This singer and songwriter, born on Colombia’s Pacific coast, has embarked on a new sonic adventure in the genre: old-school salsa exquisitely fused with Latin urban and hip-hop elements.
By Carlos Passage
His name is Angel Huellas, and he comes from Buenaventura, the most powerful port on Colombia’s Pacific coast. Despite its extraordinary weight in the South American country’s economy, its people, the vast majority of whom are Afro-Colombian, live marginalized lives amidst hardship and need. However, music, especially salsa, is their spiritual support in facing daily crises. And as a son of Buenaventura, Huellas is in love with salsa, especially old-school salsa, the salsa of the late 60s, 70s, and part of the 80s, considered the genre’s most authentic era.
Its sound, rawer and more organic than contemporary Salsa, is fueled by heavy percussion (congas, bongos, timbales), powerful brass instruments (trumpets or trombones), and montuno piano. Its influences stem from Cuban son and Latin jazz, but it hasn’t stood still. Artists like Huellas aren’t letting that legacy disappear and are taking a gamble, such as fusing the old school with elements of current urban music, hip hop, and R&B. And the end result isn’t ambivalent, contradictory, or at all opposed to what younger fans want to experience with Salsa.
More traditional listeners may be carrying that emotional duality (love-hate) towards the fusion, but there’s nothing that can be done about it now. This 21st-century Salsa revolution has already begun, and no one can stop it. Just ask Sergio George, Marc Anthony’s illustrious producer, a staunch believer in the genre’s evolution and its search for new audiences.
Angel Huellas is ready to release his first album this semester, a collection of songs with an ‘old school’ sound that navigate the waters of romance, subtly underpinned by urban influences.
The album’s first single, aptly titled “Huellas” (Footprints), is “Tu Tentación” (Your Temptation), an emotional salsa track perfect for dancing and dedicating under the moonlight. The video was filmed in Cali and features the stunning Ecuadorian model Ingrid Acosta as a co-star.
Angel Huellas is preparing this year to participate in the Latin Grammy process by submitting the album “Huellas” and the single “Tu Tentación” to the tough but not impossible race for a nomination in the Academy’s tropical music categories.
A promotional tour in Spain and Colombia will take place this year, his management confirms.
Carlos Passage