Millennium Mixtape: Liito, El Loco del Barrio Pocho

Spanish is a language of metaphor (“This is that.”), while English tends to be a language of similes (“This is like that.”) . . . hence the prevalence of “magical reality” in Spanish-language literature and music (though the distinction between literature and music is often so blurred as to be non-existent).

This list includes artists from Argentina, Brazil, Califaztlán, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Spain, who play such genres as cumbia, flamenco, hip-hop, jazz, mambo, norteña, rock, ska, R&B, rap, swing, and música foclòrica from many different regions, often in unexpected fusions such as in the entry for 2025, a collaboration between Colombian jazz harpist Edmar Castañeda, NYC-born banjoist Bela Fleck, and Mexican drummer Antonio Sánchez.

Two groups (Calle 13 and Los Tigres del Norte) get two entries each: Calle 13 (“13th Street”) is represented by its first album (2005) and its last before its members “retired” the group in 2014 after winning three (Anglo) Grammys and 22 Latin Grammys. Los Tigres del Norte are probably the best-known group in Latin music, with sales of 32 million albums, seven (Anglo) Grammys and 12 Latin Grammys and performing or starring in over three dozen movies.

Also represented are two South American geniuses: the humble countryman from northern Colombia, Magín Díaz, who composed songs as a young man that became classics of cumbia, but who lived in obscurity until he was 90 years old. And Hermeto Pascoal, the Brazilian albino who was born to a campesino family, but who couldn’t work in the tropical sun, so he stayed indoors, taught himself to play the accordian, and grew up to be a world-class musical savant, Hermeto Pascoal.

Every artist and group on my list merits at least a paragraph, but you can look ‘em up while doing the best thing: ¡Play their music!