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      How the Agushto Papa Podcast Chronicles Musica Mexicana

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      The Agushto Papa podcast has become the go-to media outlet for the rising stars of música mexicana.When the four hosts of the Agushto Papa podcast — all Mexican Americans in their early to mid 20s — were teenagers, they wrestled with, as all young people do, the music of their parents’ generation. The varying styles that are termed, broadly, regional Mexican music, have remained emphatically traditional in presentation and sound for decades. For young men growing up very differently from their parents, listening to it was a complicated proposition.“In middle school, I was kind of scared to tell people that I would listen to it, because back then, it wasn’t cool,” said Diego Mondragon, one of the show’s founders. Angel Lopez, one of his co-hosts, echoed the sentiment: “I feel like there was a negative stigma toward it.”Much has changed in the last five years, however, thanks to an influx of new talent with wide-ranging musical references, gestures borrowed from hip-hop, and increased global attention on Spanish-language music thanks to the rise of streaming. As a result, Mexican music is evolving quickly and being heard more broadly than ever. This movement, broadly referred to as música mexicana, has minted a whole new generation of stars in short order: Peso Pluma, Natanael Cano, Grupo Frontera, Ivan Cornejo, Fuerza Regida, DannyLux, Yahritza y Su Esencia, Eslabon Armado, Junior H and more.Agushto Papa, which released its first episode on YouTube in March 2021, and has since amassed over 270,000 subscribers on the platform, has become the most reliable and visible chronicler of this wave — showcasing new releases, hosting intimate performances, reporting news about established stars and rookies alike, chit-chatting about gossip and keeping an eye on tensions that have been developing between some of the movement’s biggest names.“As first-generation immigrants, we always felt, like it or not, a little bit out of place or a little bit like we’re intruding into something,” Lopez, left, said.Alex Welsh for The New York TimesFour months ago, the hosts — Lopez, 23; Mondragon, 23; Diego (Keko) Erazo, 24; and Jason Nuñez, 23 — each moved out of their respective families’ homes into a shared house in Stanton, Calif., after a long stretch filming the show largely in Nuñez’s family garage, in order to create a more focused environment for making their content. (Erazo, Mondragon and Nuñez grew up nearby, in Westminster, Calif., and played soccer together as children. They met Lopez in high school.)“As first-generation immigrants, we always felt, like it or not, a little bit out of place or a little bit like we’re intruding into something,” Lopez said. “And now, with the music, we heard people our age talking about issues that we have living here in the United States as Mexicans. So we really fell in love with that.” (For a time, Mondragon and Nuñez were in a band, Grupo Activo, managed by Erazo — the podcast’s title is from an inside joke from that era, riffing on the term “a gusto,” or relaxed.)Most of the show’s interview subjects are of a similar age and cultural background as the hosts, creating a built-in ease. “A lot of the new artists that are coming out, they’re Mexican American. They speak both Spanish and English,” Erazo said. Mondragon estimated that about 75 percent of the podcast’s interviews are conducted in English.Erazo added that the casualness of the setting contributes to the hosts’ ability to get unvarnished conversation from their subjects: “They needed somewhere where they could be themselves, be who they are, express their feelings, let it all out instead of going in and being like, ‘Yes sir, no sir.’” Many interviews are booked directly, over text or direct message, bypassing traditional intermediaries.Mondragon also emphasized that it’s not just the musicmakers who are changing, but the music as well, a far cry from what was on offer in his parents’ era. “Back then music was very strict with their rules. Like, ‘you need to dress like this, You need to sing like Vicente Fernández. You need to have this beautiful voice,’” he said. But the introduction of technology and techniques from other genres meant more stylistic entry points for artists.“I think a big reason why the younger generation fell in love with this music is you didn’t really have to have a singer’s voice to participate,” Nuñez said. “If you had like a regular monotone voice, you could still cultivate and create the new style of music.”As the scene has become more popular, there have been more internecine squabbles between artists — a primary one is between Peso Pluma and Jesus Ortiz Paz, the singer of Fuerza Regida — tensions that persist despite the fact that the genre’s rising tide is likely to lift all boats.The podcast’s casual setting is key to the hosts’ ability to get unvarnished conversation from their subjects.Alex Welsh for The New York Times“I think we just try to stay neutral and let the people decide,” Nuñez said. “Just give them the facts.” On the show, discussions about the artists’ barbs at each other are dissected with childlike awe and a layer of concern. (Occasionally the podcasters have tried to capitalize on the spats: They briefly sold “Make JOP and Peso Friends Again” shirts and hats.)Very quickly, the hosts themselves have become figures in the world they document. Occasionally, they’ll share videos which show them getting acknowledged at concerts by the artists they cover and admire. They have started a record label, which they hope to use to elevate new talent, and view the long-running radio and television personality Pepe Garza, and his interview and performance show “Pepe’s Office,” as a model for what Agushto Papa might develop into.There have been some hiccups in the crew’s quick ascent. Recently the show was demonetized by YouTube over a technical issue. And in a recent video, Lopez frankly discussed how the sudden success of the show had led to some disruptive life decisions, which prompted a group decision to stop drinking. “The whole honeymoon phase is over,” he said. When they began the podcast, Lopez said he had been happy just to receive invitations to artists’ parties. “But you’ve got to learn to say no and just to get to work.”Perhaps most crucially, though, not only have they fully reconciled their relationship with the music of their parents’ generation, but they’ve been able to convince their parents that the music of the current generation is valid, too.“A lot of older people were saying, ‘Oh, what is this? Turn it off. That’s not real Mexican music,’” Erazo said.Mondragon recalled his mother’s initial resistance to Cano, one of his favorite artists and a central figure in the movement’s increased visibility. “She would be like, ‘Why does he dress like that? Why does he talk like that? The tattoos are ugly,’” he recalled.She’s opened her mind, and her ears, though. “Now she understands that we need a Nata, we need a Peso — to put Mexico out there to the world, for us.” More

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      Review: Arca Struts the Catwalk Between Diva and Meta Diva

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      In “Mutant;Destrudo,” her show at the Park Avenue Armory, the experimental musician delivers what is essentially a traditional concert.Amid the boundaries that the musician Arca has explored over the past decade — between technology and nature, male and female, vulnerability and aggression — another has arisen recently: the line between a pop diva and an artist commenting on pop divas.As with those other binaries, Arca hovers somewhere in the blurry, ever-evolving middle of this one: a Schrödinger’s diva, simultaneously performing stardom and deconstructing it.“Mutant;Destrudo,” her four-performance show that opened on Wednesday at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, is essentially a traditional concert. There is a stage, a large screen behind it that shows a mixture of live and premade video, and a catwalk protruding into the crowd.Regularly during the two-hour show, a camera at the end of the runway relays a thighs-down view of Arca strutting in spike heels as she sings, à la Beyoncé. There’s a piano on one side of the stage, at which she sits for some quieter moments, à la Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift. There are reggaeton beats overlaid with flowing, easygoing raps, à la Rosalía or Bad Bunny. She takes selfies with phones handed up to her.If you squint, this is pop.That is a world in which Arca, the pseudonym of the Venezuelan-born Alejandra Ghersi, has spent time. She started as a producer for Kanye West, FKA twigs, Björk and others as she built a following for her own music, including the kaleidoscopic five-album cycle “Kick,” released in a flurry in 2020 and 2021.But if parts of “Kick” and “Mutant;Destrudo” seem like plays for mainstream eyes and ears, Arca stubbornly resists being too digestible. The Armory show, like Swift’s touring behemoth, picks and chooses from a catalog that is, after only 10 or so years, widely varied. But unlike Swift, Arca’s eras are spiky and hard to define; she doesn’t do anthems. “Destrudo” is billed as being structured in three acts, but the divisions between them are murky.This is restless, unsettled music, evoking both exhilaration and anxiety that a single person can produce — and can be — so many different things. Wednesday’s set began with murmured lullaby torch songs, in the airy yet sultry, prayerful, sometimes crooning voice of “Arca” (2017) and the fifth “Kick” album. The evening’s climax — long, seething, groaning, grinding synthesizer instrumentals — could hardly have been more different.Arca at the synthesizer where she made the kinds of sounds she specialized in at the beginning of her career: glitches, explosions, video-game-style machine-gun rounds, spacily stretched tones.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesBetween those extremes were hip-swaying bits of reggaeton, from the second “Kick,” and explosive electronics; in one number, smooth vocals and a low-slung beat were disrupted by metallic squeals. Songs seemed to end almost arbitrarily, as if Arca were simply ready to move on to something else. The mood was twitchy, fractured, a perpetual transformation.For all the arresting high-tech video imagery — psychedelic layers superimposed until they took on hologram-like pseudoreality — there was a studiedly rough, decidedly non-stadium aspect to the show.Arca’s first costume change — out of a slinky, shimmering black dress into a plastic breastplate with lights at the nipples and a patchwork miniskirt — took place in full view of the audience, without much rushing or showmanship. The awkwardness of how long it took, the lack of spectacle, seemed intentional: This, she seemed to be saying, is the glamorous drudgery we put female artists through. We sometimes saw Arca on video as she lay on an examining chair, as if our perspective was that of her surgeon.Her piano — unlike Swift’s or Lady Gaga’s — is prepared with magnets that turn it into an electroacoustic machine of woozy, otherworldly lyricism, tinged with buzz. And unlike most pop divas, Arca had a synthesizer setup on the other side of the stage, at which she grinned maniacally and made the kind of noise that she specialized in at the beginning of her career: harsh shards in wet earth, glitches, explosions, video-game-style machine-gun rounds, roars, spacily stretched tones.It was the kind of soundscape that fit the show’s title: “Destrudo” is a term relating to the Freudian death drive, a theme in keeping with Arca’s gothy-cyborg self-styling. But while the music occasionally got loud on Wednesday, there was little of the heavy, disorienting, oozingly morphing melancholy of her early work. Lacking the encompassing (if changeable) moods of the albums, this was a performance more endearing than emotional; even the dancey parts were too brief to build up much joy.“Destrudo” follows “Mutant;Faith,” her 2019 production at the Shed. In that period, when she began identifying as a nonbinary trans woman, pre-“Kick,” it landed more squarely on the side of experimental performance art. Arca did the show in a dirt pit, wore hoofed stilts, used a stripper-pole synthesizer and rode a mechanical bull.Now, trying more than ever to have it both pop and not, she is still fascinating, but — maybe inevitably — not fully satisfying.At the Armory, she was charming, game, sweetly grateful to the crowd. “This is fun, right?” she said, sincerely, as she paused to correct something wrong with the technology in her high heels that seemed meant to translate her steps into sounds. And it was fun — sort of.ArcaThrough Sunday at the Park Avenue Armory, Manhattan; armoryonpark.org More

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      Peso Pluma, Mexico’s Breakout Music Star, Finds New Spotlights

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      Backstage at the MTV Video Music Awards last month, at the Prudential Center in Newark, the out-of-nowhere Mexican superstar Peso Pluma gathered his band for an inspirational talk. That night, he was to become the first Mexican artist to ever perform on the show, but before the dress rehearsal of his song “Lady Gaga,” he set aside around 10 minutes to reminisce with the musicians who have been with him for years, telling them how none of his success would have been possible without them. At the end, almost the whole band walked out of the room in tears.Peso was in a reflective mood because of the milestone he was about to achieve. But some somberness was in the air, too. That morning, there were news reports from Mexico about banners posted in Tijuana, signed with the initials of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a powerful rival to the Sinaloa Cartel. They demanded Peso cancel an upcoming concert in the city, threatening his safety if he were to perform.A handful of personal security guards were milling about, but at the moment, there wasn’t much to do besides press on. Before Peso hit the red carpet, he and his manager, George Prajin, huddled quickly, to talk about how to handle any questions about something other than music. Then, he stepped out in front of the paparazzi phalanx, playfully jabbing out his tongue, Jagger-style, and sidled into cheerful interviews with “Entertainment Tonight” and “El Gordo y La Flaca.”The following day, at the Hard Rock Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, Peso woke up late after a long night at his V.M.A.s after-party. But he was alert, and pointed in underscoring the importance of the prior night’s performance.“I took it as an opportunity to show the world what I had,” he said. “I just wanted all these artists to get to know me. To get to know what I do, and to get to know better the genre that I do.”More than a dozen weeks after the release of Peso’s third album, “Génesis,” it remains in the top 10 of Billboard’s all-genre album chart.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesPeso, 24, is the reigning king of corridos tumbados, a modern version of traditional Mexican music, which has found great success over the last couple of years. Peso sings and raps in a fashion indebted to contemporary hip-hop and reggaeton over production that holds close to traditional forms. (Peso Pluma — which translates to featherweight — is both his stage name and how he refers to the musical project and band as a whole.)In July, “Génesis” — Peso’s third studio album, but his first since refining his sound and growing his ambitions — made its debut on the Billboard all-genre album chart at No. 3, the highest position ever for an album of regional Mexican music. And it’s had staying power — more than a dozen weeks later, it remains in the Top 10. On Spotify alone, his songs have been streamed several billion times.There have been occasional moments of Mexican American musical crossover in this country — the gangster rap of Kid Frost, the emotional ballads of Selena, the lite R&B and hip-hop of Frankie J and Baby Bash. But Mexican performers have largely been relegated to, and musically remained faithful to, the traditions of what is termed regional Mexican music, an umbrella term that encompasses varying styles from different parts of the country and the southwestern United States. Peso has reframed this music from regional to global. He has collaborated with artists from across the Spanish-speaking world — the Puerto Rican rapper Eladio Carrión, the Dominican dembow star El Alfa, the superstar Argentine producer Bizarrap. And his song “Ella Baila Sola” — a collaboration with Eslabon Armado — was the first Mexican song to hit the Top 5 on the Billboard all-genre Hot 100Peso — whose real name is Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija — was born in Guadalajara, and sometimes spent time in Sinaloa with family as a child. He found inspiration in the work of Chalino Sánchez, a seminal singer of narcocorridos, which tell stories about the Mexican drug trade. Peso fell for “his raspy voice, his very unique way to sing corridos, his very unique way to sing romantic songs,” he said. “When this type of music was playing in the car, I literally took my earphones out to hear what he was saying.”Peso also gravitated to Ariel Camacho, a rising young star of the 2010s known for impressive guitar playing. (Sanchez was murdered in 1992; Camacho died in a car accident in 2015.)But even though Peso enjoyed that music, he didn’t feel particularly connected to its aesthetics, which tend toward crisp Western wear, embroidered suits and cowboy boots.“Since I was a kid, my favorite genres have always been reggaeton and hip-hop,” he said. (He spent some of his teenage years in San Antonio and New York, where he found himself gravitating to the likes of Kanye West and Drake.) “That’s why I don’t wear the sombreros. I don’t wear the boots. I’m not that.”Instead, he dresses like a rapper — loud designer clothes, expensive jewelry and watches that a member of his entourage is tasked with carrying around in soft blue cases from the Atlanta celebrity jeweler Icebox.On the V.M.A.s stage, he was dressed in all black, like a luxury spider — wide and angular puffy vest, shamelessly wide and crinkly pants, short leather gloves and boxy sunglasses. Backstage, he gamely stood for a signature antic TikTok interrogation about his outfit from the social media personality Christoosmoove, a clip that was viewed over 10 million times.Peso was also the first Mexican musician to film an episode of “Sneaker Shopping,” a YouTube series that’s a favorite of rappers and social media celebrities; he spent over $32,000, including sneakers for all his bandmates, putting him in the show’s top 10 all-time spenders. The day after the V.M.A.s, the show’s host, Joe La Puma, sent him a gift: a rare pair of 2005 Cinco de Mayo Nike SB Dunks in the colors of the Mexican flag.Peso’s path to the MTV stage was nonlinear, and also improbably fast. He released a pair of albums in the early 2020s, just as the corridos tumbados scene was being established. And he began working extensively with other artists — the majority of his earliest songs to chart were collaborations, including with Natanael Cano and Fuerza Regida, some of the young performers who established the movement just a few years ago. (Cano’s 2019 collaboration with Bad Bunny on the remix of “Soy El Diablo” was one of the first crossover moments for corridos tumbados.)Some of Peso’s songs tend to the romantic, some are boastful, and some are in the vein of narcocorridos. (These are the songs that have led to the reported threats against him.)The young stars of corridos tumbados initially received a cold welcome from the older, more established traditionalists of Mexican music. “I know it’s not envy, I know it’s not any of that,” Peso said graciously. “It’s just they weren’t sure about how to react.”But while he has been able to befriend and continue to collaborate with Cano, there has been rumored tension with Jesus Ortiz Paz of Fuerza Regida, one of the scene’s most prominent acts. (Peso largely declined to discuss any friction he’s faced: “I feel everything that people say, but I try to focus on the positive things, not the negative.”)Peso plans to release a reggaeton EP soon, and following that, strategic collaborations with American rappers.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesIt has provided a story line for the media outlets that document the scene, including the Agushto Papa podcast, which has been enthusiastically covering the rise of Mexican music for the past two years.“I think that he has pushed how these artists do concerts a lot,” said Angel Lopez, one of the show’s hosts. “I don’t think they’ll ever admit it. But after seeing how Peso Pluma performs, everybody had to step their game up. They can’t just stand there in front of a microphone, play their instrument, or sing. They need to add more.”Onstage, Peso is loose and a little eccentric, always shimmying; his band also moves with controlled jubilation. Jason Nunez, one of the other hosts, added, “Another thing too is the dances — no one danced like that. And even if people thought it was weird, they would hate on it and it would just make him bigger. And also, I feel like it’s like a small thing, but it still matters — the hair.” (The hair does matter. Peso has a rangy mullet that’s become a style marker, and is in perhaps unconscious dialogue with the mullets of Morgan Wallen and various K-pop stars.)The speed of Peso’s ascent has been dizzying and disorienting. “A lot of people don’t know that I have anxiety breakouts,” Peso said. “It is very important for people who have mental issues to be treated and to talk about it.”The Tijuana show was eventually canceled out of safety concerns, even though the police had yet to publicly confirm the authenticity of the handwritten banners. “There’s a lot of things that is fake and a lot of things that is not,” Peso said.Prajin, his manager, said the team had to take every threat seriously. “I want to make sure that not only is he secured financially, but that also we take care of his mental health and his physical health,” he said. “And of course, his security. He can’t go anywhere without having a bunch of security — I won’t let him.”A couple of weeks after the cancellation, Peso announced shows in three other Mexican cities. “I do feel safe,” he said. “Being close to God is the most important thing. And I think that’s why I feel safe. It’s more of a spiritual thing for me.”Prajin suggested that Peso’s subject matter might evolve as he became better known, and his musical footprint widened. “He’s never going to stop singing those songs because that’s what he grew up with, the culture that he grew up around,” he said. “But I do see that he’s definitely going in a different direction in terms of the music that he’s singing. There’s a lot of love songs, a lot of different fusions.”Given Peso’s popularity, the collaboration requests are coming in fast. “You have no idea of how many rappers, how many country singers, R&B singers are connecting with us,” Peso said.He plans to release a reggaeton EP soon, and following that, strategic collaborations with American rappers. Prajin said conversations had already begun with Cardi B, ASAP Rocky and Post Malone.These new pathways, he hopes, will be available not just to him, but to Mexican artists who might follow in his footsteps. And thanks to his success, more new doors are open to Mexican performers beyond just the V.M.A.s.“I saw Taylor Swift moving her head, dancing to my song yesterday.,” he said, marveling at the unlikeliness of it all. “That, we couldn’t even imagine.” More

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      Stevie Nicks Unveils a Her Own Barbie at MSG

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      The performer worked with Mattel to create a doll in her likeness, wearing an outfit inspired by the one she wore on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.” She showed it off onstage at Madison Square Garden.Midway through Stevie Nicks’s concert at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night, the musician told the audience that she had a “surprise,” prompting speculation among audience members about a potential unexpected guest: Could it be Lindsey Buckingham?It turned out that the special guest was a Barbie made to look like Nicks, and its musical abilities were limited to a tiny ribboned tambourine.Mattel, the manufacturer of Barbie, officially unveiled the Stevie Nicks doll at midnight on Sunday, the latest addition to the world of Barbie tributes to musicians, including Tina Turner, David Bowie and Celia Cruz.(You may be thinking, that’s a lot of Barbie this year, and you are right. The audience at Madison Square Garden didn’t seem to mind.)Bradley Justice, a doll historian and proprietor of the Swell Doll Shop, which specializes in antique and vintage dolls, said that Mattel has been making celebrity dolls since the 1960s.“I see it as sort of a crossover branding, where you attract someone who previously may have not had an interest at all in the doll or the brand,” he said, “but suddenly is very excited to see their favorite singer or movie star or whatever immortalized in 11 and a half inches.”The Nicks doll’s outfit, as well as a pair of Pasquale Di Fabrizio black platform boots, was inspired by her look on the cover of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album “Rumours.”At the concert, Nicks explained that she sent the album cover outfit, which she still had decades later, to Mattel to capture that time in her life. To roaring cheers, Nicks began to speak in a high-pitched Barbie voice, explaining how much the doll meant to her.Nicks wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that when she looked at the doll, she saw herself at 27.“All the memories of walking out on a big stage in that black outfit and those gorgeous boots come rushing back,” Nicks said, “and then I see myself now in her face.”At the concert, Nicks also chose a fan in the front rows to take one doll home and promptly began to serenade the woman, named Sara, with the track bearing her name from the album “Tusk.”The doll went on sale hours later for $55, and preorders sold out almost immediately.Mr. Justice said that it was normal for the celebrity Barbie dolls to sell out quickly. “When you hear it’s coming, you need to just go ahead and start limbering up your fingers for your keyboard to type in your credit card number,” he said.The design team behind the Tina Turner doll studied Turner’s hair “at all angles.”The rush on the Nicks doll comes after decades of Mattel’s creation of Barbie dolls that honor influential musicians, athletes and pioneers.Mr. Justice said that one of the first celebrity Barbie dolls, released in 1969, depicted Diahann Carroll as the star of “Julia,” the first American television series to chronicle the life of a Black professional woman.More recently, Mattel released a doll of Celia Cruz, the Cuban American singer who was known as the Queen of Salsa. The Cruz doll, dressed in a red lace mermaid dress, was unveiled in 2021 but only went on sale this year.Carlyle Nuera, who designed that doll, said on Instagram that the design team had gone back and forth “with the fabric vendor to get the right scale of the lace design and to maximize the gold metallic threads woven throughout.”A Tina Turner doll that was released in October 2022 has sold out in stores, but it is available on eBay for hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars.That doll depicts Turner in the outfit she wore in the music video for “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”Turner, who died in May, was very involved with her doll’s design process, Bill Greening, a Mattel designer, said in a news release. Mr. Greening explained that the design team studied Turner’s hair “at all angles” to capture her look. “Lots of teasing and hair spray was involved!” he said.David Bowie has been honored with two Barbie dolls dressed in two of his classic outfits.Left, Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; Chris Pizzello/Associated PressDavid Bowie has been commemorated with two Barbie dolls dressed in tribute to two of his famous looks.Linda Kyaw-Merschon, who led the design of the second doll, which was released last year, said that it was meant to be a Barbie as Bowie, “not Bowie exactly as himself.”The doll was dressed in a replica of the powder blue suit Bowie wore in the “Life on Mars?” music video.The earlier Bowie doll, released in 2019, dressed as Bowie’s alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, wore a metallic red and blue striped get-up with siren-red platform boots and a gold circle on her forehead.The Stevie Nicks doll was released after a big year for Barbie. The Barbie movie released in July made more than $1 billion in ticket sales at the global box office in a few weeks, according to Warner Bros., and has created a windfall for Mattel.Nicks told USA Today that she loved the movie and said “I had to come home and tell my Stevie doll all about it.”Melina Delkic More

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      ‘Carlos’ Review: Santana’s Soulful Legacy

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      In Rudy Valdez’s poignant but shortsighted documentary, the guitarist’s magic comes alive in performances and childhood recollections.Since his breakthrough at the Fillmore in San Francisco and then a star-making performance at Woodstock in 1969, Carlos Santana’s fusion of improvisational Latin rock and blues has been regarded as transcendent.In the director Rudy Valdez’s poignant but shortsighted documentary, “Carlos,” that same magic comes alive through performance clips from various eras of the Mexican guitarist’s half-century-long career and commentary about his life offstage. Santana’s ethereal mood imbues the movie with a numinous feel — even a childhood anecdote that he shares about his father communicating to birds while playing the violin at sunset is delivered with an affecting cosmic touch.Although Santana, 76, reveals some raw details of his life — his father’s infidelity, experiencing sexual abuse as a child — the portrait, rendered primarily through interviews, leaves a lot out. For fans wondering about the anti-trans comments that he made at a show in July and then apologized for, there’s nothing in the documentary that mentions his political stances. The film presents Santana without critique.Other interviews can feel muted. His sisters, exhibiting hesitant body language, don’t seem like they want to say too much. His bandmate and second wife, Cindy Blackman Santana, is even quieter. Deeper insights from a rock critic or music historian would have enriched the film to fully convey not just what Santana’s legacy is but what it means. Still, this controlled documentary captivates as a soulful personal history, even if it doesn’t exactly transcend.CarlosRated R for coarse language, brief nudity and rock ’n’ roll drug talk. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Zach Bryan’s Melancholy Bon Iver Duet, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Holly Humberstone, Byron Messia, Laurel Halo and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Zach Bryan featuring Bon Iver, ‘Boys of Faith’The memorably wistful title track from the new Zach Bryan EP — which arrives just a few weeks after his most recent album — is a collaboration with Bon Iver, which means a couple of very pointed things. First, Bryan is making kin with fellow roots-adjacent cult heroes. Though he has become wildly successful improbably quickly, Bryan still fancies himself outside of the mainstream, stubbornly stomping to his own drum. That parallels the story of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who likely could fill arenas if he was interested. Both singers are vividly emotional, too, building whole houses upon sadness. Where the two acts diverge is in tone — Bryan sings with raspy jabs, and Vernon buries himself behind echo and fog. Bryan is such a force, though, that he pulls Vernon in his direction on this song; when the two sing in harmony, Vernon sounds as if he’s chasing after Bryan ever so slightly, following his bark with moon-aimed howls. A lament followed by a hug. JON CARAMANICAHolly Humberstone, ‘Into Your Room’On her latest single, the warm, synth-pop tune “Into Your Room,” the English singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone oscillates between sincere yearning and wry, self-deprecating humor: “You’re the center of this universe, my sorry ass revolves around you,” she sings, begging forgiveness from someone she’s mistreated. There’s a casually tossed-off, conversational appeal to her lyrics and delivery, but when the chorus surges, she’s suddenly leading with her heart. LINDSAY ZOLADZTroye Sivan, ‘Get Me Started’Following the lusty thrill of his summertime single “Rush,” Troye Sivan starts catching feelings on “Get Me Started,” the second song released from his forthcoming album “Something to Give Each Other.” “He’s got the personality, not even gravity could ever hold him down,” Sivan sings atop an insistent, club-ready beat, aglow with the agony and ecstasy of a new crush. ZOLADZLandon Barker, ‘Friends With Your Ex’A disarmingly refined pop-punk debut single from Landon Barker — the son of Travis Barker, who plays drums here, and whose label is putting out the song. That teen-angst pop-punk became the de facto sonic landing place for the first wave of TikTok superstar pretty boys was about finding the safest available package of rebellion (and one that largely skirted issues of race). Barker is perhaps that movement’s third wave, following early adopters like Jaden Hossler and Chase Hudson, and then the mainstream carpetbagging of Machine Gun Kelly. Which is to say there is a lot to emulate — the blueprint is loud and easy to follow. It hardly almost matters who’s coloring in between the lines. CARAMANICAShakira and Fuerza Regida, ‘El Jefe’“Stick it to the man,” Shakira advises, in English, at the beginning of “El Jefe” (“The Man” or “The Boss”), a brisk polka-ska hybrid that teams Shakira — the paragon of Pan-American crossover — with Fuerza Regida, a regional Mexican band from California. Backed by crisply syncopated guitars and horns, the song is a worker’s gripe, in Spanish, about a grueling, underpaid, dead-end job with a lousy boss; “I arrive on foot, him in a Mercedes,” growls Fuerza Regida’s lead singer, Jesús Ortiz Paz. It’s peppy class warfare. JON PARELESByron Messia, ‘Mad Dawgs’Byron Messia’s breakout single, “Talibans,” is one of the year’s defining reggae songs, so saccharine you might miss its tough talk. Messia has a sweet voice that gets feistier the more clipped his singing becomes, and on his boastful new single “Mad Dawgs,” he comes almost all the way around to blustery, trading in much of his considered honeyed singing for a choppier rhythm more in key with the chest-puffing lyrics. CARAMANICAChelsea Wolfe, ‘Dusk’The goth crooner Chelsea Wolfe conjures a thick atmosphere on “Dusk,” her first new solo track since composing the score for Ti West’s 2022 slasher flick “X.” Produced by David Andrew Sitek of TV on the Radio, “Dusk” is centered around a slow, methodical beat, murky guitar chords and Wolfe’s breathy, eerie voice. “I will go through fire to get to you,” she sings with a haunting determination. ZOLADZLaurel Halo, ‘Sick Eros’Laurel Halo has a gift for the hallucinatory. “Atlas,” her first new album in five years, is a submersion into abstract imagination, resembling a head-spinning dream that shifts between epochs, story lines and locations. The Los Angeles-based conceptualist has explored Detroit techno, musique concrète and even left-field pop in the past, and was recently appointed to the faculty of Composition and Experimental Sound Practices at CalArts. But “Atlas” traces a new path, slithering between the textures of jazz, ambient and classical. On the highlight “Sick Eros,” a bass trembles and creaks, beats shiver and gurgle, synths groan and swell. There’s a Hitchcockian foreboding — a sense that someone is about to open a shadowy door and never return, or trip over an edge that will lead to oblivion. Discordant strings ache and decay, stretching over waves of vibration. By the song’s end, you can almost picture yourself at the Dead Marshes in the “Lord of the Rings,” gazing upon the corpses floating in the swamp, their spirits emerging from the water with a ghoulish menace. ISABELIA HERRERAColleen, ‘Be Without Being Seen — Movement I’A sense of peace is immanent to the music of Colleen, but especially the work she’s been making since putting aside her viola da gamba in 2017 and adopting an all-electronics approach, centered on modular synthesizers. Her new double LP, “Le Jour et la Nuit du Réel,” is a time-flattening work of minimalism, created with just a monophonic synth (that is, playing one note at a time) and two delay units. Toward the center of the album, the first of three short movements in “Be Without Being Seen” introduces a quizzical pattern of arpeggiated chords, and simply lets it hang in the air. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOMicah Thomas, ‘Eros’Listeners to Immanuel Wilkins will recognize Micah Thomas’s piano playing almost immediately: the elastic-band rhythmic tension and snap, the gloriously spilled-out harmonic delivery, his imaginatively redistributed roles for the left and right hands. Thomas is both the binding agent and the stirrer of chaos in Wilkins’s quartet, which for the past few years has been the most praised young band in jazz. On “Eros,” from Thomas’s new trio album, “Reveal,” the bassist Dean Torrey and the drummer Kayvon Gordon cooperate at cross-purposes, a six-beat flow emerging beneath a web of syncopation. Let the drums guide the rhythm of your body; then see how it changes when you let the bass. Then find Thomas within that combination, absorbing it all. RUSSONELLO More

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      Shakira, Karol G, Édgar Barrera Lead Latin Grammy Nominations

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      Barrera, the Mexican American producer, has the most nods with 13 ahead of this year’s ceremony, which will be held on Nov. 16 in Seville, Spain.At a moment of artistic vibrancy, widespread collaboration and commercial dominance for music sung in Spanish and Portuguese, international stars including Shakira, Karol G, Camilo and Bad Bunny are among the most nominated acts for the 24th annual Latin Grammy Awards. Leading all of the headliners, however, is the behind-the-scenes Mexican American hitmaker Edgar Barrera — a songwriter, producer and engineer also known as Edge — who earned 13 total nominations, according to an announcement on Tuesday by the Latin Recording Academy.Barrera, who has worked with Camilo, Maluma and Karol G, is nominated in the three top categories: record, album and song of the year, where he is nominated twice — once for “NASA” by Camilo and Alejandro Sanz and also for “Un X100to” by Grupo Frontera featuring Bad Bunny. In best tropical song and best regional song, Barrera is nominated three separate times in each category.The singers Camilo, Karol G and Shakira are tied with the reggaeton songwriter Kevyn Mauricio Cruz Moreno for the second-most nominations, with seven. All four will compete with Barrera for song of year, where the nominees also include: Shakira’s “Acróstico”; “Amigos,” as performed by Pablo Alborán and María Becerra; Natalia Lafourcade’s “De Todas Las Flores”; “Ella Baila Sola” by Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma; Lasso’s “Ojos Marrones”; “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” by Bizarrap featuring Shakira; “Si Tú Me Quieres” by Fonseca and Juan Luis Guerra; and “TQG” by Karol G featuring Shakira.Shakira, in addition to her three appearances in the song category, is also nominated for record of the year and best pop song for “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53,” plus best urban fusion/performance for “TQG.”Also up for record of the year are “No Es Que Te Extrañe” by Christina Aguilera; “Carretera y Manta” by Alborán; “Déjame Llorarte” by Paula Arenas and Jesús Navarro; “Si Tú Me Quieres”; “Mientras Me Curo Del Cora” by Karol G; “De Todas Las Flores”; “Ojos Marrones”; “La Fórmula” by Maluma and Marc Anthony; “Despechá” by Rosalía; and “Correcaminos” by Sanz featuring Danny Ocean.Album of the year includes releases by Alborán, Arenas, Camilo, Andrés Cepeda, Juanes, Karol G, Lafourcade, Ricky Martin, Fito Páez and Carlos Vives. The nominees for best new artist are Borja, Conexión Divina, Ana Del Castillo, Natascha Falcão, Gale, Paola Guanche, Joaquina, León Leiden, Maréh and Timø.For the first time since the Latin Grammys started in 2000, the academy will present awards for songwriter of the year, best singer-songwriter song and best Portuguese-language urban performance. The first nominees for songwriter of the year include Barrera, Cruz, Felipe González Abad, Manuel Lorente Freire, Horacio Palencia and Elena Rose.The awards cover music released during the eligibility period of June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023. The nominated music must contain a majority of its lyrics in Spanish, Portuguese or any native regional dialect. Winners are voted on by members of the Latin Recording Academy, which include artists, songwriters, producers and other music creators in all genres.The ceremony will be held on Nov. 16 in Seville, Spain, and air on Univision in the United States. More

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      After Threats in Mexico, Peso Pluma Postpones U.S. Concerts

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      The breakout musician has not given a reason for rescheduling the dates. The authorities in Mexico are investigating the credibility of written threats against him.A string of concerts in the United States by the breakout Mexican singer-songwriter Peso Pluma were postponed this week after written threats were apparently issued by a major drug cartel. The authorities said they were investigating the credibility of the threats, which were written on banners and posted publicly in the border city Tijuana.Ticketmaster and Live Nation said that Peso Pluma shows scheduled from Thursday to Sunday, in Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis and Birmingham, had been rescheduled for later this fall; his performances are set to resume on Sept. 30 in Chula Vista, Calif. A representative for Peso Pluma did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the scheduling changes.The singer, who performed at the MTV Video Music Awards on Tuesday night, is in the middle of his North American Doble P Tour, following the release of his third album, “Génesis,” which has helped lead an international surge in what is known in the United States under the umbrella term “regional Mexican music.” The album reached No. 3 on the Billboard chart upon its release in June, and has tallied hundreds of millions of digital streams.Peso Pluma — who was born Hassan Emilio Kabande Laija, and whose stage name translates to Featherweight — specializes in corridos tumbados, a modern form of the drug-trade songs known as narcocorridos, combining regional Mexican styles like ranchera, norteño, banda and mariachi with influences from American and Latin rap.On Tuesday morning, three threatening banners, or narcomantas, were spotted in different areas of Tijuana. The messages, written in big red letters, were addressed to Peso Pluma, who is scheduled to perform in the city on Oct. 14.“This is for you, Peso Pluma,” one of the banners read in Spanish. “Refrain from appearing this October 14. Because it will be your last presentation.”The banner was signed with the initials of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación, or Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful and brutal cartels in Mexico, and a major rival to the Sinaloa Cartel. It said the artist would face consequences for being “disrespectful and loose-mouthed.”Edgar Mendoza, a state prosecutor in Baja, Calif., told the local press that one person had been detained on drug and terrorism charges after being found in the vicinity of one of the banners.The mayor of Tijuana, Montserrat Caballero, who is living in military headquarters, initially said the banners would be investigated while concert security was ramped up. As of Friday afternoon, tickets for Peso Pluma’s concert there next month remained on sale.However, on Tuesday, Caballero said in a radio interview that artists like Peso Pluma had potentially invited the attention of the cartels with their lyrics. “Let’s be clear: They sing and make an apology of crime and thus they should know the risk and consequences,” Caballero told Azucena Uresti, the host of Radio Fórmula, in a phone interview.She added that whether the authorities canceled the concert would be contingent on whether the narcomantas were the work of organized crime or ordinary citizens. Caballero, who is from the governing party Morena, moved into the military headquarters of the 28th Infantry Battalion after one of her bodyguards suffered an armed attack, and has said she is being targeted by organized crime for confiscating arms.Other Mexican musicians have drawn attention to the risks of the genre as well. Natanael Cano, who is considered a pioneer of corridos tumbados, recently stopped mid-song during a concert in Sonora, remarking that he was “going to get killed.” The lyrics of the song, “Cuerno Azulado,” allude to drug deals and potential government involvement, including a line assumed to be a reference to Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo.Narcomantas have long been used by cartels and organized crime to leave public messages for authorities, rivals or the community at large. Popularized at the height of the drug war in the 2010s, the banners can be used to promote or assuage fear, although it is often unclear who is responsible for making them and how credible their messages are.Peso Pluma had previously been expected to appear at a concert at the Chevron Stadium in Tijuana in March, alongside the artists Eden Muñoz, Roberto Tapia and El Fantasma. But in late February, Tapia Entertainment, which was organizing the show, said tickets would be reimbursed “due to insecurity and threats towards other events.”Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, criticized some of the country’s current popular music in June, invoking Peso Pluma’s hit song “AMG,” about a Mercedes-Benz. “As if material things were the most important things — brand clothes, houses, jewelry, power or arrogance,” he said. “There are other options, there are other alternatives, it’s possible to be happy in another way.” More