An entertaining oral history of the songs that put Latin culture on the map.
An up-tempo journey through some of Latin music’s greatest hits.
How did “Despacito,” by Luis Fonsi and featuring Daddy Yankee, a “juggernaut of a song” that “reigned at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for an astonishing sixteen weeks,” become such a massive hit in the U.S. in 2017? As Cobo, the vice president and Latin industry lead at Billboard, shows, it wasn’t just the music; it took armies of savvy producers, a legacy of risk-tasking musicians, and a sprinkle of serendipity. In a book that spans seven decades and many more countries, the author examines the births of notable songs that captured Latin culture in the global imagination. Cobo tells these stories through interviews with the eclectic mix of people who created them—Luis Feliciano, Willie Colón, Enrique Iglesias, Marc Anthony, Ricky Martin, Shakira, Rosalía, et al.—as well as the masterminds who elevated their regional sounds and amplified them on to a world stage. The narrative is rapidly paced, just like the music that fills its pages, and is best served while playing the songs it chronicles. At its core, this is a book about believing in what many considered impossible: “It’s too much Spanish,” said American radio programmers about the titular megahit, which demonstrates the power of music to change attitudes. There is something special about learning the magic of this music from the people who were there and how seemingly niche sounds like salsa, which began in the streets of New York City in the 1960s, would end up resonating in places as far-flung as Japan. The organizer and host of Billboard’s annual Latin Music Conference, Cobo is a highly knowledgeable guide, and she delves deep into the canon to make a convincing case for Latin music as a significant driver of American culture at large.
An entertaining oral history of the songs that put Latin culture on the map.Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-08133-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An old-school Hollywood tell-all with all the trimmings, traumas, and bold-face names.
A great American character claims her double legacy of genius and addiction.
Calling herself “the original nepo-baby,” the daughter of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli offers a raw and revealing look at a life shaped by fame and personal struggle. At the heart of Minnelli’s story is her fraught relationship with her volatile mother. While stressing that “our love was what mattered,” life with Judy was no picnic. The night before her fifth birthday, she accidentally kicked her mother in the head while watching TV, permanently scarred by lesson that “if Mama got angry, she was the most terrifying person in my life.” Garland’s addictions made her unstable and unreliable, forcing her daughter to take on adult responsibilities at a very young age. A veteran performer by the time she was in double digits, she won the first star in her EGOT crown (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards) at age 19 for her role in the musical Flora the Red Menace. This was also her first work with John Kander and Fred Ebb, musical collaborators in her most iconic successes: Cabaret, Liza With a “Z,” and New York, New York. Minnelli describes taking her first Valium in 1969 at the time of her mother’s death from an overdose, unwittingly assuming the mantle of addictions that would mar her public and private life for decades. In and out of the Betty Ford Center, she finally achieved sobriety in 2015, on the eve of her 70th birthday. As the title suggests, she has great stories, and, with the help of her dear friend Feinstein and co-writers Getlin and Evans, she leaves out none of the juice. From her torrid, cocaine-fueled romance with Martin Scorsese (both were married at the time, and she cheated on both husband and lover with Mikhail Baryshnikov) to her falling-out with Lady Gaga at the Oscars in 2022, she spares neither herself nor anyone else and, in the process, reclaims her once very tattered dignity in a moving and remarkable way.
An old-school Hollywood tell-all with all the trimmings, traumas, and bold-face names.Pub Date: March 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781538773666
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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