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Jimmy Fallon looked exultant when he greeted Nathy Peluso on his show last December, after she had performed a couple of songs off “Grasa,” her Latin Grammy-winning second album.
In theory, the highlight of the singer’s “Late Night” debut should have been her duet with U.K. singer-songwriter Blood Orange. But Peluso appeared onstage sporting the regal poise of an operatic diva — a cross between La Lupe and Maria Callas — and then belted out “Corleone,” a sweeping orchestral bolero.
How a 30-year-old singer, born in Argentina and raised in Spain, manages to channel the smoldering melodrama of Latin music’s golden era with such uncanny precision remains a bit of a mystery. Still, the Jimmy Fallon appearance was a grandiloquent step forward in Peluso’s claim to mainstream recognition.
“I swear to you, I felt so good during that performance,” says Peluso when I ask her if she experienced any stage fright. “I was so sure of myself, so confident that this was the right moment for me. It was like being inside a movie.”
Peluso, who plays the Novo on Saturday as part of her first headlining U.S. tour, is an expert herself in crafting cinematic experiences camouflaged as songs. Her most recent single, “Erotika,” is a sassy, brash tribute to the much maligned salsa erótica subgenre that blossomed briefly during the 1990s. Shot in saturated primary colors, the visual of the song finds her seducing both the camera and her dancing partner in no uncertain terms. As is always the case with her stylistic adventures, the instrumental backing on the track is painstakingly authentic.
The song “Corleone” — the opening cut of “Grasa,” Argentine slang for tacky or vulgar — is also loaded with movie references. It opens with a sample of John Barry’s “007” theme “From Russia With Love,” which Venezuelan producer Manuel Lara lifted off YouTube in an attempt to pitch Peluso a potential aesthetic for the entire album. It was the first song that they recorded together, and the distorted sample morphs seamlessly into the track’s bolero ambiance, as Peluso’s singing — always the star of the show — details the restless ambition that defines the life of her alter ego, a successful mafia boss.
“The overall concept of ‘Grasa’ was to envision what the music of the mafia would sound like in the future,” says Lara from his Miami studio. “If you listen carefully to the entire album, you will see that we have the Russian mafia, the Italians, the Brazilians in the favelas — it’s like the sonic DNA of the entire planet.”
Peluso’s scope has always been cosmopolitan, even when she performed Nina Simone covers as a teenager in Spain. The lead single of “Grasa,” “Aprender a Amar,” is a frantic slice of Latin trap that showcases her wickedly inventive rhymes and the same singular, staccato flow that became a viral sensation in 2020 when she guested on one of Argentine producer Bizarrap’s most popular sessions. One of the most indelible moments of “Calambre,” her debut album, is the song “Buenos Aires” — a nostalgic ode to the city that she left behind, with clear nods to the funkified rock en español sonics of 1980’s South America. “Grasa,” on the other hand, is similar to Rosalía’s “Motomami” in its ability to encapsulate both the present and near-future of pop culture. Both records sum up the delicious fragmentation of the 2020’s — our seemingly insatiable appetite for novel combinations of rhythm and sound.
I ask if she is permanently in touch with the latest musical developments; “It’s all intuitive,” she replies with a chuckle. “I’m disconnected from reality on so many different levels. I don’t listen to the latest albums, but it’s not out of snobbery. I’m so focused on my own work, that if I need to step into my comfort zone, I’d rather listen to Marvin [Gaye] or João Gilberto. On the other hand, I do pay attention to everything that is happening in the visual arts, architecture and design.”
Her current tour, she explains, mirrors her attention to detail.
“There’s bass, guitar, infinite amounts of keyboards and drums,” she says. And a bunch of pre-programmed layers, because the band barely fits in the current stage design. The musicians are playing inside pits that simulate an opera house. It’s highly theatrical.”
Her path hasn’t been easy, though. Peluso wrote the songs on “Grasa” in only two weeks, after scrapping an entire album that just “didn’t feel right.” She has also been accused of cultural appropriation for recording straight-ahead salsa tunes — an unfair accusation to this writer, considering that she is a dedicated student and collector of Afro-Caribbean music. For “La Presa,” a track that sounds like a time capsule from 1979 New York, she enlisted the backup vocalists of Puerto Rico’s El Gran Combo for an extra touch of street cred.
“It’s part of my path as a woman, and my function in society,” she says when I mention the criticism of her salsa jams. “I’m not the kind of artist who’s complacent or politically correct. I don’t do anything with the intention of pleasing others. I chose the mission of bringing salsa back to the present because I’m passionate about it. If a genre gives me so many wonderful sensations, I want everybody else to feel them as well. As long as people argue, they will have to listen to the songs — and as a result, they will listen to salsa.”
“What I love about Natalia is her amazing ability to portray so many different characters,” adds Lara, who is working with Peluso on a followup to “Grasa.” “She can be the one who murders, or the one who is betrayed. She can create and destroy, love and hate with equal intensity. Her musical persona is so expansive that she can take you to a wide variety of spaces.”
“I’m at a point in my career where I can finally enjoy my catalog of songs, and the process of sharing them in a live setting,” Peluso says with a smile. “There’s no nervousness, no insecurity, no unpleasant surprises of any kind. I finally found my musical language, and everything flows just fine.”
