Posted inMusic

The Reader’s guide to World Music Festival Chicago 2023

In July, I attended a community meeting at the Broadway Armory in Edgewater about the city’s plan to turn the Park District facility into a temporary shelter for asylum seekers. A group of protesters, angry that much of the armory’s programming would be relocated or otherwise disrupted, carried bright yellow signs reading “Don’t Displace Us.” […]

Posted inMusic

Omar Sosa, Seckou Keita, and Gustavo Ovalles reveal the essence of Africa in the Americas with their musical conversation as Suba Trio

Cuban pianist and composer Omar Sosa has spent nearly 30 years exploring different facets of African music. He’s recorded more than two dozen albums, and each one is a journey of discovery and wonder. Among the most sublime are his collaborations with virtuosos from Africa and the African diaspora, including his two most recent, 2017’s […]

Posted inMusic

Son Rompe Pera polish up the punk in their cumbia and infuse it with pan-Latinx vibes

The marimba-forward folkloric cumbia of Son Rompe Pera’s 2020 debut album, Batuco, didn’t entirely prepare me for the Mexican quintet’s visceral, madcap live shows. The style of cumbia in which they specialize more typically soundtracks intergenerational family celebrations than crowd surfing and mosh pits. But the group’s new second album, Chimborazo, sheds light on how […]

Posted inMusic

Juan de Marcos & the Afro-Cuban All Stars celebrate the effervescence of Cuban music

There are unlimited reasons to love Cuban music, but what draws me the most is the relentless, resilient joy at its heart. The island’s grooves have a century-long history of sparking international music crazes, and it’s hard to imagine the panorama of contemporary music without the influences of artists such as Pérez Prado or the […]

Posted inMusic

The Reader’s guide to World Music Festival Chicago 2022

The term “world music” has never been adequate to the task we’ve set it—even in its most benign reading, it implies a division between the listener and the rest of the world. And if that listener is in the United States, our country’s global hegemony in popular music colors the term’s meaning too.  Americans don’t […]

Posted inMusic

Sidi Wacho sing of a revolution that will be danced

Fronted by French-Algerian rapper Saidou and Chilean rapper Juanito Ayala, Sidi Wacho unite rebelliousness on both sides of the Atlantic (specifically, Northern Africa and the global south) through activist rap in French and Spanish. Accordionist Jeoffrey Arnone, trumpet player Manel Girard, and drummer Christophe Demazeux accompany the group’s heartfelt, powerful lyrics with dance rhythms from […]

Posted inMusic

Pascuala Ilabaca weaves the perfect party soundtrack for citizens of the world

Chilean singer-songwriter, accordionist, and pianist Pascuala Ilabaca offers endlessly unpredictable sonic pleasures. On six albums and one EP, she builds upon a foundation of Andean folkloric music while incorporating sounds inspired by her time and studies in Spain, India, Guatemala, and Mexico. At this Martyrs’ show, she’ll be accompanied by her longtime band, the saxophone- […]

Posted inMusic

Juana Molina’s folktronica is perfect for tumbling down a rabbit hole to wonderland

To experience a Juana Molina concert is to be swept away in a most particular sort of rapture. In the late 80s and early 90s, the Argentine singer-songwriter had a successful career in television and comedy before changing gears to pursue music. An early proponent of combining South American folk music and electronica, Molina introduced […]

Posted inBest of Chicago

Best concert for a cause

On Wednesday, October 13, 2021, the Old Town School of Folk Music’s third annual Indigenous Peoples’ Day Concert shook the rafters of the auditorium with Opliam’s rock-tinged blues, Huguito Gutierrez’s Andean pan flute, and the NuFolk Rebel Alliance’s mishmash of folkloric music, acoustic Americana, and tropical punk. Artist and activist Opliam (aka Liam McDonald, who’s […]

Posted inMusic

Singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada conquers heartache on her debut Marchita

On her exquisite debut album, Marchita, Mexican singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada dissects the many bruised facets of a breakup in 11 intimate, elegant tunes. Estrada colors her compositions with her experiences growing up in a family of classical musicians and luthiers as well as her jazz studies at the University of Veracruz. On Marchita, she traces […]

Posted inMusic

Helado Negro shares the luminescence of love and survival while tapping into his Latinx heritage

The confessional, artsy electronic songs on Helado Negro’s first six records have always struck deep chords in me. Born Roberto Carlos Lange, the second-generation Ecuadorian American uses subtle musical metaphors to share mixed sentiments stemming from his Latinx heritage—hope, anxiety, and pride, in almost equal measure. On his latest album, Far In (4AD), which comes […]

Posted inMusic

Yasser Tejeda brings the Afro-Dominican quijombo to the LatiNxt Festival

The Dominican Republic is famous for merengue and bachata, but Yasser Tejeda prefers to focus on lesser-known varieties of Dominican roots music. He reimagines centuries-old Afro-Dominican styles, especially palo, a form of music traditionally played in the countryside that involves complex call-and-response rhythms created by drums called palos and voices. His elegantly polished compositions contain […]