South American music and culture magazine

This Saturday (19th November) Gilles Peterson and his Havana Cultura band will be performing at Electric Brixton in London. The party will celebrate the latest instalment in Gilles Peterson’s Havana Cultura album series, with none other than Masters At Work legend Louie Vega headlining the DJ bill. Continue Reading

Gilles Peterson continues his journey into modern Cuban music with the latest instalment of his Havana Cultura set for release on November 14th. The album is entitled Gilles Peterson presents Havana Cultura: The Search Continues and features Cuban artists Roberto Fonseca, Danay Suarez, Edgaro “El Productor en Jefe” and El Tipo Este, among others. Continue Reading

In the sheltered inner rooms of an old Havana house, an earthy philosopher plucks melodies and rhythms from the air and from Cuban music’s rich soil. Working alone or with close friends and relatives, he turns dances from the sugar cane fields and troubadour trills into magical realist declarations of liberty, as grandchildren dash in and out, and chicken grills out on the veranda. Continue Reading

South America has one of the largest concentration of States in the world that would call themselves socialists. Although there are other countries with left-wing governments, this political doctrine seems to have settled more strongly in this continent. With approximately as many nations that have welcomed right wing or Christian-Democratic heads of State, as those which stand-out with a radical left-wing government, overall, South America stands as a spot with a large amount of supporters of the validity of socialism. Continue Reading

Cuba is best known for son, the grab bag of styles that features many of the building blocks of salsa. But it also has a large community descended from Haitian immigrants, who speak French Creole, and their traditional music is rather different. The Cuban name of this 10-piece choir is Grupo Vocal Desandann, an obvious reference to these roots. Their repertoire reflects a history of struggle against colonialism and its side effects, which has seen successive waves of refugees and migrants from Haiti pitching up in Cuba ever since the Haitian revolution kicked off in 1791. Continue Reading

Today, you may think of Gilles Peterson as a DJ. A DJ yes, but he has helped launch the careers of some of the best musical artists of our generation; not to mention the joy he has brought to thousands of beat hungry ravers back in the 90’s, bopping out to Gilles’ perfect tunes.

It is with his love of music and his quest for the perfect beat, that the music of Havana took centre stage. During his time in Latin America, Gilles wound up meeting some very gifted musicians indeed and with no further a due, he assembled his new Cuban kids on the block and began recording Gilles Peterson Presents: Havana Cultura.
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Two years ago Gilles Peterson ventured to Cuba in search of Havana-based musicians. Suitably impressed with what he found he decided to record an album of these musicians, which he would entitle Havana Cultura. He speaks a little here about the recording:

“I had a few covers as starters: one from Fela to capture that true Afro-Cuban fusion; a Blue Note joint as a 70th anniversary gift; and a couple of Cuban faves from my Ballroom days – ‘Chekere Son’ and some Juan Pablo Torres. The rest was pretty much controlled jamming, picking up the Rumba boys from the bar below, or convincing Mayra Valdes to hit it freestyle.”

The album that resulted is undeniably Cuban with performances by some great up-and-coming musicians such as Robert Fonseca and Danay, but with Gilles sitting somewhere between the worlds of electronic music and jazz he decided to take these recordings a step further, resulting in ‘Havana Culture Remixed’, effectively the tracks from the album remixed by artists such as Louie Vega, MJ Cole, 4hero, Carl Cox, Rainer Trüby, Gotan Project’s Philippe Cohen Solal and Mocky.

On the site today we have the remix by Louie Vega, offering a Cuban-Jazz rendition of Fela Kuti’s classic “Rotoforo Fight.”

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More info:
Official Website
Buy the album at Amazon
Buy the album at iTunes

From the opening effect shot and rattle of drums there’s no mistaking the dub roots underlying the new release by Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno. When the horns kick in on the opener ‘Dog With a Rope’ it could easily be your classic roots reggae fare but there’s something a little bit different about the track, about the arrangement and rhythm, there’s a Latin flavour that can’t be hidden. This becomes more evident on the second track ‘Dub y Guaganco’, a Cuban rumba and one of the highlights of the album. After the cumbia-infused ‘Swing Easy’ the blueprint for the album has really been laid out.
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A haiku, as poet Octavio Paz put it, is lived poetry. For Yusa, the Cuban singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, this means the swaying of the sea, the hue and cry of the city, a toy’s rattle, a loved one’s dreams. Compared to everyone from Joan Armatrading to Erykah Badu, Yusa captures the intimate poetry lived in the changing, imminently musical Havana on her latest album Haiku (Tumi Music).
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Dancer and percussionist Max Pollak has performed for Fidel Castro one night and rural Cuban sugar workers the next. He has painstakingly transcribed a Mongo Santamaria timbales solo for six tap dancers and has traded moves (and shoes) with Cuba’s rumba masters. It all started when Pollak realized he not only wanted to play Afro-Cuban music, he wanted to dance it. Not dance to it; but audibly create the rhythms with his feet and hands. It’s as if Fred Astaire fell into perfect step with the Santería orishas.
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“He’s like Marvin Gaye, singing soul to a new generation…” – Boston Globe

“You’ll fall in love with Cuba’s untamed voice. Even if you don’t understand a lick of what he’s saying, you’ll feel him.” – New York Post

Mangoes sprouting in the tundra. The new face of Latin soul thriving in a hamlet a day’s drive north of Vancouver, British Columbia. This is the story of guitarist, singer, and songwriter Alex Cuba, who came into his musical own in the Canadian north and whose Cuban soul rock power trio flies in the face of conventional notions of what Latin music can be: gentle, hip, wry, and uplifting, with a twist of funk where Marvin Gaye meets Jaco Pastorius.
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There aren’t many people who can claim to have cut their musical teeth while traveling worldwide as a fisherman, been blasted onto national television as part of a taxi-driver’s collective of musicians, and had a government agency land them a gig playing for one of the top Cuban son bands of their era.  Tito Gonzales spent his young life walkabout, picking up guitar licks around the rim of the sea thanks to a Cuban-run company that sent fisherman like him far and wide to find the catch. The open water swept him into the urban narrows, and, back on dry land, he traded up for the sound of the tres (small Cuban guitar) and the Cuban son, yet his talent only led him to ordinary labor. Fate had in store for him a different destiny, a rapid ascendance from cabbie to celebrity and star of the Cuban music scene. Now, with a new life in San Francisco and the songwriter’s freedom to experiment and story-tell, Tito, a consummate master of Cuban traditional music, brings a fresh sound to a lifetime of experience. His new album, Al doblar la esquina, features a fresh take on classic Cuban son backed up by exile talent in his band, the “Son de Cuba.”
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