As the Latin Grammys turns 25, how much has Latin music changed? (Part 2)
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I still have lots of leftover chisme. It's a week of just puro, puro chisme, literally. And it's stuff we can't even say on the air. I know. Oh well. That's for the bonus episode, the after, Alt Latino After Hour. From NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Let the chisme begin.

This is part two, Felix, of my grand thesis on the state of Latin music 25 years into the Latin Grammys. You know, I got to say that you're very, very good at keeping your ear to the ground. Last week was the first part of a roundup of some of the things, of some of your, what do you call it, your intelligence gathering. Okay, so last week I told you I was on a mission to figure out what is happening with the explosion of Latin music.

So this week, I'm bringing you a few more voices. I got to catch up with Armenta, who is basically... Felix, I was kind of geeking out when I first met him because he is kind of like...

the ultimate brainpower behind the explosion of regional we've spoken with Edgar Barrera before obviously who produces and songwrites for a lot of these guys Armenta is kind of the other side of that so he makes music for Fuerza Regida bands like this who are a little bit more I don't know for every Grupo Frontera that are like the nice guys they're kind of like the bad boys of the musica mexicana scene so

So it was really interesting to talk to him and get a sense of what his vision is and how he sees things being headed and how he got into it. And these guys are all of them, guys and gals, they're all so young. And they're still really, in a sense, just fresh from...

the reverberations of discovering music as a teen, they're not that far away from that. So all of these things are just vibrating and everything that they do. What are some of the things that Armenta told you that has led to this incredible success as a songwriter? Yeah, I mean, he's 24 years old and he's in many ways already like the godfather of this industry. He's like talking about leading kind of younger artists, trying to guide them and help them figure out their place in this industry. But

He provided for me what was a really interesting contrast to Juanes, who, if you'll remember, he said his house was his algorithm. He very much just listened to what his mom and dad listened to. And Armenta talks similarly, right, about having an origin in Mexican music, very traditional corridos, things like that, Mexican music in his house. But then by the time he got to high school in Tijuana, he talks about his world of music really opening up.

He explained

explains that he got to high school and it wasn't just his world in front of him. It was a lot of different worlds. And he started listening to Bad Bunny and he'd go to the parties and there was R&B and the girls liked to listen to R&B and he liked the girls. And that's just life, literally life. I started to be shown other music and I started to open my ears. There's nothing in particular, Felix, about

Armentha's experience that I think is honestly that unique. And in some ways, I think that's what makes it so special because he is really like an amazing representation of what is this younger generation that is

They don't... He's not sitting there being like, I was looking for all this music. I was digging so hard and I found X, Y, and Z and I wanted to represent that. It's like, no, I just... I don't know. It just kind of came to me and that's how I kind of started making music the way that I did. It's very natural. The other thing I found...

across the board, Felix, in a lot of this younger music and especially in music like Musica Mexicana is there's very much a collectivist approach to how they're doing it. It's kind of like what you would find, I think, in, you know, earlier reggaeton.

earlier hip-hop even, is like this really intense desire, labels aside, industry folks aside, amongst the artists themselves to collaborate, to make music together, to really like arriba la bandera juntas. Sabes como que they wanted to really come together and make something together.

that represented their community. And you can hear that in his approach to even what he values in music. What he said was that he's not concerned about music made about himself. He's really more concerned about looking at other people. And it's exactly that approach, Felix, that makes Música Mexicana shine because it's about telling stories about your community, about your family, about people you care about.

Storytelling is the most important thing. Let's listen to a little bit of Fuerza Régida. Here's PQM by Fuerza Régida. PQM by Fuerza Régida

♪♪ ♪♪

That was TQM by Fuerza Regida. Let me tell you, Fuerza Regida to me is spearheading the next wave of music in Mexicana. Really like very seamlessly playing with electronic music, with all different types of styles. And the reason is...

that it's all just about the stories. He said that literally when he went to Job, who is the lead singer of Forza de la Regida, to talk to him about changing the style, he's like, yeah, let's do it. I just want to keep the songwriting the same, the actual stories the same. Everything else can change. It was a risk, right? People didn't accept it well. The first look wasn't good.

So let me paraphrase and translate what Armenta told us. When he first approached Job, Job said, great, change the rhythm, but the lyrics have to stay the same. And so they went for house. They went for...

a huge world, places that people hadn't explored before, possibilities people hadn't explored before. At first, people didn't accept it, but it matured really well with time. The tension sometimes of changing that sound, of introducing new work, I think especially when you're working with more traditional sound, there's always that hold up. And what a lot of these young artists aren't afraid to do is

change the sound, whether people are ready for it or not. I mean, I even heard Grupo Frontera after they got their victory on stage. They came back to the media center, they're doing the earning views and they say, yeah, we'd love to collaborate with Carlos Vives because we see a synergy there, not necessarily because that's what the audience is asking for, but because the lyrics themselves have a similar heart. And

And at the core of all of this, for this generation, is joy. It's having fun, it's being joyful, it's creating joyful music. And Armenta really did emphasize that. At the end of the day, the message is that you enjoy life.

What it's all about is to enjoy yourself, enjoy your life, enjoy making music is what he's saying. Let's hear a bit more from Fuerza Regida. I want to show you this song. I think I've maybe talked about it before, Felix, that is definitely on the higher end of their really pushing the genre boundaries scale. This is Harley Quinn by Fuerza Regida and Marshmello.

Baby, kiss my mouth, even if it's vodka. That pink powder that drives you crazy. There are the escorts, life is dangerous. They cut you in the bag, girl, of course it's noticeable. In the antro, I'm very coconut, and I get very crazy.

That was Harley Quinn by Fuerza Régida and Marshmello. You're listening to Ola Teno. We're going to take a real quick break.

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Ana, tell us a little bit more about this great interview you had with these guys called the Latin Mafia. Felix, these guys, probably some of the artists that I'm personally most excited about right now. What they're doing is a really interesting mix of, I don't know, electronic, indie. It's soulful. It's beautiful. The music itself plays in this electronic space, but the lyrics, I cannot tell you how many of their songs I hear them and I cry the first time I hear them. ♪

This is one of those songs that immediately had me very emotional, Felix. It's called "Y como te digo que" and it's off their new album Todos los Dias, Todo el Dia. I actually told them this made me cry.

♪

The authenticity of these young artists, the way that they're really interested in putting all of their genuine emotion and feeling at the forefront of what they do. And no one really does that better than Latin Mafia. And I got to talk to them too and really liked what they had to say about how they make their sound. They're not

trying to ascribe to any one particular genre but they like to say we like to say if it sounds cool just live it like that exactly there's not really for them a particular genre bending that's even taking place it's just about being who they are

Everything you hear in our music is real stuff we feel and because we like to like make those real connections between the music, us and the listener. In a world full of empty things I think we need to be more human and more real so we're used to have a lot of just like I said empty things and empty songs, empty lyrics so I think

We're just trying to be humans, we're just trying to be real while we're making our music. So we're just talking about real things, real things that we're dealing with. We're feeling that and if there's someone that feels the same, I think that's the connection we want with the people that listen to our music. It's fascinating to me, Ana, how bands like this, and in particular this band, some of these projects are so calculated, so intentional. And these guys, after hearing their interview,

They're just living their lives. And then if it sounds good, like they said, like if it sounds good, they use it. And then it creates this whole buzz. It's such an organic process. It's really them being able to be on platforms like TikTok, on Spotify and all these places where the right people, the people who feel them can find them. And that works, too, in representing everyone's individual country to the highest degree. OK.

Okay, Ana, one of the most fun parts about attending the Latin Grammys, at least the years that I've gone in the past, is hanging out on the red carpet because it's so chaotic. It's so much fun. Was it also a chance for you to do even more research by talking to people who are walking by? Oh, absolutely. In a way, I felt kind of bad. I felt like I was trapping people into being part of my little investigation. Everyone was like, oh.

How are you feeling? And I'm like, so can you tell me? I'm usually not that much of a buzzkill, Felix, but I was really in deep at this point. Like I felt like throughout the week I had been having these conversations and I was like, okay, this is my opportunity to,

to talk to artists that maybe I normally wouldn't speak with who have some nuanced takes on what's happening. And this guy, best pop song nominee, Leon Leland from Mexico, he gave me what I thought was one of the best summaries of exactly what it is, the power of what's happening and why it's special in each individual country.

So he says here that he basically hopes that Latin music continues to express itself through new genres and new formats and that more and more talent appears. But the thing that I liked the most is that

He hopes that we get to hear voices from the most remote and lost places in Latin America. Where can we find the lost sounds? Where can we find indigenous sounds? Where can we find sounds from our community, from our parents, from our grandparents? And then how can we take those sounds and bring them with pride from our own country to the rest of the world? And that, to me, is really, really special.

You know, there have been some artists who have been trying to push the envelope a little bit and maybe weren't completely understood when they were first trying to do it. In the broader world of the pop world, in the broader world of the people who pay attention to things like the Latin Grammys. And you talk to one of those artists on the red carpet, somebody we're both big fans of, Argentine vocalist Nati Peluso.

She is such a great example of an artist who really has stayed true to her sound. She was celebrated this year more than she has been in the past. She won three Latin Grammys. And really, the music deserves it, Felix. I feel... I feel proud of having the courage to bet on something that maybe at first, well, you don't fully understand or maybe...

She is

And she explains that she's really proud to have stood by something, to have bet on her own music that wasn't quite understood, that she hasn't had the easiest path of it. But she feels at home, really, to have bet on what she believes in, because at the end of the day, music is about sensitivity. And if you don't have that, then you're disconnected. So she's proud of it all. And she's finally reaping the fruits of what she's made and was able to contribute her little grain of sand.

So Nati is the living embodiment of staying true to what you do and then letting the rest of the world catch up, even up to the point of being considered alternative. Because she was nominated and won for Best Rap and Hip Hop Song, Best Long Form Video, and also Best Alternative Song. And let's hear that one. It's called El Día Que Perdí Mi Juventud. Again, this is Nati Peluso. Caravatos en el calendario No me dejan fumar en la habitación

Oh

Going to parties and red carpets and doing all the other stuff at the Latin Grammys. Good job, Anna. Thanks, Felix. I really needed, after all that hard work, I needed to be told I've done good.

You've been listening to Alt Latino from NPR Music. Our editor for this week is Simon Retner with editorial support from Hazel Sills. The woman who keeps us on track is Grace Chung. Soraya Mohammed is the executive producer for NPR Music. And our jefe-in-chief is VP of Music and Visuals, Keith Jenkins. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Ana Maria Sayer. Thanks for listening. ♪♪♪

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