The sound of Mexico

A song about longing and a broken heart, it is a collaboration between the electro group Budaya from the north of Mexico and Baldomero Azuela, a jarocho singer from the south. Son Jarocho is a style in which a singer with a falsetto voice improvises to the sound of a band with many string instruments. In this style, indigenous Mexican sounds have developed with the Spanish fandango and West African music to form a folklore genre of its own. Jarocho is very emotional and a great contrast to synthesizers.

I love the French band L'imperatrice, and the Mexican underground group Petite Amie which mix their psychedelic indie sound with sounds from their homeland. The two vocalists sing in Spanish and French and their harmonies are seductive and multi-layered.

Under the name Tonga Conga, my brother Raul Sotomayor, who is also a DJ and producer, has collaborated with artists from Nigeria, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. This song is sung by the Colombian, queer and black artist Mabiland and the sound really puts you in a trance. Very tribal and percussion-heavy, Afrobeats are becoming increasingly important in Mexico and throughout Latin America, reflected in how reggaeton stars such as J Balvin have recently collaborated so much with Afropop artists and musicians.

We also have a large Black community in Mexico, which unfortunately many people don't realise. African heritage is very present in our culture and music, whether it comes from Mexico's long-established black community or has recently arrived in the country from the Caribbean or Brazil. In this song, the Mexican singer-songwriter Alaíde mixes Mexican cumbia with Afropop. Her lyrics are about discovering the self and inclusive feminism. She sings: “I'm always the pilot, not the chair beneath her”.

Renee Mooi's music is rhythmic, breathless and sexy, with a dark, wild texture. Her music videos and tracks are about the power of femininity and the power of our bodies, and how we can use them in dance to express and celebrate ourselves. ‘Pantera’ means “pantheress”. In this song, Renee plays with Arabic rhythms. I find her sensuality and her visuals very inspiring.

Joaquina Mertz is a great role model for many women; she deals with her everyday life as a plus-size person in her songs. She originally came from classical music, jazz and scat. Now she makes more pop music, but she hasn't forgotten her roots. In this song she sings: ‘With your hands my sorrow has been written, draw me, ink on paper. Deliver me from all your judgement.’

Cumbia, a couple dance that also mixes African, indigenous and European origins, can be found throughout Latin America. Peruvian cumbia is very guitar-heavy, Argentinian cumbia is characterised by the synths of the 1980s and Colombian cumbia has indigenous influences. In Mexico, we have our own cumbia style. But this song, ‘Cumbia Rosa’, is more in the Argentinian style. The Mexican film ‘Ya no estoy aqui’ (‘I'm no longer here’, 2019), which is about cumbia dancers in Monterrey, fuelled a revival of cumbia music in Mexico.

 Natalia Lafourcade is a very important singer in Mexico and something of an archivist of our old music, of our vintage music. She has a lot of cumbia elements, but her sound also reminds me of songs from Italy and France in the fifties and sixties, where beautiful divas sang their ballads.

This band epitomises creative indie rock in Mexico! They come from Guadalajara in Jalisco. The four friends tour all the time and are getting increasingly better known throughout the country as a result. Their songs are like the soundtrack to a film, you can vividly imagine scenes and feelings while listening to them. It's good mood music.