Every week, La Alternativa delivers the very best from the Latin alternative scene by curating a blend of emerging and established artists within the Latin diaspora, while providing a platform to champion our growing local music scene. Listen on demand here and on 88Nine from 10-11 p.m. every Wednesday.
It’s another exploration of sounds and rhythms, expression and inspiration on this episode of La Alternativa — starting with a collaboration I didn’t realize I needed.
Mon Laferte and Nathy Peluso came together to create “La Tirana,” an ode to Cuban artist La Lupe that isn’t a cover, but rather a raw message on love and women being labeled as intense or intimidating. It’s a sensual bolero captured beautifully in the music video directed by Chilean filmmaker Camila Grandi.
The video opens with Laferte and Peluso working together in a cabaret-style bar (coincidentally, Mon Laferte just wrapped a theater run as Sally Bowles in Cabaret at Teatro Metropolitan in Mexico City) and then eventually setting it all on fire. Their voices blend gorgeously in conversation about their woes of loving too fiercely and being deeply misunderstood as “tiranas” (tyrants) in this single that teases Laferte’s upcoming album, Femme Fatale.
Speaking of desire and femininity, Rauw Alejandro came through with a sexy track combining house, Bomba and Plena, and trap. “GuabanSexxx” is surely one to get you dancing, with an alluring beat that mixes the traditional with the future.
Inspired by Guabancex, the Taino goddess of storms and chaos, Rauw sings about a woman who moves with electricity and chaos. She is destruction incarnate and, like a storm, cannot be avoided. Rauw repeats a prayer throughout the song — “Santa Maria libranos de todo mal Ampáranos Señora de este terrible animal” — As a warning of the potential turmoil and destruction at hand.
Those two featured tracks fueled a dialogue in this episode, talking about how the messaging shifts through different lenses and whether it’s reductive to make the hard comparison of women and chaos.
Episode playlist
- Chuwi, “Falta Algo”
- RPLK, “visión”
- Helado Negro, “More”
- BRUSES, “ANTES de MORIRME (ft. Amandititita)
- Mon La Ferte & Nathy Peluso, “La Tirana”
- Danny Polo, “Besties”
- The Two Lips, “talk”
- AQUIHAYAQUIHAY & Ximena Sariñana, “Domingo”
- Cuco, “Sin Un Corazón”
- AKRIILA, “para siempre”
- Sandra Iris, “Tigre Blanco (Byakko)”
- Niko Rubio, “Quisiera Saber”
- Rauw Alejandro, “Guabansexxx”
