Although these recommendations are issued from the office chair, I genuinely hope that whoever receives them can read them with a caipirinha on Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro, for example. If you’re with a beer on Poo Beach in Asturias, they also count. If, on the contrary, by luck or by misfortune, you find yourself on Madrid’s asphalt… at the end of these words there is a plan in the capital to shelter from the heat. That’s the beauty of music, cinema, and art, that they can be enjoyed from anywhere in the world.
An album: Eclesia (2026), Naïka
For quite some time now the universe seemed intent on adding Naïka to my playlist. The first person to put her on my musical radar was our contributor, Lidia González, one of the people who has enriched my playlists the most. Later came the socials: videos of her concerts kept popping up, with her hypnotizing floral looks, full of ruffles and gauze. The final trap arrived when another person in my circle got me hooked on the track One Track Mind, from which I could never escape again and which finally made me connect with Naïka’s island universe.
The debut album he wrote (her previous project was an EP), Eclesia, was released last February 20th, but her songs are made for summer for anyone who wants to spend it dancing and listening to rhythms loaded with good vibrations. If my romance with her began with One Track Mind, it’s because it’s the song that’s most helping to introduce her to the unlucky like me who still didn’t know about her. In my notes about the album’s tracks, next to this one I wrote: “impossible not to dance it”. I reaffirm without a doubt: you can’t get out of that Haitian kompa rhythm with which Naïka invites us into the island’s traditional sounds, and even though she was born in Miami in 1995, the artist is primarily defined by the blend of her origins, with French and Haitian ancestry on her parents’ side. That’s why she feels very identified with the term ‘third culture kid’, the definition of someone who has grown up between cultures, which has definitely shaped the way she makes music.
