Alt.Latino

This week's new music show spans the breadth of Latin America. Argentine indie artist Paula Prieto goes experimental. Venezuelan reggaeton pioneers Chino y Nacho return to the limelight. Brazilian singer Marina B reminds Felix of The Beatles. Guatemala's Doctor Nativo pays homage to the "caminantes" heading north to find a better life. Plus, Latin punk from San Antonio, and a celebration of Afro-C...

Jorge Drexler is one of the most decorated singer-songwriters in Latin America. His albums are always high profile events, and his latest record merits the attention. It's called Taracá , and to make it he returned home to his native Uruguay - after living in Spain for 30 years - to explore the roots of an Afro-Uruguayan tradition known as candombe. On this week's episode we chat with Drexler abou...

Listen to this episode out in the springtime air. It starts with a bucolic jaunt through Brazilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento's latest orchestral project, then finds La Plazuela's fresh Spanish funk and Macha's irreverent side project. Other sounds along the way: Caribbean pop from Venezuela, feel-your-feels indie from northern Mexico and an electronic spin on the indigenous Náhuatl language....

Two phrases spoken during this week’s episode stand out because they represent how Ana and I approach our searches for new music. The first: “The only limit is the imagination.” In my constant hunt for the sound I have never heard, this thought is my mantra. The new music we’re bringing this week really steps up to that challenge, from young upstarts like Broke Carrey to beloved veterans like Drac...

From the very beginning of Alt. Latino , female vocalists have captivated us the most -- and New York-based Argentine vocalist Sofia Rei has been high on our list of favorites for a while. She uses the human voice like paint on a canvas, layering voices to create choirs that take flight at the mere suggestion of a melody. On her new album Antónima , she not only creates magic with her own voice bu...

This week's new music pairs well with a glass of wine - or, at least, that's what Ana chose while taping this happy hour edition of Alt. Latino at Felix's dining room table. And the music on tap spans a huge breadth of styles. Yahritza y Su Esencia returns with a powerful sophomore album after a spell out of the limelight. Brazilian legend-in-the-making Lucas Santtana collaborates with his mentor...

International Women's Day is more than a perfunctory holiday in many parts of Latin America. In Mexico City, for example, more than 120,000 people turned out on Sunday to protest femicide and celebrate the ongoing fight for basic rights for women in the country. In honor of the holiday, this week's episode debuts our female power anthems hall of fame, highlighting women in Latin music whose art ch...

On Feb. 21, the musical world lost a legend and pioneer of salsa: Willie Colón. The trombonist, songwriter, producer and arranger was a key part of the transition of Afro-Caribbean dance music from regional traditions to worldwide popularity. For an insider’s perspective on that history, this week we speak to trombonist and bandleader Angel “Papo” Vázquez, a Philadelphia-born musician who was not...

This week on Alt. Latino, it's another new music episode with a global panorama: Canary Islands merengue, Chicano soul, Afro-Brazilian roots and more. Plus, a percussion supergroup that Felix could listen to for hours. Featured artists and albums: (00:00) Introduction (00:55) Quevedo, 'NI BORRACHO' (05:02) Joey Quiñones, 'In a Soul Situation' (12:24) Carolina Mama, 'Amina' (15:31) Elipsis, 'Elipsi...

So, I was away for a bit and the new music just piled up during the holidays, and while we were watching Bad Bunny make headlines at the Grammys and the Super Bowl. Our first new music episode of the new year has quite a variety of styles from lots of different countries. We could say that about just about every new music show we produce. But what are we to do when the amount of creativity that co...

Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show was many things: a time-traveling journey through the history of Puerto Rico, a statement of pan-American unity, and a masterpiece of cultural expression. This week, co-hosts Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre are joined by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento — who brings on-the-ground reporting from San Juan — to unpack the symbolism embedded in Bad Bunny's performance....

Last Sunday, Bad Bunny's 'DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS' became the first exclusively Spanish language album to win album of the year at the Grammys. This coming Sunday, the Puerto Rican megastar will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. For this week's episode, Anamaria Sayre and Isabella Gomez Sarmiento chat about what these two moments mean for Bad Bunny, the island of Puerto Rico, and the role of L...

This month we’ve been looking at the music of Venezuela from a lot of different angles. For this episode, we’ve invited trumpet player and producer Ella Bric to be our guest DJ. She shared what she thinks are the most socially, culturally and politically impactful pieces of music to come out of Venezuela in the last half century. Ella Bric grew up in a migrant-rich town in Venezuela called San Ant...

Sometimes life imitates art - or at least the two can seem eerily connected. On Jan. 1, the Venezuelan band Rawayana released a new album, '¿Dónde Es El After?,' which began with a lyric that many interpreted as a wish for their country's leadership to be gone. A few days later, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was ousted from power and seized by American forces. For this week's episode, we cha...

Over the weekend, we lost a musician who shaped the lives of countless people: the late, great Bob Weir. He was a founding member of the Grateful Dead who played guitar, wrote and sang in the band for 30 years. After Jerry Garcia died and the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir kept the spirit of the music alive for three more decades, creating new Deadheads for generations to come — he brought...

Venezuela has a deep tradition of reflecting political change through music. This week, as the country reels from the seizure of its president by American forces, we explore the recent history of Venezuelan protest music, and from the Nineties right up until the present. First, we share an excerpt of an episode we made at another moment of political turmoil in Venezuela, in the summer of 2024. The...

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 a...

This year was bookended by two major statements in Latin music. In January, Bad Bunny released DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS , and followed that up with a 31-show residency in Puerto Rico over the summer. Then, in November, the Spanish vocalist Rosalía released her genre-defying masterpiece LUX , which sent legions of music lovers scrambling to try to grasp the magnitude of an album performed in 13 differe...

Some folks think by December all the releases for the year are complete. Not quite. This week we feature a new music show with albums that should be considered along with the year’s best.   We've got pop and alternative from Mexico, funk from Colombia, rock and ambient from New York and a Tejano master celebrated by his fellow Texans. Plus, Felix brings the zen.  Artists and songs featured in this...

The annual Latin Grammy awards are always full of glamour and glitz. But they're also an ideal time to take the pulse of the industry - which is exactly what Anamaria Sayre did this year, perusing the red carpet to talk with the most exciting names in Latin music.  In this episode, Ana brings Felix her report from Las Vegas, where Bad Bunny won Album of the Year, the independent Brazilian music sc...

Spanish vocalist and composer Rosalía has been a major presence in Spanish language music since she released her 2018 album, "El Mal Querer." She started by leaning into her flamenco roots, but since then she has expanded her musical vision to become one of those musicians who defies category. Her new album "LUX" stretches that descriptor to its limit. Her musical tools this time include the Londo...

Ever since I heard the Argentine saxophonist Gato Barbieri back in the Seventies, I’ve been fascinated by musicians from South America who found their way to jazz. Lately there seems to be a strong showing of contemporary musicians from various Latin American countries who not only play jazz but also mix certain Latin American folk traditions into their sound. So, this week I spoke with six of the...

Not to sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again: the variety of creative expression in what is inadequately labeled "Latin music" continues to astound me. From the bossa nova-by-way-of-Guatemala of Fabuloso and Los Skeepers, to the evolving torch singing of the Chilean-via-Mexico vocalist Mon Laferte, to the ‘Western noir’ of California singer Andrés Miguel Cervantes, to Nathy Peluso’s Ar...

The past month has been a whirlwind. The El Tiny takeover of the Tiny Desk... interviews with some of the most exciting artists in Latin music... and, of course, puppets! So, for today's episode, we emerge from the craziness and dig into our neglected mailbag, which is brimming with new music. What did we find? Simple beauty. A young songwriter from Veracruz whose spare compositions have wowed his...

There's no question that Mexican vocalist and composer Silvana Estrada is special to Alt. Latino. Ever since she launched her 2022 album "Marchita" with a series of revelatory singles, she seemingly spoke directly to Alt. Latino co-host Anamaria Sayre. Since those earliest days, the two have been able to spend quite a bit of time together in interviews and other public gatherings, which only broug...