(upbeat music)
- From empty-arm music, this is all Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. - And I'm Ana Maria. Say her, "Let the Cheese May" begin. (upbeat music)
- Okay, Felix? - Yes.
“- This week, we're doing one of my favorite types of episodes.”
So, you and I, we brought in a lot of amazing records
so far already this year that we're really excited about. - And there's been a few that we wanna spend an extra amount of time with one in particular. It's one that hasn't even come out yet. But we're gonna give everyone today
a little bit of a preview, not only of the music, but of the sounds, sights, smells that inspired the record. - The album's called "Antónima". It's coming out on April 3rd, and it's by the Argentine Vocalist Sophia Rey.
- It has an incredible list of collaborators, including Gabi Moreno, Dimeiro Sena, Midea Ramos, Senia Rubinos, Juanaluna, just to name a few. - And we're extremely, extremely honored to have her with us online today.
Sophia, welcome back to "Out Let the Know".
- Thank you, Felix, and Ana Maria. Yeah, this is so, so I'm so excited to be here. I love you guys, I listen to you guys. - It's like in this, we love you and listen to you and are more fan of you.
(laughing) - So what we did was we asked Sophia to bring in some tracks that have influenced her, that she's listening to, that maybe it influenced the record, just sort of stuff.
- For her life, any of it, all of you above. - She sent me a super, super long list. We paired it down, because I get it, right? How are you gonna...
“- Honestly, if I had to do this, I just would it.”
I'd be like, "No, it's very difficult." - It's very difficult. - Super, super difficult to narrow it down. - Before we get to that list though, we're gonna hear a little bit of the new record.
This is a title track, it's called "Antónima" and it features a group called "Las Anyes" from Colombia, right? - Okay, check it out. (singing in foreign language)
♪ For a river of todas las ablasts ♪ ♪ Jaueras ♪ ♪ Llegis de tribo y suciedad ♪ ♪ So's lile y la baila tu cuerpo entero ♪ ♪ Pedor si hoy yo quiero hablar ♪
♪ Ya si corrarme a mi apagal ♪ ♪ Lira conterme la mitad ♪ ♪ Me te dijo el mismo parama ♪ ♪ Pedor si hoy yo quiero hablar ♪ ♪ Ya si corrarme a mi apagal ♪
♪ Lira conterme la mitad ♪ ♪ Me te dijo el mismo parama ♪ - Sophia, wow. (laughing) - That's wild.
- Oh my gosh. How did this thing come together conceptually
“because it's listening to your records over the years?”
There's always something a little different.
You always have a little bit of an idea, a theme, but this one seems to be completely realized and very, very well fought out with the layers of the voices and the concepts and rhythms, just in that one alone. I mean, how do you do this, man?
We're just stuff come from. - So I actually realized, not so long ago, that these whole things started with a playlist that I put together of all these phenomenal women from all parts of Latin America
that are creating music that I love, that are doing, things that are related to Latin folk music, but in a very different way. Some of them are into electronic songs, some of them are mixing things up with
off-rocaravian stuff, some of them are into soul music, some of them are into experimental pop, some of them are into, and they are just doing something new or something different. And I was like, I want all these folks in a record together. How can we make it happen?
So it took a long time, Felix, because we recorded in Buenos Aires in Córdoba, in Bogotá, with lasangues, this track that you just listened to. In Miami, with Ime, in LA, with Gabby, and also we started working with my long-term color radar
JC Maylar in crafting the sound of this record, which was very, very artisanally in a way. Like every sound you hear, every instrument, if it's virtual or if it's acoustic, was like really, really worked on, and we,
you know, I envision kind of like the perfect marriage
Between the electronic sounds that we love for so long,
but keeping being able to keep the DNA of these rhythms,
“it was a gift to me to have these incredible women in on the record.”
Something that I tell people a lot about music from all parts of Latin America, and this is a generalization, but I feel as though often collaboration is more naturally a part of the process.
It's more, you know, accepted, used, you see people collaborating across records all the time, but what I love about everything you're describing is the intentionality behind not only selecting these artists that you deeply admire,
but really this very thoughtful, yet natural, infusion of a lot of different cultures. I mean, you see perhaps artists from Mexico, collaborating with other artists from other parts of Mexico, or you'll see maybe like Caribbean artists coming together,
“like a very naturally Puerto Rican and Dominican”
or something to that effect, but the way you tied in a Gabi and a Sania and a that I made, as if it all makes perfect sense together, because I think it does. There's something, there is something,
and the Sonic landscape that you've really built in this record, they do fit beautifully in a way that you wouldn't expect them to. - Yeah, it was really interesting too, in the case of songs where I invited them, I was like, okay, where can Gabi shine,
or where can Tato shine, and whatever we're gonna be putting together, and I don't know, I really like that we managed to make something very pan Latin, like global Latin in a way.
- I love that you used that term, pen Latin, because pen Latin is such a, it has an specific association with it, that you've kind of flipped on a tad a little bit, and looking at the playlist that you brought in today,
also very pen Latin in the way that you're describing it. I mean, you have clearly influences artists you admire from a lot of different regions of the world in Latin America and outside.
So we wanna start by playing the first song you brought in today,
which is God wanted my deeply personal favorites. (laughs) This is Te Guardo, Paisilván, Estrada. (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language)
(singing in foreign language) - Okay, so I'm curious, okay. On and on, I have talked a lot about a Savannah struggle on the show, about why we like her, and what appeals to us.
- I'm curious about what do you hear, what attracted you to her music as a fellow musician? Like, how do you filter that appreciation based on your own creativity? - I find Cilván had to be the best representation
of the things I love in music, and in folk, Latin folk music, in particular, I think she's the present of Latin folk music. Literally, I cannot think of anybody else that could be at that level of beauty
and creativity.
Her poetry is just incredible.
Her voice is to die for, it's just like, she opens her mouth. I saw her live multiple times, and I'm like, you can't breathe.
“You need to wait until the end of the phrase”
to even attempt to breathe again. She's just, it's just mesmerizing. And I really like, as a musician, at her musicianship level, I appreciate that. I appreciate how great she is playing multiple instruments.
She also has a connection to jazz, which is part of my background in something very important in my music and major influence in everything that I do. And she, you know, she listens to her influences sarván and Billie Holiday, and I just,
I couldn't stop listening to her. She would do a four-hour show. I'd be happy to be standing.
(laughing)
- Thank you, Apping. (laughing) - And dancing. - We were listening to the voice of Siddván on a strato with a track than watermelon.
From her 2022 album Marciita, we're gonna continue with the next track.
“One of the things I discovered and when I think back”
about how long we've been doing a show, one of the connective tissues is my fascination and appreciation for female vocalists of all kinds. And one of the ones I remember very distinctly hearing Juanamolina for the first time
and just being completely mesmerized and blown away. And it's fortunate enough to have her on a tiny desk and also in every her on the show once. Let's play a little bit of the track that you brought in. It's called Siddvánis and then we'll talk a little bit about her.
(singing in foreign language) - I'd like to think of Juanamolina as and get cracker if I'm wrong. As the madrena of women who have been in jail for a long time, I'd like to think of Juanamolina as and get cracker if I'm wrong. As the madrena of women who do amazing things with their voices,
either naturally or with electronics. - I love her. I love how odd her choices are.
“The song forms she creates are completely different”
from what you would expect of a pop song, the way she also uses live electronics is very specific, very particular.
She's always being herself and I don't know if you know,
but Juanam had a major career when she was in her 20s as a comedian back home in Argentina. - The most incredible stuff you've ever seen as she had a show called Juanamolina as Siddvánis, where she would play multiple characters.
(laughs) And it was also very much herself because it was a very, very weird type of humor that but it was on public television. Everybody was watching this show.
Me like, oh my God, this is hilarious, this woman. She's so talented, she's a very talented actress and comedian. And when she was at the peak of her career, she was like, nah, you know what? I just wanna play music.
And all of a sudden, people started to recognize that she was kind of a genius and she was doing something really new and very, very innovative. And so she's really a pioneer. She's very experimental in her way of approaching music.
And that's what I admire of her. - When I had her on the show, I surprised her at the end of the show and I had her disbelief in those to say goodbye and wanted her TV character twice as (laughs)
her voice and her character in whole whole beans. She took a second and she went into that, I guess her zone. And it was like a little kid's voice almost, right? And she was this little kid. It right in front of me, she transformed.
“It was never forget her voice or being everything about her.”
It became this like little, little person, little kid person, this character.
- She's an incredible actress.
And her mother was a phenomenal actress, super famous actress and her father was a tango musician and I think she got the best out of both of them. It's a good DNA, good DNA that she got. And she did something spectacular with it.
- We're in the studio talking to Sophia Ray about her new record, but also about some of her favorite records. We're gonna take a break and we'll be right back. And we're back from break. We're sitting here with Sophia Ray talking about
some of her favorite music, is that fair to say, most influential perhaps? - Right. - All right, we're gonna move on to this next track, which I was surprised that excited that you put on here.
This is a track from two yards and the song is called Business. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) ♪ In the fall ♪
♪ I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪
♪ And I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪ ♪ And I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪ ♪ I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪ ♪ I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪ ♪ I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪
♪ And I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪
♪ And I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪
♪ And I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪ ♪ And I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪ ♪ And I've always loved the one that did this to me ♪ - Okay, another song that I had not heard in years. This was like amazing, amazing reminder of things that I love.
I was like, "Oh, I forgot I love this!" (laughing) I mean, I said it didn't make sense until it really did.
“I think that there's a really clear through lines in me”
of some of the things that it's clear that you admire. I mean, what about this song specifically? And I'm noting the vocalizations, especially here, really draws you in. - The first time I heard ten yards,
I think this was the first song I heard. I was like, "Oh my God, she's like my American sister! What's going on here?" (laughing)
I never met Merrill, but I would love to do a collaboration
with her one day because again, I feel like, "Hey!" We should, yeah, it's like a sister from the north that I should meet sometime. Okay, we're gonna put it out there, hopefully she's listening. - I was gonna say noted. (laughing)
- Before we move on to the next track, you mentioned JC, my Lord at the beginning of the show, just a little bit. Can you talk a little bit about your creative relationship, the association that you have with him?
Because I've seen you guys live, he's on all of your records just about. Where did that come from? Where's the deep from? 'Cause he's got an interesting backstory,
but then how do you guys work together? What's that chemistry like? - That's a really great question. She's seen I met in Montréal, at the Montréal Jazz Festival,
and I was introduced to him by my friend, Malikazara, I think he was 2011, 2012, and I went to see them play, and I was like, "What's going on?" He's a multi-instrumentalist.
He's from the French Caribbean, he's from an island called Wadalupe, and he is one of the most musical humans I have ever met, and he's really skilled in piano, guitar, and bass, and percussion, and he's a great songwriter,
and a great producer as well.
So he was very essential in the making of this record.
The way we work, typically I do write, and then I bring the ideas and the writing to him,
“and then we start to bring storm about, okay, how are we?”
- How are we gonna bring this to life in the studio in particular, right, and he's an incredible producer. We produce this record together, and we worked hours and hours and an,
for each song to have, as I was saying, at the beginning, the type of sound, and the cohesiveness that we want it, because again, we're mixing so many different things here. It's like it could very easily turn into,
and to a spoiled soup, which sure. (laughing) - And we work together super well. We get along really well, and musically we understand the other super well,
so it's like really a pleasure to have a musical partner like that. - You could see it too when you guys play live. There's like this and spoken thing, and when I saw you, I don't remember who else was in the band, but I knew you had where to hit Glam in the band.
- That's right.
“- And then it Venezuelan Quattal Player,”
and then JC and you, and I forget who else, but like all these amazing musicians on a stage, but there was something between you guys, man, it just, it just works. - And here's the thing also.
We worked as a duo, we worked as a trio, we worked in a six-step, we have managed to create music in so many different formats that really worked for us. And again, he sings really well.
I'm like, so lucky, I was able to fire everybody after I met him, I'm like, okay, that's it. That's it, that's it, it's just me see. (laughing) That's one guy, you have your orchestra, so that's it.
- Okay. - War music. - War music. Oh, okay, this last one too, oh my goodness, I need like an expanded version of this playlist,
whatever your original 100 songs were. - I'm gonna send it to you. - No, please, I'm super, super serious. (laughing) Okay, so last song we have for today,
this is another amazing legendary dessert to be in the Hall of Fame, Rita in Vienna. This is her song, "Munding at Times." (upbeat music)
, she is, to this day, I think one of those,
almost to me, a best kept secret in a lot of ways of the kind of like independent alternative scene where what she did and continues to do
“is instrumental, I think, in defining some of the sounds”
that we hear today, some of the most exciting sounds that we hear today, and yet maybe has not fully gotten her flowers for how innovative for how brilliance she is in manipulating sound, and you can hear it in that song, right? I could see Felix with that percussion,
absolutely losing his mind as he does. What about her specifically, really, really has inspired you? I would imagine. - Well, I agree with you, she's brilliant, and not enough people know of her music,
and her, actually her overall, she has a career as a writer, a novelist. - Yeah, Latin science fiction, are you kidding me?
It's amazing, it blew my mind,
and her lyrics are just out of this world, the sound of her music's kind of like a perfect marriage of analog and digital, and these song in particular is a Dominican meringue on steroids. (laughs)
- Super steroid. - Yeah, I'm like, yeah, this is it, this is it exactly, 'cause she, again, she takes tradition, and she pushes it to the very extreme present, or the future, actually, 'cause she's a futuristic folk,
like I like it, you know, like this is it. That's it, and I started this project calling it,
“folk-confuturism, and I think Rita represents that”
in the best possible way, so, of course, she needed to be in my short place, and she's definitely my long playlist as well. - Former Latino co-host Jasmine Garz introduced me to her years and years ago, right after we started this show,
and I was just checking right now, we had her on as a guest DJ, like we were doing right now, in 2011, right after this track came out, I remember talking spending a lot of time talking about the mechanics of how to play my language so fast.
(laughs) - Exactly, there is something, it's not easy to keep the groove alive when you are also bringing the electronic component, and she does it super well, and it's the whole package also,
you see her performances, and very well-crafted image, her style, her clothing style, the way she presents herself, the storytelling, it's just brilliant for it. - Before we close out, that wasn't exactly the last song. We want to close out the show, what's one of your songs.
But before we do that, we wanted to thank you for taking time to share this music with us and talk to you a little bit about your record. One of the things that I was taking notes
“is one of the things that I just, I think it's a statement.”
I mean, it's like a statement of pan Latin female creativity, is what, when I think of whatever I think of your work, and then all the musicians that you work with at the same time,
it's just, I'm always just completely mesmerized
by the scope of how you hear things. It's, that's to me is the secret, the secret sauce. It's like, it's how you hear it. We all listen to the same stuff, man, come from bad, Columbia Music, we all listen to it, right?
The stuff you do with Dimeters, Afrocuban, or Santeria, but it's the way you hear it, you and J.C. put it together that makes it so special. - Thank you Felix, I really appreciate it. I appreciate it, appreciate you guys for your show,
for your love, you know, and it's really special to be here with you. I'm really excited about this record. It's something I wanted to do for a long time. It took forever, but it's here. - Yay. (laughs)
- And I gotta say with the list of collaborators that you have on the show, it was like a, like a stamp of approval that of what we do here on the show because it looked at the list, Gabby, Dimere, Midey, they're all women we've featured on the show,
or including you on the tiny desk and all that. So if you think they're cool, then I think we're on the right track. (laughs)
- That's only way. - Always, always.
(laughs) - It was like, it's been a long time, no, everybody here. They all like you, of course. (laughs) - That's awesome.
- Let's close out the show with your songs, yet that Lydia tells a little bit about it before we hear it. - So this is a song that we recorded with Mariana Barrach. She was one of the first people I heard
Back home in Argentina doing
more experimental folkloric music. She's a percussionist, she's a singer,
“she knows traditional music really well,”
but she always from the very beginning
from her first record decided to do something different with it, very minimalistic, very organic, yet bringing it to a completely different sonic landscape.
So I asked her if she wanted to do this with me,
“and this is a song of mine called Siete Lydia's, yeah?”
And we were able to record it in Buenos Aires a few years back. (singing in foreign language)
, and the name of the record is Antoni Ma by Sophia Rae,
it comes out on April 3rd.
“You have been listening to all Latino from NPR music.”
Our audio producer is no-a-called well. - Sarema Hamid is the executive producer of NPR Music. - So Naly Meta is the executive director of NPR Music. I'm Felix Contrera.
- And I'm Ana Maria Seyer. - Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
