By the numbers: 109 artists play across 91 tracks, representing 27 countries and six continents. Central America and also the Caribbean play heavy in this year’s playlist, so does Puerto Rico.
I’ve been on a heavy boogaloo kick these past three years – it’s a mix of Motown and Latin that was big in NYC (came out of Spanish Harlem and the South Bronx) in the late 1960s. Probably going to watch this 2015 documentary, We Like It Like That, over the weekend. So there’s some of that, a good amount of jazz, some Afro-Caribbean and New Orleans, a little cumbia.
Nine or ten languages are represented, beside English we’ve got a bunch of Spanish, one track in Sanskrit (it’s early on, should be easy to identify), some Creole French, then more obscure languages: Ewondo (Francis Bebey’s "Agatha") and Lingala (Mbongwana Star’s “Bitumba”).
Some bits I’m excited about:
- Decius, an acid house act out of London that sports a threatening falsetto.
- Tony Romera’s remix of Four Tet’s Baby takes me back to my clubbing days in the early oughts.
- The throwbacks. Mythologizers, rock ‘n’ roll hair, a classic Prince song from my favorite Prince album.
- William Onyeabor’s "Better Change Your Mind" track has been haunting me the last two weeks.
Also of note:
- You might recognize part of Labi Siffre’s “I Got The…” song – that’s because Eminem sampled it, but Siffre only okay’ed the sample after Eminem removed the homophobic parts from the track’s original lyrics.
- Lord Invader’s “Brooklyn, Brooklyn!” is about the Trinidadian artist’s time in NYC following a successful lawsuit over a U.S. band ripping off his work.
- Why Prince’s Dirty Mind is labeled “explicit” but Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci” is not… raises questions.
The cover art is a remix of this winter’s cover art, which itself was a remix of some of Ada’s art.