Juanita Euka was born in the Congo, grew up mostly in Buenos Aires and now lives in London. Her latest album, Mabanzo, draws on all these heritages in various measures, sounding African or Latin, funky or jazz-infused or soulful, depending on where you put the needle down. If you remember a time in the 1980s, before the internet and when the world was just discovering an indefinite but global “world music” sound, this is sort of like that.
The tendency in non-Western music now is towards ever more specific explorations of narrowly defined cultural eco-spheres, with extensive notes, historical background and much attention to traditional instruments. We are all musicologists, it seems, on the hunt for authentic sounds. But there’s real pleasure in skillful fusion, too, as Euka demonstrates.
Euka is the niece of the Congolese soukous master Franco, but while Afrobeat is in her blood, she’s spent a good deal of time in London collaborating with Afro-Latino outfits like Wara and Aminanz. For instance, the first single, “Alma Seca” (or “Dry Soul”) slinks and bumps with South American syncopation. A spare bassline lays out the foundation, while skittering rhythms on claves and hand drums make it dance. There’s a synthesizer conjuring waver-y translucent curtains of sound, and an electric guitar squalls intermittently in the background. Euka’s verse is sleek and sinuous, an undulating Afro-Cuban lilt in its contours. “For All It’s Worth” is likewise Spanish flavored, with bright bursts of brass and scratchy rhythms on guiro and cowbell.
But “Nalingi Mobali Te” is all warm, central African sway, its hip-shifting rhythm snaking back and around and under itself, so that the song might go on forever if you let it, its exuberant horns in the dance along with you, its guitars cascading in liquid profusion. “Motema” likewise has a shimmery West African aura in its wheedling keyboard, its spike-y syncopations of guitar and bass.
All that would prove that Euka has a foot in two cultures, but indeed, there are songs that borrow from others. “War Is Over” lofts in on breezy Bahian rhythms, while “Irresolute” mines a quiet, classic soul vulnerability. There’s a playful cross contamination of influences in many of these tracks that makes it hard to discern exactly where they come from.
That’s all fine. We’re listeners, not cultural purists, and while Euka’s songs are a bit glossier and more civilized than your average crate-digger comp, they have their own lilting, danceable charm. The singer, after all, has lived and breathed and absorbed the music of multiple countries. Who are we to insist she keep them all separate?
