Episode 173: Latin Booms, Part 1
Every so often, Latin rhythms - read, Afro-Latino rhythms - make it to the U.S. mainstream. And yet, with few exceptions, these “Latin booms” present something very particular: a whitewashed yet racialized exotic designed for white consumption. In our two-part series on Latin Booms, we explore the booms and the busts, the times in between, and whether we see a different future ahead for Latin music. This week, the 1950s mambo craze and the weird era - between the mambo craze’s death post-Cuban revolution and the 90s Latin explosion - that brought us from Santana to the Miami Sound Machine.
Featuring music by Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra, Pérez Prado, Santana, the Miami Sound Machine, and Carmen Miranda.
Things we mentioned on the episode:
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