Questioning Binaries: Latin-Soul Music

In Rod Hernandez’s “Latin Soul,” he writes that the recognition of similarities in music between black and latino people has helped bring to light the crossings of their two cultures. The “shared musical sensibilities” of their music was heard most often in neighborhoods where black Americans and latinos shared similar disenfranchised spaces, such as in the South Bronx of New York City (335). Hernandez explains that the “varied musical traditions of the African diaspora were instrumental in bringing about greater awareness of blackness and brownness,” (335). Knowledge of the cross over between black and latino cultures has been suppressed because of color prejudice, but the influence of African culture on all types of music of the diaspora is one place where the similarities in culture are more easily recognized.

This discussion of black and latino cultures and the similarities in their music reminded me of a movie I saw called Chef (2014), about a struggling chef who drives his food truck from Miami all the way back to his home in California. In the soundtrack for the movie latin music style is mixed with jazz and blues and reflects the stops the protagonist makes on his journey back to California. Traveling between these two locations with large latino populations, California and Miami, the protagonist surveys the South and the food and musical traditions which it holds. The movie focuses on the locations of Miami, New Orleans and Austin as the locus of the changes in music. The soundtrack to the movie reflects this fusion of black and latino culture. Some of the songs are originally sung by black artists but have been reworked in the style of salsa. When I saw the movie I thought the soundtrack was the best feature, and I could not think why I had never heard black and latino music combined in this way. In the text, Hernandez says that what “is amazing about well groomed Salsa musicians is their ability to play all styles of music;” this soundtrack is emblematic of this statement (335). When I listened to this soundtrack the same emotions churned in me as when I listen the jazz my grandparents used to play for me as a child.