This is the second of four emails in which I’m writing about my favorite (pop) music of 2020. The first, in case you missed it, is archived here.
Here is the YouTube playlist of the songs I’m writing about. (And here it is on Spotify, for good measure.)
37. Danna Paola, “Sodio”
Mexican pop — or at least the portions of it I maintain open lines of communication with — has gone in for cumbia revival recently, in part because it blends well with the reggaetón that has consumed so much of Latin pop, but the moments when the full production cuts away and the güiro scrapes those triplets are still thrilling. Danna Paola has been kicking around Mexican pop for a while, but her 2020 was great, and never better than in this glittery, almost bluesy song of overheated love and sudden loss, because the man she loved is stepping out of the closet.
36. Mr. Leo, “Asabe”
Cameroon’s pop scene is perhaps the most fascinating of the big three Francophone African pop scenes (the other two are Congo-Kinshasa’s and Côte d’Ivoire’s, but there are many smaller ones), in part because its proximity to Nigeria means that a lot of work is produced with an eye to the international market. Mr. Leo has been a hitmaker for five years, but this reggae-flavored Afrobeats tune about the restless hunt for money which characterizes so much of everyday life in the global South (and elsewhere) was the undeniable jam that broke through to me.
35. Lala &ce, “Show Me Love”
French hip-hop is much broader than any survey I could make, but one of the songs that immediately jumped out to me is this sex jam from a Lyon-bred, London-based rapper whose birth name is Mélanie Crenshaw and whose stage name is pronounced Lala (after her Ivorian grandmother) and Ace (after smashing the beat like Serena Williams). Singing mostly in French, with a smattering of English dropped in because that’s the source language of sexy R&B, she croons in a smoky alto about dominating a (female) lover in the sexy-surly idiom of R&B men the world over.
34. Cíntia, “African Queen”
Nigerian Afrobeats is everywhere now: Afro-Portuguese singer Cíntia ignores Lusophone kizomba, funaná, kuduro, or marrabenta traditions in favor of a smoky Afrobeats riddim by Nigerian producer SteveRawd. The lyrics are still very much in an urban Portuguese patois with bursts of English, but the steamy same-sex seduction they describe is universal. A common thread in many of my favorite 2020 songs is a kind of quotidian queerness, and while I’m certainly biased in favor of LGBT expression, it really does seem that there was a global explosion in almost unremarkably queer pop in many spaces this year.
33. Rachelle Allison, “Fanm Sé Dyab”
There was undoubtedly an enormous amount of quarantine pop in 2020, which in my browsing generally meant videos shot at home, since the bulk of actual production work in contemporary pop is often remote these days anyway. French Antillean singer Rachelle Allison’s “Fanm Sé Dyab” (women are the devil) is a righteous dancehall rebuke in Kreyol to misogynist meming, with the primary video shot on a phone in the depths of quarantine.
32. Jade Baraldo, “Yo Quiero!”
I’ve been aware of Brazilian indie pop performer Jade Baraldo for a while — her baby bangs and freckled face stand out in a crowded field — but it wasn’t until the colorful, athletic video for this lustful Spanish-inflected song from her 2019 album Mais Que os Olhos Podem Ver (more than eyes can see) was released that I became a fan. (I’m a sucker for cross-genre and cross-language experimentation, of course.) An entirely Spanish-language single was released this year, but it’s the original, with its giddy rush of Portuguese, unpracticed Spanish, and bed-creak refrain (a twee update of Karol G’s “Mi Cama”), that won my heart.
31. A-Wing, “TraSero”
Cuban reggaetón is still largely ignored outside of Cuba, but despite the setbacks of 2020, it’s still growing in popularity and quality. Cuban singer and rapper A-Wing studied art before entering the local urbano music scene; like a lot of top performers she’s distributed by a European label in order to skirt the shameful US embargo. She had a remarkable 2020, carving a space for a strong female voice in the male-driven reggaetón scene (in which Cuba differs not at all from other countries). “Trasero” (rear) was something of a statement of purpose, pure reggaetón boasting to which subsequent songs could add shading: confident, capable, and sexual, A-Wing is here to claim her time.
30. Carla Morrison, “Ansiedad”
The literate Mexican pop wave of the 2000s are aging into éminences grises these days, but I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed Carla Morrison’s thoughtful, emotional pop until she emerged with a new cycle of singles toward the end of the year. “Ansiedad” (anxiety) gave voice to feelings of paralysis with a stronger, more urgent rhythm than the gentle, ballad-oriented Morrison has ever really been known for, and manages to be an apology for her extended silence after years of nonstop touring, while also expressing the overwhelming emotions experienced by almost everyone in 2020.
29. ChocQuibTown ft. Sech, “Qué Lástima”
This summit between legendary Colombian hip-hop trio ChocQuibTown and top Panamanian reggaetonero Sech might be considered something of a disappointment by banger-hunters: it’s a ruminative “oh no baby what is you doing” song about trying to warn a friend/love interest about the abusive relationship they’re currently in. But Goyo, Tostao, Slow and Sech are such expert lyricists and interpreters that they create a fully-realized portrait of both a toxic situation and the way out of it.
28. Shinza, “Kite Tripotay”
One of the least-streamed artists in my Spotify playlist, Shinza (a.k.a. Shinza_Gigi on social platforms) is a young Haitian entrepreneur shooting her shot to only moderate traction so far. But this Afrohouse-inflected banger about ignoring gossip had wormed its slinky way into my heart long before I checked up on any stats about it. It’s apparently done extremely well on Haitian TikTok, which makes sense: Spotify isn’t available in Haiti, while universal apps like TikTok and YouTube are.
27. Nessa Preppy & Salty, “Pull Up”
I’m a big fan of Nessa Preppy, the Dutch-Trinidadian star of contemporary soca, but I’ll admit to being a bit iffy about soca as a whole. There’s probably no more consistent expression of joy in contemporary music, but at its worst it can sound chintzy and tourist-oriented rather than engaging with actual Trinidadian life. The solution of riddims like this, which is to import Jamaican dancehall swagger, helps put some meat on the soca bones, and Nessa’s and Salty’s performance over top of it is gloriously chewy and brimming with attitude.
26. Créol, Zyon Stylei, “Ova”
Provocative Gabonese chanteuse Créol continues her winning streak in my affections: her vocal-fried, dancehall-inflected Afropop remains some of my favorite Francophone African music regardless of how small Gabon’s pop scene is. Cameroonian rapper Zyon Stylei lends her some shine from a larger audience here, but there’s no mistaking who the center of attention is. Like much of Créol’s best work, “Ova” is a sex jam encoded in playful metaphor. “Ce soir tu piloteras mon vaisseau,” she warbles: Tonight you will pilot my vessel.
25. Lucy Alves, “Chegue Chega”
My engagement with the totality of Brazilian pop is still quite limited, despite the fact that there are more Brazilian artists in this list than any other nationality. It’s just that big and varied a country. Lucy Alves has been a star in the forró (rural northeastern, accordion-based) scene for some years, and her recent engagement with the broader pop scene has not been without controversy, as traditionalists bemoan the sexualization and commercialization of pop. But eager, sensual pop-forró songs like this are too good to be dismissed as mere chart-chasing: begging for a lover to come to her, she captures a mood of lovestruck need that traditional forró, with its closed, respectable repertoire, cannot.
Tomorrow: #24-13