I was hoping Toy Selectah was the name of the piñata, but J. Bogz suggests otherwise…
[Video][Website]
[6.86]
Jonathan Bogart: Beatriz Luengo is a Spanish pop starlet who’s been active for about a decade without ever winning much of a following outside Spain. A listen to the original version of “Lengua,” off her 2011 album Bela y Sus Moskitas Muertas, suggests why: it’s vaguely psychedelic in the Bourgeois International style, pretty and dull, with a cluttered dubby mix that sounds great to a small group of dedicated fans and pointless outside of it. This is a remix by Monterrey DJ Toy Selectah, a key player in the cumbia-slash-tribal movement that had/is having its big pop moment with “Inténtalo,“ with Shaggy (who remains Shaggy) taking the place of the generic dub-toaster on the original. Selectah speeds it up significantly, adds a bouncy rhythm that splits the difference between reggaetón and tribal, and throws in shiny ukelele, horn, and marimba accents that make it a perfect summer vacation song. Luengo’s rubbery Spanglish sounds adorably foreign to both U.S. and Mexican ears, and Shaggy anchors the track to some kind of island roots lest it float away entirely.
[9]
Iain Mew: The sunny beats and trumpets and Shaggy are all fine, but not the main attraction. Beatriz approaches her verses with melody second to the joyful sounds that she can make out of individual words and syllables. She draws them out or snaps them out in staccato bursts as best suits, with “lengua” quite possibly chosen for the chorus because the way she sings it as “lllenguaarrrrrr” is so amazing. So is “le-le-le-le-le-le-lengua,” actually.
[8]
Alfred Soto: The le-le-le hook wears out its welcome but there’s the rest of this insinuating little number too: shufflebeat, decent Shaggy toasting, and a sexy Luengo vocal.
[6]
Anthony Easton: I like some of the vocals of this — mostly Beatriz Leungo’s — and the speed and efficiency, and how they slide quite smoothly into the Caribbean toasting. I also like some of the instrumentation, some of the percussion, and the last little bit of heavily plucked drums. It sounds like beach music, not club music late at night or stuff to wake you up, but sort of two o’clock in the middle of the afternoon sunning yourself kind of stuff.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Toy Selectah produces a breeze that Beatriz’s voice wafts along, playful as a pirouette, and Shaggy chases along. I can only take about three minutes of this before it starts cloying — which inconveniently is when Beatriz starts yelling into the wind, so maybe she agrees.
[6]
Brad Shoup: The drum track, the presence of Shaggy, and the overal retro plasticity place this song firmly in a late ’90s pop mode. It’s high time for summer soca, though, and I give this an extra point because it’s going to be on some lake mixes and should be thus rewarded.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: The search for a “Macarena” that (at least English-speaking) hipsters can get behind continues… with sexy results. Liking this holiday-resort fodder feels gross and patronising and disrespectful towards an entire musically creative culture but my body temperature went up a couple of degrees every chorus.
[8]