. And what I've hope we've shown is that the term is very expansive that includes so many different styles. Yeah, I'm glad to hear you say this, Rihanna, because it's like we often toss around this term Latin American music. But what does that actually refer to? It's like a lot gets lumped in to that designation. Let's actually

take the time to really pick apart some of these cultural geographic differences and how they shape the sound of this incredibly important genre. I mean, to me, I feel like Latin music is just that. It represents music from, you know, the Latin American region. But over the past few weeks, in the process of us analyzing these Latin pop artists, it got me thinking about music that is on the periphery of the genre, things that are in conversation sonically, but of course, are linguistically and culturally different, thinking of like the music of Brazil, for example, where Portuguese is the main language, or Spain, where the history of colonization, of course, looms over the music's relationship with Latin America and has raised controversial questions about appropriation.

Nonetheless, though, music from both countries has made big waves among U.S. listeners on Latin radio stations and at Latin award shows. Case in point, the music of Anita, who's from Brazil, and Rosalia, who's from Spain. And music from these countries are in conversation with Latin music as we know it. You might have heard on the radio Anita's take on the Brazilian classic Girl from Yipanima, girl from Rio. Hot girls where I'm from, way to look like models, 10 lines, big cars, and the energy closed, you'll be falling in love with a girl from Rio. Wow, that's like a reclamation of the male gaze of the original version of that song.

I love it. Yeah, yeah. And you might have also heard Rosalia's Dispecha, which hit the top 10 in several Latin and South American countries. So, Nate, what I want to do is listen to the albums that Anita and Rosalia have put out this year and ask, what can we learn about Latin pop from these artists and these records that may not be at the center geographically, but are sonically? Awesome. I'm really excited to dig into these artists and their sounds.

Let's look at Anita first. So Anita is a pop singer from Rio de Janeiro, the titular Girl in Rio in Question, who over the past few years has become one of the biggest Brazilian artists to cross over to international. national audiences. Her fifth album, Versions of Me, came out earlier this year and was the first Brazilian pop album to hit one million streams on Spotify. It is her second multilingual album, covers English, Spanish, and Portuguese. It touches on traditional pop. There's a song with Tidalasine on it that has a wild sample of La Bamba. That's an unexpected but effective vibe snatch right there. Exactly. Anita's record is like full of vibe snatches.

by the way. Every song seems to have a different one, which is really interesting. But other tracks on the album include a native Brazilian genre known as Funk Carioca or Baile Funk. It's party music, hip-hop influenced, everything from Miami-based to samba is in there. We can learn the sound from the track

Glamorosa by two pioneers of the genre, M.C. Marlboro and M.C. Marino. That is a powerful In material of Love, All in Me Concein' Be making you vibra

In my style That is a powerful sound I mean The vocals themselves are really smooth But the bass And the percussion Is like so intense

And syncopated It really makes you want to dance But then the lyrics are something You can sort of vibe To and chill out too I can't wait

To hear more of this Yeah And when I was researching. I learned that I've heard this genre before, Balefunk before, and I had no idea because MIA has done it several times. Interesting. She worked with Diplo on three songs called Bailafunk 1, Bailifunk 2, and Bile Funk 3. Oh, well, there you go. But the most well-known example is Bucky Dungan off of Arulag. Wow. Sri Lankan-Brazilian mashup. I'm into it. It's very cross-cultural, which reflects the genre at large.

Funk karaoke is characterized by a few key elements. There's pulsating syncopated drums, also known as a timbersow beat, deep grooving bass lines, and vibrant synth melodies. The result is explosive, danceable, and funky, and sort of melts together everything from Miami bass to samba to gangster rap to Afro beats, bringing it all together for Brazilian party music. Funk karaoke by LaFunk. Anita does this on her track,

Kera Balle. The song even plays into that sort of cross-cultural connection by being bilingual, where you have Brazilian artists featured, as well as YG, who's from L.A. Yeah. And it works. And it works.

And it checks off all the boxes of what Bile Funk is. There's explicit lyrics. There's a cool sample chop as the backing. Has similarities with Miami bass. And it's also founded on the Tamberzau beat, which is usually the beat that founds this sort of genre. So this isn't the first time that Bile Funk has been brought to the shores of the U.S., but Anita is like really giving us an authentic.

dose of it and doing it in this way that's embracing all the diverse influences of the sound itself. Yes, and while the record is authentically Brazilian, it's also been getting a lot of play on Latin radio. Let's listen to her track and Volvo. So this is fascinating because it's like now we're hearing Anita doing a track that's using that characteristic reggae tone beat. Boom chip, boom, chip, boom, chip. The lyrics, I think, are in Spanish, right? So is this her like kind of making a play for Latin radio? I think so.

It's been really successful. I haven't been able to escape this song. I've been hearing it on Latin radio in L.A. you know, for months and months now. It's become something that I learned it was Anita after I had heard it five, ten times because it fits in so seamlessly in the canon of Latin pop. It reminds me a lot of the music of someone like Carol G, for example.

Hmm, okay. That was Provenza by Carol G. And I could see why a song like Enbover will have wide success in Latin America. Because it sounds very similar to other Latin pop acts of the time. The song was also produced by a Puerto Rican duo of Leonneo, who produced majority of bad bunnies, Yo Ago Loke Me Da la Gana, which we talked about last week. Interesting.

Yeah, so the tethers to Latin America make a lot of sense. Right. And it's really a testament how sometimes when we're talking about quote-unquote Latin American music, really we're just talking about popular music, period. Right. And over the last three weeks, one of the takeaways I seem to have, and I really hear that listening to this Anita track, it's like, why do we always need to define Latin American music as this other sound?

But in fact, it is like at this point, one of the primary backbones of the sound of popular music writ large. Yeah, and to complicate things further,

the song won the MTV VMA for Best Latin, making her the first Brazilian to win a category in the awards history, you know,

the history of the MTVVMAs, but specifically Best Latin. Best Latin. This is odd construction, but wow, so fascinating. Okay.

A lot to unpack there, but good for Anita. Good for Anita. And if you thought there was a lot to unpack in versions of me, there's a wealth more connection to be found in Rosalia's Motomami, which we'll get to right after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions.

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So it's been over three years since we last talked about Rosalia on Switched on Pop. And she's been up to a lot since then. She's a Spanish artist who has put out acclaimed records over the years. Her record Motomami came out this year. One, the album of the year at the Latin Grammys and at the end of 2022 has become one of the most acclaimed albums of the year. Yeah, Rihanna, we are getting our Rosalia coverage in right under the wire of 2022. Yeah.

And being able to end the year with our heads, you know, at least held a little bit high that we did manage to say something about one of the most discussed albums of the year before, you know, we go into hibernation. So I'm really excited to break down some of the sounds on Motomami. Yeah. She's previously worked in Spanish. in Roma genres like flamenco, most famously on El Malquerre,

her second record. Right. Malamente is a track that's deeply inspired by flamenco. Okay, so this is something I'm curious about because that was like one of the defining features of Rosalia was her reworking of this traditional flamenco genre.

Do we hear any of that on Motomami or like has she kind of moved on from that sound? No, the beauty of Motomami is that she takes these flamenco genres and influences and works them in tandem with her influences from Latin America. You could hear it on a track like Bularias, which is a reference to the Bularia, which is a characteristic style of flamenco. Wow.

I mean, shades of Malamante with those handclaps and those characteristic flamenca, rhythms. But there's also something new here, especially when her vocals get kind of auto-tuned in this wild kind of SoundCloud rapper way. I was like, whoa, this is the next step in the Rosalia sound. Yeah, and it reflects the bulairia at large. The buliria is a 12-beat cycle played at, you know, 195 to 240 BPM. And the bulairia specifically, when it comes to flamenco, is complex. And it's constantly shifting and it's spontaneous. That's sort of like the beauty of it. And I think Rosalia harnesses that energy in the track because you can never predict where she's going or where the song is going to go. And when you dance flamenco or specifically when you dance the bouleberia,

there's an element of surprise there. And it makes it really, really hard to dance or keep up with because it's sort of shifting all over the place. Well, that's cool. It's really dope. Okay, so that's track off the album with a very pronounced kind of flamenco influence. Do we also hear Rosalia engaging with like this kind of mainstream Latin music sound as well? Of course. I mean, in the track, she mentions some of her inspirations in a lyric that says

Lil Kim, Tego, and MIA. It's also so cool to hear Rosalia shout out MIA here because we were just listening to her in the context of Anita bringing Bailafunk to the mainstream. So it's like, there's that connective tissue from Anita to Rosalia. Absolutely. Amaya's cross-cultural connections. But she mentioned specifically Tego Calderon, who is sort of one of the kings of Puerto Rican reggaeton.

So there's a lot of references even within the Spanish songs to Latin culture. And Motomami at large is essentially a sum of Rosalia's influences. She grew up listening to Latin music. Love's Daddy Yankee, loves Ector Levo, who we talked about also on the Bad Bunny episode. And one of the songs on the record is even a cover of Husto Berencourt's

Delirio de Grandessa. I mean, this is wild, and it's like she's taking this ballad, which maybe sounds to me like a bolero or something from the 1960s, and she's covering it, recreating the melody but this time it's not like on top of a legato brass section.

It's on top of, I think, a soldier boy sample just repeated. I don't know. That's a fascinating kind of historical mashup to hear. Yeah, and it's clear and obvious she grew up on this music and wants to pay tribute to it while also sort of modernizing it, right? The record is an alternative regatone record. and she mentioned previously Tago Calderon on Bularias and his album El Abayarte

kind of led the charge for alternative regato I can totally see why a track like that would appeal to it's got that beat, it's got that flow but it's also got like this level of weirdness with like these sound effects and these kind of glitchy things happening in and around the vocal that make you, that kind of like

keep your attention and make you go, oh, this is a little different. Yeah. But still at the core, it's like, oh, this is, this is groovy and I want to dance to this, which I don't know, to me, captures a lot of what Rosalie is trying to do.

Absolutely. And it kind of sets a precedent for the record. The first song we hear on Motomami is Saoko. That is so. propulsive to listen to. That track gets going and it is just like just like worms its way into her brain and body. What is she singing about here, Rihanna? Can you give me a little insight into the lyrical content? She says in the chorus in English, I'm very much me. I transform a butterfly. I transform. Drag queen makeup. I transform. Louvia de S.J.S. I transform. She's basically

saying, you know, I'm a shapeshifter. I'm all over the place. you know, I'm constantly changing the way that you perceive me, which I think speaks to Motomami at large. Totally. It's like the musical theme that we've been identifying is this like, it's not going to be just one thing. What a powerful comment on identity itself. It's like, I am me, and almost. Cartesian statement of being, and then immediately it subverts that. I transform. Who are you? Who am I? We are constantly shifting. I love that idea. It's like, yes, I am me, and I am me because I am not one thing. Rosalia gets existential. Yeah. She's been reading philosophy. Rosalia on the Cartesian duality.

Going back to regaton though, the intro interpolates a classic regatone song by Wysine and Darianky called Saoko. So right off the bat, she is signaling regatone fans and saying, I understand I'm appealing to you through this interpolation. It's like every time she does something experimental and innovative on this album. She also pays fealty to artists of the past. So it's always like looking forward and back. Right, right. And she explores regatone on several other songs on the record, like chicken terriaki.

Diablo? See? Oh. And La Combi Versace. featuring Dominican rapper Tokisha. The original featured artist was going to be Tego Calderon before she changed it to Tokisha. So there's lots of connections there.

Even, you know, that's the second to last track of the album. Even as we get to the end of the album, there's still a wealth of connections. We can even call the genre of the track, something like Neopereo, which is an emerging genre, mixing regatone with electronic cliques. club elements. She's very clearly like tapped in. You know, Rianna, at this point, I feel like we could talk a little bit about some of the criticism that Rosalia received when she first

came onto the scene. You know, I think she was someone who was perceived as appropriating some of these sounds that we've been listening to. Right. As a Spanish artist, you know, she's not necessarily part of these traditions of reggaeton, part of that culture. Right. And Roma flamenco. But she's kind of using it to repel her success. And I wonder if this album Motomami and like kind of the fealty she's paying to some of the progenitors of this style while also like collaborating with with a lot of current artists in these genres is maybe giving her some more credence, some more legitimacy as an artist, someone who's not just here to sort of like pirate this sound, but really add to it and like

really sustain it. You know, I'm curious if there's been any response around this album in terms of her sort of authenticity as an artist. Right. I think a lot of people perceive this album to be quite authentic. I mean, the elephant in the room is that a one album of the year at the Latin Grammys this year, you know? So obviously there is credence to her, you know, paying homage to Latin culture rather than appropriating. However, there's people on the other side that say, you know, like, for example, with a song like La Fama, right, this Pichata song, why did she get the weekend on it to sing like Romeo Santos instead of getting Romeo Santos on the record? You know, it's sort of like a one foot in, one foot out type deal to some when it comes to the genre. You know, I personally really like the track, but I could see where people are coming from,

and it will always sort of be, I think, this never-ending swirling discourse around, you know, Rosalia as an artist, if she keeps doing sort of regat-ton, bachata, you know, these traditionally Latin genres in her work. I think of this quote from Tom Jurek at AllMusic that sums up the record to me pretty well, where he said that Motomami is twisting together the contradictory strands of Latin and Anglo pop with traditional and vanguard forms. And I think that's pretty accurate where, like, Rosalia is a person is not reflective of Latinidad. Same with Anita. But all of the sounds within their records indicate a connection with such.

You know, Rosalia is clearly paying homage to, you know, Latin artists of her youth, the people that she listened to. And going back to Anita, she is fitting in with artists on Latin radio today. It's a conversation about accessibility and fan base. And I think like you said before, Nate, Latin music is pop music. Switchdown Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz. It's edited by Art Chung. Our engineer is Brandon McFarland. Illustrations are by Iris Gottlieb.

Community manager is Abby Barr. Our executive producers are Nashat Kurwa and Huff. Anna Rosen and were produced by Vulture and the Vox Media Podcast Network. You can find us anywhere you get podcasts or at switchedonpop.com. And tell us on Twitter and Instagram at Switched on Pop. What Brazilian or Spanish artists you're checking out right now you really like or anything else you think fits into the conversation. We're open ears.

We want to know. We are taking a little break for the holidays. So we're going to rerun some of our favorite episodes over the next couple weeks. And we'll see you in 2023 with a brand new episode. Until then, you know, get some rest, get some relaxation, dance, listen to some music, whatever you need to do. Eat some holiday cookies. Now we're talking. And Rihanna, we'll see you in 2023.

I think it's going to be a good one. Absolutely. And until then, thanks for listening.