Chicago native Tatiana Hazel has been on a journey that merges fashion, visual design, and music since she was 13 years old, when she began posting videos of herself singing and playing acoustic guitar on YouTube. Now in her early 20s, the Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter has developed a solid following while deepening her talent for […]
Author Archives: Catalina Maria Johnson
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El Shirota bare their postpunk soul for our weird times on Tiempos Raros
The debut album of Mexico’s El Shirota, Tiempos Raros (“Weird Times”), resonates mightily as the world convulses from the effects of America’s racist violence in the midst of a global pandemic. Founded by lead singer and guitarist Ignacio Gomez in 2013, the band went through several lineup changes before settling on their current configuration in […]
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Buscabulla’s tropical soul vignettes distill the mixed blessings of returning home
In the wake of Hurricane Maria, at least 130,000 people left Puerto Rico to live elsewhere. Yet in February 2018, Puerto Rican musicians Raquel Berrios and Luis Alfredo del Valle, aka experimental dream-pop duo Buscabulla (“Troublemaker” in English), returned to the island after nearly a decade in New York City. During those years, they’d become […]
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Orkesta Mendoza blends vintage sounds to create a groovy boogie-woogie border scene
The first time I saw Orkesta Mendoza was at SXSW about five years ago, and the group had already perfected an enormous, vintage Latin big-band sound and intense, punk-like sensibility unparalleled in the Latin scene. Led by bandleader, singer, and guitarist Sergio Mendoza (a longtime member of Calexico and Devotchka), the Tucson indie mambo group […]
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Lido Pimienta’s Miss Colombia is a luminous anthem to resilience
Contemporary music informed by cultural traditions that have withstood the test of centuries uplifts my spirits like nothing else; in these times, it seems to hold a magic that can help us all withstand adversity. Lido Pimienta’s new third album, Miss Colombia, is the highly anticipated follow-up to her Polaris Prize–winning La Papessa. The Barranquilla-born, […]
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Black Pumas create the music of true soul mates
Update: To help slow the spread of COVID-19, these shows have been postponed until August 27 and 28. Tickets already purchased will be honored at that time. Contact point of purchase for refund or exchange information. Black Pumas are an electrifying six-piece neosoul band led by Adrian Quesada and Eric Burton—a musical partnership made in […]
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The Sor Juana Festival shares vintage vibes for cruising in hot rods, warm summer nights, and nonstop dancing
Rockabilly probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when somebody says “Latin roots music,” but several generations of artists on both sides of the southern U.S. border have taken doo-wop, boogie-woogie, and early rock ’n’ roll to heart. The music—and its associated hot-rod imagery—has long connections to the Mexican American community (particularly on […]
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Roberto Fonseca blends the sounds of past and present into dynamic Afro-Cuban jazz
I had a chance to see Roberto Fonseca play at the 2015 Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in Morocco, in a duo collaboration with Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara. In his thrilling, visceral performance, the Havana-born musician, composer, and bandleader embodied the multifarious musicality of Cuba’s best jazz pianists. Blessed with access to the island’s […]
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The Chicago Flamenco Festival 2020 showcases the allure of a quintessentially Spanish art form
Few forms of music and dance embody raw emotion as exquisitely as flamenco. This formidable and quintessentially Spanish art form fuses elements from Jewish, Arab, and Roma cultures and distills the essence of grief, tragedy, fear, and joy into every note, gesture, and stomp. Hosted principally by the Instituto Cervantes, the first half of the […]
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Ana Gabriel lives up to the title ‘La Diva de América’
Ana Gabriel, nicknamed “La Diva de América,” has influenced generations of music fans since she launched her career in the 1970s. With her no-holds-barred approach to every tune and her signature vocal quality—a husky rasp that evokes long nights of crying and drinking—the Mexican singer-songwriter has mastered torch songs in a wide range of genres. […]
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iLe creates new old school sounds from the island of enchantment
As a member of Calle 13—the politically conscious Puerto Rican hip-hop band formed by her brothers René Pérez Joglar and Eduardo Cabra Martínez—Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar began performing onstage when she was a teenager. By her late 20s, she was stepping out on her own under the name iLe. On her debut solo album, 2016’s […]
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Calexico and Iron & Wine reconvene without retreading the same ground
As a Mexican-Swedish American who grew up with cowboy songs, Lawrence Welk, and mariachi music floating through the house, when I first heard Calexico in the early 2000s I was struck by their startlingly fresh way of straddling the southern border. For nearly a quarter century now, singer-guitarist Joey Burns, drummer John Convertino, and their […]
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Yuna sings and lives by her own bold rules
Malaysian singer-songwriter Yuna (Yunalis Zara’ai) has a striking stage presence: a fashion icon as well as a pop and R&B sensation, she has a personal style she describes as inspired by Audrey Hepburn and 90s Gwen Stefani. Aspects of her music bring both those icons to mind, and she also sounds a bit like Sade […]
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Divino Niño concoct melty musical caramelos
When Divino Niño emerged in 2013, the band united listeners across Chicago’s DIY and Latinx music circles with their trippy crooning and quirky retro flair. Guitarist and vocalist Camilo Medina has described the band’s musical vision as inspired by the weird currents of the subconscious—much like the cover art he designed for their debut full-length, […]
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Kinobe juxtaposes East and West Africa in delicate, polished grooves
For the better part of two decades, virtuosic multi-instrumentalist Herbert Kinobe has composed exquisite Pan-African music from a Ugandan perspective. Born in 1983 in a small village outside Kampala near Lake Victoria, Kinobe (he performs under his last name) grew up hearing the music at the nearby Kanyange Nnamasole Tombs, a historic Buganda cultural site […]