© 2024
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
🎧 Help keep the Spring Membership Drive short! Support the Buy-Back Campaign today before the Friday, March 29th deadline. Tap here to donate 💖

Guest DJ Jorge Drexler Explores The Uruguayan Music That Helped Shape His Vision

Courtesy of the Artist

Jorge Drexler is from Uruguay, but he seems to belong to all of Latin America.

The dozen albums he has released since 1992 are revered throughout the Spanish-speaking world and in aggregate show the evolution of a musician who possesses boundless curiosity, with lyrics lauded for being highly literate and poetic.

Drexler won an Academy Award in 2004 for his song "En El Otro Lado del Rio" following its inclusion in the film the Motorcycle Diaries (an award which seems to have begun a trend — Latin Grammy and Grammy wins and nominations and wins were given to his last two releases). He was also one of the first Latin American speakers at the very popular TED Talks series delivered in Latin America.

He has recorded albums in Colombia and Mexico City, he and his band have been on exhaustive tours throughout Latin America, Spain and the U.S. Drexler now makes his home in Madrid, but for this week's Guest DJ session Drexler returns to his native Uruguay to share some of the music that shaped the artistic vision that we all love so much.

This week we explore the classic sounds of that country, with Jorge Drexler as our very animated guide!

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Felix Contreras is co-creator and host of Alt.Latino, NPR's pioneering radio show and podcast celebrating Latin music and culture since 2010.