La Reina De La Anarcumbia, Amandititita

LA REINA DE LA ANARCUMBIA Amandititita, Mexico
SONY/BMG

by: Carlos Reyes

Rockdrigo Gonzalez continues to be a popular underground folk artist, he was called “El Profeta del Nopal”, influenced by Bob Dylan and accompanied by artists such as El Haragan and El Tri. The tragic 1985 Mexico city earthquake took his life, he left a family among them a young little girl. Amandititita follows many of the themes imposed by her father, through her music she portraits Mexico city as it is, stories about people presented in the cumbia-pop subgenre, or the anarcumbia as she calls it.

Two years ago the artist appeared in Gerardo Naranjo’s majestic film Drama/Mex, she grabbed some attention as a bully hooker, but her music become a phenomenon once everyone discovered El Metrosexual gathering immediate attention by distributing majors and ending up with Sony/BMG. The first single that works as a satire to both vanity and machismo. Amandititita is pop, it might be wearing a heavy cumbia costume but her music is so accessible because it carries the catchy chorus, humor and even some political undertones.

Not a released single yet, but already a youtube sensation is La Mataviejitas, a dark humoristic song about the serial killer who became the prevalent fear of elderly women. The song starts with an excerpt from Hitchcock’s Psycho, immediately after that classic theme fades away to be replaced by the popular sound of cumbia. The almost captivating song works for its hysterical recount of the tragic events, is almost a bipolar approach and very creepy. “Y porque dime abuelita te buscando la mataviejitas.”

The songs work individually, but there is very little room for variety among them. The album becomes way too repetitive, becoming less enchanting and well not as interesting, songs like La Cumbia del Tex Mex or El Baneario are pointless. In fact, there was an EP circulating the web that featured the good songs, among them probably the best track in the album: Sangoloteo a song that reunites religious leaders in a big party, from Jesus to Budha, to the god of drug dealers: Malverde.

A flawed debut album, but worthy of listening as it is a fresh approach to Latin-American popular music.

Numeric Range: 64/100

Key tracks: El Metrosexual, La Mataviejitas, Mecanico