THINKING ABOUT MALA IN CUBA
I feel very weird about Mala in Cuba, the album—I don’t think it’s particularly mindblowing like a lot of people did, presumably because I spend half my life listening to producers/DJs who already live in Latin America reckoning with their own historical/traditional music and bringing it into a futuristic conundrum, to far more interesting results. (HEY who I often play on my radio show, plugggg.) That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy some of the tracks on there—”Changuito,” particularly, which brought the most ground-level Afro-Cuban rhythms to the forefront of the song and let Mala’s production live as a proscenium—but in general I felt it was heralded rather typically, as this GENIUS GILLES MAKING THIS THING HAPPEN, when the very thing he was trying to make happen has BEEN happening for years. (I will never forget the first time I heard about tribal guarachero aka 3ball, via Geko Jones, in 2008: around the same time I was experiencing cumbia digital via ZZK Records.) Also, Mala in Cuba has that Gilles lounge jazz steez that is really 2003. Anyway though, I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t find it nearly as banging and/or thought provoking as music this year by people like Javier Estrada, Chancha Via Circuito, Teehn Bwitches, Sonido Guay Neñé, Los Macuanos, or IF YA NEED THAT UK INFLUENCE, BOMBA ESTEREO’s amazing Elegancia Tropical album. You know what I hated though? People reviewing the Mala in Cuba album using words like “exotic” “foreign” and other synonyms for “other.” Like. Come on dudes.
NOT ONLY is Mary Jane Montoya the new Gerber baby, SHE IS EIGHT MONTHS OLD AND ALREADY KNOWS HOW TO GIVE BLUE STEEL. BIG TINGS in her future
“This land was Mexican once,
was Indian always, and is.
And will be again.”- Gloria Anzaldúa
#XICANISMA #LARAZA #UNIVERSÓPOLIS
(via thinkmexican)
Isabel Chavela Torres, elder of the Seri people of Sonora, Mexico. Like a boss.
If it seems dramatic, consider this: if Peña Nieto is confirmed winner, he will likely extend Calderón’s policies towards the cartels. Since Calderón took office in 2006, 70,000 people have been murdered in the drug war. Read Think Mexican’s storify of tweets during the election (which many believe was stolen—again!—by the PRI) here.
![Been thinking about how Latina/os in indie rock are rarely ever mentioned as such [see, kinda: my thingie on School of Seven Bells] unless they’re more political about it, and wondering whether it’s because indie rock in the US is so coded as white that ppl just lump light skinned Latinas into whiteness or people “care less” about race/racial issues or what but anyway, today I found out Frankie Rose is Mexican-American (cause she brought it up in an interview WRT Morrissey) and I’m pumped.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m176vdNAQi1qbjyhgo1_500.jpg)
Been thinking about how Latina/os in indie rock are rarely ever mentioned as such [see, kinda: my thingie on School of Seven Bells] unless they’re more political about it, and wondering whether it’s because indie rock in the US is so coded as white that ppl just lump light skinned Latinas into whiteness or people “care less” about race/racial issues or what but anyway, today I found out Frankie Rose is Mexican-American (cause she brought it up in an interview WRT Morrissey) and I’m pumped.
HEY remember when I posted Xenia Rubinos “Pan y Cafe” and you loved it? Well. She’s about to be a guest on my show on East Village Radio, playing new stuff and songs that inspire her and things. LISTEN LIVE OR L8r: evr.com. Starts at 4 PM ET but archive’s always there.
