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BEING
IS BELIEVING |
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By
Victor Cruz-Lugo
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Whether
it’s teaming up with reality TV mega-producer Mark Burnett to
develop new Hispanic-focused entertainment content, or partnering
with Sean “Diddy” Combs on a new record label project,
Emilio Estefan is intent on staying at the head of the pack. Hispanic
Magazine spoke to him recently about what’s been on his mind.
Hispanic Magazine: It seems like every day you’re getting involved
in a new media venture or partnership. What exactly are you Emilio,
an entrepreneur or a music producer?
Emilio Estefan: I’ve always been both. Music is my first love,
though. When I was a kid it was what made me happy. When I got separated
from my mom and dad, the thing that kept me for maybe a whole hour
without thinking about anything else was music.
I spent almost 14 years of my life working every single day to get
my mom and my brother and my niece out of Cuba.
So confronting life at such a young age gave me a lot of strength,
a lot of entrepreneurial strength. It was about fighting in life to
do things right and accepting the challenge.
HM: What sort of entertainment content are you seeking to develop
with Mark Burnett?
EE: Our real goal is to do programming that features Hispanics that
can go to MTV or HBO. We can do something that goes all the way from
NBC to CBS, or we can do Telemundo or Univision, as an independent
company.
HM: It seems that there are only a few folks who can figure out the
puzzle of the Hispanic market to achieve the degree of success that
you have. What are others doing wrong that you keep getting right?
EE: When I did my first record for the Hispanic market, only about
10,000 albums were sold and that was considered a big quantity back
then. But things have gotten bigger and bigger.
There are a few things to consider: In a way it’s about believing.
That’s what being an entrepreneur is about. Believing in yourself,
in your culture, in what you have to offer. If you look at my career,
I’ve always believed in the bilingual market. I did it with
Gloria [Estefan, his wife]. She sold millions of albums. Then there
was Jon Secada, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and Shakira.
HM: You recently partnered with Sean “Diddy” Combs to
form record label Bad Boy Latino. How did that happen?
EE: You know something, it’s about timing. I was involved with
Sony for so many years and when they merged [with BMG] it was difficult
to know if I could maintain one-to-one relationships. ... I didn’t
want to work with a label that was also working with other labels
... so at that time I got a call from Diddy.
HM: How do you see the future of Hispanics in entertainment?
EE: It’s wide open. A few different things are going to happen.
You are going to see a lot of people that are born in this country
that are still going to feel proud to be Latino. [Wilmer] Valderrama
is one who is doing great right now. Cristina Aguilera is another.
These are really second- and third-generation Hispanics.
It was hard for us at the beginning because people didn’t believe.
I never learned Spanish 100 percent, or English 100 percent. I was
right in the middle and for me it was a challenge. And it still is
a challenge to do things with quality. |
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 Ska
Ska
Cubano
¡Ay Caramba!
Cumbancha
cumbancha.com
The
reason ¡Ay Caramba! is arguably the best ska album ever made
is because it sounds like what Duke Ellington would have produced,
had the late jazz great ventured into the composition of this Kingston,
Jamaica-born precursor of reggae. In fact, the mastermind behind
Ska Cubano is Brit entrepreneur and music lover Peter Scott, who
enlisted longtime South London ska singer Natty Bo, Cuban singer
Beny Billy—a man who actually claims to be the reincarnation
of Beny Moré—and London’s best Cuban and Jamaican
musicians to produce 14 ska tracks you can dance, and even think
to. |
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 Rock
Los
Tres
Hagalo Usted Mismo
Nacional Records
NacionalRecords.com
Los
Tres, from Chile, sound like one of the planet’s most fully
realized garage bands; which is to say—apropos to this CD’s
title—they manage to retain the spare, minimalist sound of
the homemade, while incorporating recording flourishes that bleed
into the realm of psychedelia. Ranging from rockabilly to Los Lobos-like
rockers, enigmatic and determinedly perverse, they get the most
from the tension between the darkest lyrics, and the feel-good sounding
melodies, buttressed by spacy tremelo-vibrating electric guitar
licks. And here, Los Tres get by with a little production help from
Café Tacuba’s Emmanuel del Real. |
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 Latin
Jazz Folklore
Urbano with Pablo Mayor
Baile/Dance
Chonta Records
chontarecords.com
Baile/Dance
sounds this Colombian historical moment, wherein a land of so many
distinct and diverse cultural traditions is beginning to discover
itself, and has come to sing, at last, the dialogue between the
many disparate, yet somehow familiar, parts. Pablo Mayor and Folklore
Urbano have produced a 13-track CD that’s beyond classification.
While the legacy of the Latin jazz big bands is strongly represented,
the line between throw-down cumbia-infused salsa and compositionally
complex high-brow jazz jams is repeatedly fudged, and a balance
is struck between the subtly erudite piano of Mayor and wilder improvisational
forays. |
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 Progressive
Rock The
Mars Volta
Amputechture
Universal Motown
universalmusic.com
The
Mars Volta are this generation’s most relevant heirs to the
legacy of prog rockers like Yes and Rush. Screeching, wah-wah pedaled
guitars, vocalizing that hits unnaturally high registers and, of
course, every musician in the group, a virtuoso. The disc says there
are eight tracks, but you are really getting something closer to
two dozen. That’s because The Mars Volta are so “out
there” they will typically take a single composition into
diverse shifting exploratory vamps and sonically distinct landscapes.
In the tradition of prog rock, it’s music that only rewards
intense and focused listening. |
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