Maluca Mala is a Washington Heights fly girl with her own R&B barrio techno.
Maluca Mala plays Carnegie Hall Citywide
Saturday, March 21, 2020 ~ Maluca plays a free concert at El Museo del Barrio for Carnegie Hall Citywide at 4pm. FREE
More information at carnegiehall.org
The show was cancelled to keep New Yorkers safe during the COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic.
Maluca Mala
Born in the Bronx, raised in Washington Heights, Natalie Ann Yepez makes barrio techno in the Heights.
Listening to her is like walking down west Dyckman St on a summer Saturday night. She filters the barrio’s salsa, bachata, merengue, reggaeton and Latin trap through her own techno sensibility. She is definitely house, but underneath is the sound of the barrio.
The historical reference is 1980s freestyle, early Latin rap, but filled in with everything that has happened in music since then.
Maluca also carries the R&B sound of Harlem. Her retro R&B is some of her sweetest music because it’s stripped down. It’s more naked. It’s about me and my voice instead of the driving beats.
She gets all Soul Train in Washington Heights and could even go vogueing (which comes from Harlem and El Barrio, hello). This part of her recalls early Madonna, sweet.
This Barrio Woman is Fly
She chose Maluca as her stage name. That is Hispanic slang for a wild woman. Maluca Mala is a bad, wild woman. I wouldn’t take that literally. She has Caribbean roots, so there is poetry here.
Her “bad girl” image is more about being an independent woman who is proud of her skin color, proud of her body shape, proud of her hair, proud of her heritage and making her own way in the world.
Maluca Mala is a New York woman of the barrio, straight up, fuerte, fuerte, loud and proud. ¡Go girl! We are right here behind you.
NYC Baby
September 13, 2019 ~ Maluca made her directorial debut in her NYC Baby video. Back to freestylin, with “Muevalo el culito (Move your ass, like a New Yorker) and “Hold me down until I come too.” New York City to the world. Mala, mala, Maluca buena. LOL