Isleña Antumalen - ÑAÑA (2024)

There’s a point in “Mija,” which arrives early in Isleña Antumalen’s non-stop blast of an album ÑA​Ñ​A, where Antumalen is rapping so fast that even if I could speak Mapudungun, the language in which she sings, I doubt I’d be able to catch everything she was saying. That’s a compliment, in case it wasn’t clear; Antumalen’s astonishing vocal acrobatics are one of the many highlights of ÑA​Ñ​A, a record that tackles the topics of sexuality, decolonization, and liberation atop music that never stops moving. Dembow, reggaetón, cumbia, you name it—Antumalen uses all of it, and as a result ÑA​Ñ​A is a sweaty, joyous delight. But it’s her vocal delivery I keep coming back to: frantic, giddy, clipped, and insistent, Antumalen rat-a-tats every word so ferociously it’s like every syllable is grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking you. Her choice to rap in the language of the Mapuche people (Antumalen was raised within their community on Huapi Island) is itself a political act. As she puts it in the press materials for the record, “The stripping away of Mapudungun was a political campaign on the part of the Chilean State over the course of its history—the idea being that a people who stop speaking their own language will lose their culture.” On ÑA​Ñ​A, the language bursts to life, across the lithe, reggae bounce of “Wallmapu sin carnet,” the frenetic minimalist reggaetón of “Poleo,” the woozy, humid R&B ballad “Ñaña descoloniza tu belleza.” It is a 20,000-ton powder-keg of joy.



Tracklist:
1 KO
2 Poleo
3 Mija
4 Cumbia de Chicha
5 KÜME ENERGY
6 Maki
7 Wallmapu sin carnet
8 ÑaÑa Descoloniza tu belleza
9 Ke Amor?
10 Miel