Chicago represent! ESSO adds to the city’s global music reputation.

Whew. It's been awhile. The good news is that I'm busy. My highly individualized idea of a third act career is humming along in the right direction. My personal situation is better than it has been in many years. The bad news is that I've neglected Border Radio.

I've been doing a lot of writing for Agúzate, a publication started by my friend Omar Torres-Kortright. I'm lucky that its journalistic and cultural mission coincides with my interests, and the world it covers—the cultural experience of the Afro-Caribbean Diaspora as it exists in Chicago—is filled with never ending things to explore. Just like Chicago itself, the primary motivator for this blog.

So I'm going to ease back in by republishing my latest Agúzate contribution, which looks at a Chicago band that, to me, represents what is really wonderful about living in this city by the lake.
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For the last couple of decades, musicians from Chicago have placed the city squarely on the national musical map with their community based, multi-discipline artistic approach. It is perhaps most evident in hip-hop, where Chance the Rapper and Jamila Woods continue a legacy established by Common, Rhymefest and Kanye West.

Meanwhile, a parallel Latin scene has slowly developed, and the fruits of many years efforts are starting to pay off. Dos Santos Anti-Beat Orquesta broke first in 2013 with their aggressive cumbia/chicha sound and thoughtful sociopolitical manifesto, making a strong case for the groove as an agent of social change. Their sound has since evolved to more of a pan-Latin rock reflective of its member’s Mexican, Panamanian, Puerto Rican and Texan backgrounds.

Now, ¡ESSO! Afrojam Funkbeat, who have been on the scene for almost as long, are making their move. They scored a SXSW gig earlier this year, then followed it up by opening for the legendary Café Tacvba at Taste of Chicago this summer.  Now they have released their second album, Juntos, and are in the midst of an eighteen-date national tour.

ESSO might just be the band the country needs in these dark days of the Trump presidency. Like Dos Santos, the diversity of the band’s members contributes to its sound and message, with Mexican, Puerto Rican, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Colombian and African American backgrounds. The group also has two female members, adding another important perspective to the mix. A diverse cast of guest musicians, MCs and DJs further fills out the sound of Juntos.

Juntos

 Between them, they’ve been raised on everything: Afro-Caribbean folkloric music to be sure, but also R&B, house, funk, hip-hop, jazz and a healthy dose of DJ dance floor beats. All of this comes to bear in their music. Songs are supported by lively and intricate polyrhythmic percussion and there are flashes of electric guitar, but most tracks exude a gently insistent groove reminiscent of the down-tempo global excursions of groups like Thievery Corporation. The rhymes come out of the conscious rap movement of poetic persuasion, not nihilistic despair. The horn arrangements are jazzy.

That’s not to say that this is some kind of easy listening music. The music is built for the dance floor, not the VIP lounge. Electronic beats and squiggles help that along, but the overall sound is organic, and underneath the smooth exterior are real roots and genuine commitment. Lyrically, songs address the contradictions of urban life faced by immigrant communities, but also love and the virtues of coming together to face them. There’s real fire to this music, albeit with an incandescence that smolders rather than blazes. It pulls you to the dance floor, not pushes.

ESSO reaches back beyond the Caribbean to Africa and skillfully blends those motherland elements into its rhythmic sancocho. Fela’s Afrobeat can be felt in some songs, but so does the jùjú music of that other giant of Nigerian music, King Sunny Ade, as well as the loping guitars of Ghanaian highlife.

Playing spot the influence is a lot of fun with this album, but each of them are smoothly integrated into a band sound that is uniquely theirs. I have a few favorite tracks, and you’ll no doubt have yours, but this collection of 13 songs is best consumed whole from beginning to end, like a good meal among friends.