I Like it Like That (A Mi Me Gusta Asi)

Pianist Pete Rodriguez is one of the pioneers of Nuyorican music – Puerto Rican musicians in New York City – and this, his fifth and most popular album, gets the deluxe remastering and vinyl reissue treatment. Named after his biggest hit, 1967’s ‘I Like it Like That’, the album captures boogaloo music at its feverish height. Boogaloo’s mixing of Latin American rhythms and piano with R&B’s swagger and groove was largely shaped by young Nuyoricans and was, in the 1960s, a very popular ‘street’ music (akin to rap two decades later).

I Like it Like That finds Rodriguez and band hosting a raucous party – as the vocals swap between Spanish and English you get a real flavour of black and Latino Harlem listening to (and dancing with) one another. The songs here are simple and dynamic, and would influence salsa, disco and rap. Today, white supremacists in the US use ‘boogaloo’ as a reference to race war – let’s take the word back to its joyous origins as a multi-ethnic dance music! PS: readers who listen to contemporary pop music should note that ‘I Like it Like That’ was sampled on Cardi B’s 2018 US No 1 hit ‘I Like It’ – from boogaloo to Latin trap, Pete Rodriguez continues to move the crowd.