Check Out this Casting Call for ‘Fiery’ ‘Mami Chulas’
By ALEX ALVAREZ
Oye, fellow CHICA$! Mamis, lemme ask u a kuestion. R u r3aDy 2 B on TV? Duh, rite? Well, locas, have I got the oportunidad 4 u! Peep this kasting kall looking for “fiery, passionate, spanish speaking bi-lingual goddesses who are those beautiful, exciting, mami chulas NY is notorious for (sic)” to take part in a show called “Mi Vida Loca.” DALE!
When I got this casting call (“kasting kall”) in my inbox (from Doron Ofir, the guy who did Jersey Shore) I actually cracked up because they managed to hit every horrible stereotype ever (except “ay, dios mio!”). It was incredibly thorough in its stereotyping. So good job, I guess, fuckfaces.
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
The Adelante Alliance, a non-profit supporting low-income immigrant communities in Brooklyn, protests in solidarity with the Women Support Occupy rally, Sunday at Zuccotti Park.
The Ralphi Rosario club mix of GloEs’ “WEPA” is charting really high on the ‘mersh Latin DJ charts. I don’t like it nearly as much as the original—which might be the best mambo track out this year (and PHARRELL produced it!), my apologies to Dominican Republic—as it neuters the merengue root for generic/skeevy Miami techno (you can almost feel the shiny silk shirts on your fingertips). BUT it does posit La Gloria as a true later-life dance music diva a la Cher, which I think she ABSOLUTELY deserves. Can’t wait for the full-length to drop and for her to break further out of Latin/old people markets.
