{"id":47517,"date":"2016-06-10T19:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T19:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=47517"},"modified":"2017-01-06T01:58:51","modified_gmt":"2017-01-06T01:58:51","slug":"on-her-second-album-xenia-rubinos-finds-a-new-language-to-talk-about-latinidad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=47517","title":{"rendered":"On Her Second Album, Xenia Rubinos Finds a New Language to Talk About Latinidad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/remezcla.com\/features\/music\/xenia-rubinos-black-terry-cat-interview\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>On Her Second Album, Xenia Rubinos Finds a New Language to Talk About Latinidad<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/remezcla.com\" target=\"_blank\">Remezcla<\/a><br \/>\n2016-06-01<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jabladoraaa\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Isabelia Herrera<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At a time when the political utility of the Afro-Latino label is as urgent as ever, it\u2019s easy to forget that the journey to embrace that identity isn\u2019t always immediate. Before recording her sophomore album <em>Black Terry Cat<\/em> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.anti.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">ANTI- Records<\/a>), Boricua-Cuban artist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xeniarubinos.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Xenia Rubinos<\/a> did not identify as Afro-Latina. So when she embarked on the recording process this time around, Rubinos envisioned the album as a vehicle to explore her brownness and blackness, to rediscover her place in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/African_diaspora\" target=\"_blank\">African diaspora<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why hip-hop is <em>Black Terry Cat\u2019s<\/em> lifeblood. \u201cI was listening to a lot of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hip_hop_music\" target=\"_blank\">hip-hop<\/a> at the time. It was a new exploration for me, getting into <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Slum_Village\" target=\"_blank\">Slum Village<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/KRS-One\" target=\"_blank\">KRS-One<\/a>, as well as going back to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Erykah_Badu\" target=\"_blank\">Erykah Badu<\/a>, which was starting to become my daily diet,\u201d she explains. Rubinos lays those influences bare on <em>Black Terry Cat<\/em>; the record vibrates with clanging percussive interludes, stream-of-consciousness lyrics, and deep pocket backbeats. It\u2019s a clattering, experimental triumph that leaps from thick funk basslines to spooky horn sections and then to broken-down hip-hop beats, like a kid playing with <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lego\" target=\"_blank\">Legos<\/a>. Above it all, Rubinos\u2019 warm, smoky voice flutters about, revealing a vocal dexterity and a slew of alter egos the listener is constantly trying to catch up with&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire interview <a href=\"http:\/\/remezcla.com\/features\/music\/xenia-rubinos-black-terry-cat-interview\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Her Second Album, Xenia Rubinos Finds a New Language to Talk About Latinidad Remezcla 2016-06-01 Isabelia Herrera At a time when the political utility of the Afro-Latino label is as urgent as ever, it\u2019s easy to forget that the journey to embrace that identity isn\u2019t always immediate. Before recording her sophomore album Black Terry [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,13743,14646,8,20],"tags":[24048,1392,19464,24049],"class_list":["post-47517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-interviews","category-latino","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-isabelia-herrera","tag-music","tag-remezcla","tag-xenia-rubinos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47518,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47517\/revisions\/47518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}