Resiliencia

Taína Asili is a New York-born Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, activist, punk rocker, filmmaker and freedom fighter whose songs, videos, documentaries and impassioned, opera-trained voice command attention. Music, for her, is the continuation an ancestral heritage and a call to arms in an era when protest and protest music is more essential than ever. Named by the HuffPost as one of the ‘12 Freedom Fighting Bands to Get You Through the Trump Years’ (her anthem ‘No Es Mi Presidente’ hit a deep nerve), this whip-smart artist has carved an oeuvre from story-songs that stir, and get you double-taking.

Sung in English and Spanish over a sound that takes in everything from cumbia, reggaeton and ska to salsa, Afrobeat and rock, this upbeat work finds her inspired by the lives of the activist women of colour in her life, in their tales of personal and political survival. (Equally vital are Asili's accompanying music video-documentaries, which grant further agency to the women acknowledged in the songs.) ‘En la Verdad’ is a paean to the importance of believing survivors of abuse. ‘Beauty Manifested’ sticks a finger up to white hetero-patriarchal norms, while the relentlessly joyful ‘La Alegria’ is a feisty, scratchy, horn-heavy belter featuring Public Enemy producer DJ Johnny Juice. Closer ‘Beyond the Stars’, which boasts the galactic cascade of septuagenarian sitar player Veena Chandra, is pure magic.