La Doña’s Corrientes is a globetrotting, genre-spanning tribute to the inherent resplendence in collaboration. It’s a defiant recognition of the beauty that comes from open-mindedness; a needed message as politicians across the world (particularly in this country, of course) spread messages of nationalism and closed borders. San Francisco–based artist and activist Cecilia Cassandra Peña-Govea made the record by traveling throughout Latin America, working with musicians in the US, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Colombia.
Sonically, she dives into sounds from all of these countries and more, paying tribute to the places she visited on the road to Corrientes: Cuba’s rumba, the Dominican Republic’s merengue and bachata, the Caribbean coast of Colombia’s cumbia, Veracruz, Mexico’s son jarocho, to name a few. The beautiful thing about each of these styles, though, is the way they incorporate diasporic and indigenous traditions from across the world. With Corrientes, La Doña has made a global album, and one that celebrates moving through the world with openness and kindness.
Below, check out her explanation behind how each song from Corrientes came together.
1. “Buscando un Novio” (feat. Son Rompe Pera)
Picture this: It’s a hot summer day in Oakland and I’m BBQing with 15 of my best homegirls. I get a call from Son Rompe Pera’s manager and he’s like, “We’re gonna be in the city for the day.” I immediately sat down to compose this song, book out the Women’s Audio Mission, and call my homie to see if I can borrow his truck. Magically, I manage to get the boys into the studio, we build the marimbas, record the song, and then I load them and their built marimbas back into the truck and take them to their gig in Berkeley. Just another day in Doña’s world. “Buscando un Novio” is a cumbia about me finally being ready to date again. So yeah, send your credit score and your cover letter. Let’s go out!
2. “Mentira y la Verdad”
During the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, bachata was denizenized and deemed a genre too Black, poor, and working-class to represent the emerging national identity. While actively repressed and excluded from popular culture, the cultural bearers persisted and the music continued to pop off among the working-class in DR. As I was composing this song around the message of telling truth to power, I knew I wanted to engage with a genre that carried that history of having been repressed by the state and then moved into the pop canon through processes of white-washing and exploitation. This story is, unfortunately, true for so much roots music: blues, jazz, rock and roll, bachata, etc. I want us to really interrogate what practices are utilized for building national identity and who is included or excluded in that process. The “Mentira y la Verdad” music video depicts a dance with the devil and represents how conflicted I feel participating in an extractive music industry.
3. “Carla Anita” (feat. Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto)
I wrote and demoed this song in two hours when I heard that my homies Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto were going to be in town for a day. I booked out the Empire Studio and taught them and recorded the track in, like, three hours. My favorite part of this experience was seeing these legacy-ass musicians with their traditional Colombian folk instruments jamming out in the extremely new, shiny Empire live room that had maybe never before been used for live musicians. This whole record is really about how to explore and uplift traditional sounds while combining it with electronic dance components, so it was amazing to be able to realize this track with some of the most important cultural preservationists out of Colombia.
4. “Dámelo” (feat. Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto)
For this track, I told them to go crazy on the drums and gave them some queues, but the magic really came about in doing the vocal arrangement. The premise of the song is, “If I ask for it, you will give it to me.” It’s a notice to the world, but mostly a message to myself as I enter an era of self-protection and self-love. My favorite practice as a composer is to create a bewitching cradle of dozens of vocal harmonies that I then build out to draw in the listeners or audience as participants. In this case, I went crazy singing all the parts on my own, and then had the privilege of recording a five-person chorus of badass femmes to get this live, rumba feel. The music video I filmed in Varadero in Cuba in the middle of a summertime storm.
5. “La Que Nos Unió”
For those who don’t know, I grew up playing in my family band, La Familia Peña-Govea. My parents fell in love at a music party in Berkeley 44 years ago and have been together ever since. I wrote this song to memorialize their love story and to sing my praise of this great love story. “La que nos unió” follows a young brown boy from his job in the fields to realizing his dream of playing music professionally in the Bay Area. There, he meets the daughter of a teacher, a brilliant bipolar artist. On that first night, they play “Jesusita en Chihuahua” and have literally never stopped playing since then. I owe everything to my family and know that without their love of music, I would never have been born.
6. “Mátame Ya”
Another corrido con banda, “Matame Ya” is a song I wrote about this beautiful, tall woman I met at one of my shows, like, four years ago in Texas. She came to, like, three of my SXSW shows and then drove a day to come to my show in Arizona a few days later. I’m convinced she’s straight, but I always held a little flame for her in my heart. I wonder if she’ll read this. In all these years, I never told her I had a crush on her.
7. “Tus Besos”
I’m Mexican, I love banda, I love corridos. “Tus Besos” is a sexy banda corrido accompanied by a lesbians-at-the-banda-club music video. This might be one of my favorite songs off the album.
8. “I Wanna Fight”
Have you ever woken up and felt like, “Yeah, I’m f’sho getting in a fight today”? Same, same. The fact of the matter is that I was really born this way; it’s my natural inclination and positioning to move through the world with that attitude and approach. As I became more well-known, I quickly learned that I had to divorce, or at least shush, that temperament. I couldn’t keep wondering if that person over there staring at me wanted to fight or wanted an autograph, so I willed my whole nature to change and transitioned into a peaceful, patient, friendly-to-strangers person. Though that’s who I am now, I still sometimes wake up in the morning with that fighting feeling—so don’t overstep!
9. “Frisco Hates You, Too” (feat. Jada Imani, Qing Qi, Stoni)
This song has been a long time coming. In Joe Talbot and Jimmy Fails’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jimmie tells these white girls who are talking shit about San Francisco that “you can’t hate it if you don’t love it.” San Francisco has been my greatest love and my deepest heartbreak. To see one’s city descend into a whitewashed, tech-bro-infested playground for billionaires is to live a nightmare. This song sings everything I think on the daily. It’s riddled with little jewels of community truths and features three of the Bay’s baddest emcees. Frisco is alive in those of us who it birthed and raised. And let me not hear a critique of SF from anyone who isn’t in the ground holding it down. If you don’t like it, then leave.
10. “Por un Amor”
“Por un Amor” is the first of three songs produced by my amazing collaborator in Cuba, Kadir. I grew up playing trumpet in my dad’s salsa band, Los Compas, and salsa will always be the music to cheer me up and keep me going. This song tells the story of my ex-boyfriend’s and my breakup from his point of view, because I’m the most gracious ex-girlfriend ever. I recorded this at the historic Egrem Recording studio in Cuba by some of the best musicians on the island. Truly blessed!
11. “¿Qué te Importa?”
Honestly, I think this song is kinda related to “I Wanna Fight.” More visibility means I can’t fight anymore, but it also means that more people care and gossip about what I’m doing (or not doing). Additionally, I can’t fight them for it, thus the cyclical declawing of Doña. While I don’t fight anymore, I’m most definitely throwing ones in this song. If you feel like this song might be about you, then it probably is.
12. “Consiénteme”
This might be one of my favorites off the whole album. I put my whole foot in the vocal arrangement for this bolero. Bolero as a transborder genre of music is so important to me, especially as a composer who works so closely with Cuban and Mexican music. The Circum-Carribean cultural flow and exchange that created such a wide array of boleros for us to enjoy shaped this composition, and honestly the entire album.
13. “Ansias Locas” (feat. Rumba All-Stars)
There is no Cuban music without rumba. This rumba I created with the Rumba All-Stars in Havana. This group consists of, like, 20 incredible singers, musicians, dancers, and designers. Led by Miguelito Leon—an ex-boyfriend of my youth—they put together large-scale theater and cultural performances, integrating the religion, movement, music, clothing, and joys of the Afro-Cuban diaspora. Thank you to the whole group and Miguelito for helping me put this album together and being such gracious hosts to me while I was in Cuba. The resilience and hearts of the Cuban people are unmatched, despite decades of embargo and suffocation. They go!
14. “Equinoccio” (feat. Corina Santos)
Featuring a soaring string arrangement by yours truly and an all-femme string section—as well as the sacred drum of Santeria, the batá—“Equinoccio” is a witchy anthem about love that withstands distance and passing of time. Notable also is that my wife/music video director forced me to learn how to surf for the music video. Shouts out the all-femme surf crew that came through to film this with us!
15. “Qué Pena Me Da” (feat. Manguito con Chile)
This is the first of three songs I wrote and recorded in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico with the group Manguito con Chile. I’m a student of son jarocho and love the communal, eternal ways that this music resides in Veracruz and la gente Jarocha. Firstly, let me shout out the boys in Manguito con Chile, who are absolute monsters on their instruments. Secondly, I must honor and thank the Vega family for bringing me into such a rich tradition with open arms. I’m able to see the space created by the fandango and the tarima as a place for radical self-preservation and collective healing.
16. “En Camino a Xalapa” (feat. Manguito con Chile, Xochitl Morales)
My ode to Xalapa, Mexico! Joined by my dear friend Xochitl Morales, we created this song to honor our favorite places in Veracruz and all the littler joyful crushes that arise at the fandango. My sister called this one a song to “raise the dead,” and I have to agree—it’s impossible to hear it and not wanna party. Thank you, Veracruz!
17. “Quémame” (feat. Last Jeronimo)
A common approach in Corrientes is melding the electronic and contemporary with the highly traditional sounds, scales, and rhythms. “Quémame” does exactly that, featuring the leona, jarana, requinto, and zapateado of son jarocho with an electro outro by Mexico City producer Last Jeronimo.
