MAKING MOVIES RELEASES AMERI'KANA, THEIR COLLABORATIVE ALBUM WITH RUBÉN BLADES RESPONDING TO IMMIGRATION INJUSTICE
By Making Movies
Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), The Album Features Collaborations With Rubén Blades, Flor De Toloache, David Hidalgo (Los Lobos), Asdru Sierra (Ozomatli), Frankie Negrón & Las Cafeteras
"Making Movies are known for their socially conscious songwriting and community work, which they double down in forthcoming album ameri’kana" - Remezcla
"an epic music collaboration" - Grammy.com
"a strident independent ethos and Afro-Caribbean fueled mix of rock and reason" - NPR
ameri'kana, the highly anticipated album from Making Movies and Rubén Blades, is out today. It's an album that is as striking musically as it is narratively. It's the power of collaboration across generations/languages/borders- it's a call to action.
The album is a collaboration with none other than Rubén Blades. The collaboration began at the 2017 Latin Grammys, when Blades said he wanted to work with Making Movies, setting into motion their first collaboration, No Te Calles, a calling to all artists and the general public to speak out against corruption. Inspired by the poetry of Blades on “No Te Calles” Making Movies entered the studio and dreamed up ameri'kana, an "oldies" station from the future, where the injustices sung about are long gone. The album features artists that align with speaking out against divisions, corruption, and injustices, with the hope that in the future those ills will be a memory. Steve Berlin of Los Lobos signed on to produce the album, his third time working with the group, along with co-producer Ben Yonas and together helmed the sessions that brought the featured cast of ameri'kana: Flor De Toloache, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Asdru Sierrra of Ozomatli, Frankie Negrón, and Las Cafeteras. Blades offered himself as a guide and resource to the band during the process, and appears on three tracks of the record, including one co-penned by Lou Reed.
"For the first time in our journey we have aimed at a focused message to stand up against the political corruption and injustices that are plaguing our beautiful continent, Abya Yala." said Enrique Chi, guitarist and frontman of Making Movies. "We are all accomplices in it and we must be accomplices in the solution which begins with raising our voices."
The album's genre-breaking sound pulls from Latin music as well as rock'n'roll, which Making Movies attests are one and the same: without the influence of Latin music in North America, jazz and blues would have never been born, nor would its successor rock'n'roll. ameri'kana marks the band's sound and mantra: "ROCK'N'ROLL IS LATIN MUSIC," they are as inseparable as the continent itself.
ameri'kana is available wherever you stream your music, and on the band's website.
Making Movies is currently celebrating the release on a tour across the U.S. and Panama. Rubén Blades and Making Movies will share the stage for the first time at the Auditorio Nacional in Mexico City on November 20th.
