Hot New Latin American CDs

Just wanted to point people to this story from The World, a radio show on PRI. They reviewed three amazing new releases from different parts of Latin America.

The Bahamaian CD is "Cult Cargo: Grand Bahama Goombay." Imagine a mix of late 60s soul with the unique percussive styles of those islands.

The Cuban is entitled, "Si, Para Usted: The Funky Beats of Revolutionary Cuba Volume One." This is really freaking hot. It's never been released outside of Cuba before. I had no idea such awesome music was coming out at that time. All you hear about here is the repression of the Buena Vista Social Club generation. This stuff is pretty freaking amazing. Very funky and pretty weird.

The Brazilian album is "The Inspiring New Sounds of Rio de Janeiro." Now, I personally don't care how inspiring an album is. I'm glad these favela kids are recording cool music. But that's not a reason to buy it. The song played on the show was a hip-hop tune that was heavily influenced by samba. Pretty good.

I personally like the Bahamian and Cuban releases the best, but the Brazilian seemed good too. I'm not such a hip-hop fan so I may not be the best source on this. But all three are clearly worth buying.