Credit: Marylene EytierCarlos Santana is best-known for melding rock with Latin music, but the guitar legend says his band’s next studio album is inspired by the sounds of Africa.
Carlos tells ABC Radio that the group worked with producer Rick Rubin on the record, which is titled Africa Speaks, due out “between spring and summer” 2019.
“We recorded 49 African songs in 10 days, and they are filled with power and dynamism and grace,” the 71-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer explains, adding that the album likely will include between 14 and 20 of the tracks.
Santana reports that most of the songs were recorded in one take, noting that “a lot of times we were recording like five, seven songs a day.”
Carlos says he also enlisted the talents of two excellent female vocalists — Spanish singer Buika [BWEE-kah] and U.K. artists Laura Mvula [mm-VOO-luh]. Santana describes them as “two female queens.”
“If you think of, like, Nina Simone, Etta James and Aretha and Tina Turner, but they sound like themselves,” Carlos gushes. “They don’t sound like [those other singers], but it’s like that kind of frequency of excellence.”
Discussing the experience of working on the songs for the album, Santana notes, “We have the capacity to channel music, not from the point of creating bricks or doughnuts, but from the point of just getting out of the way and allowing an ocean of African music to go through us.”
The Santana band begins its 2019 performance schedule January 23 with a new series of Las Vegas shows as part of its residency at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay.
As previously announced, Carlos’ new video tutorial is available now at MasterClass.com.
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