In pop’s multilingual landscape, it’s curious that Nathy Peluso isn’t a household name. Huge in Argentina and Spain, her debut album Calambre picked up a Grammy nomination with its blend of neo-soul, Latin trap and 90s hip-hop. Her live performances rival Rosalía, and she has the Instagram-friendly aesthetics of Dua Lipa. Global success should be a no-brainer. But, in the UK at least, she’s slipped by relatively unnoticed.
Her conceptual and eclectic second album, Grasa, could rectify that. Yo-yoing between aching introspection and teeth-gritted swagger, Peluso is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde here, battling between herself and her pop star persona. The artistic uncertainty couched in the 50s Italo-balladry of opener Corleone gets crushed under the rubbery horns of next track Aprender a Amar and its snarling rejection of being underestimated. Escaleras de Metal’s forlorn Auto-Tuned heartbreak is roughly stamped out by Todo Roto’s steel-toed trap beats and its opening lyric, translating to: “Get up bitch, there’s no time / If it hurts, band-aid.” And El Día Que Perdí Mi Juventud, its acoustic yearning haunted by a peripheral cymbal that simmers like a near-forgotten memory, is swept away by the lavish salsa and humorous narrative of La Presa.
The concept thins a little: Menina and Manhattan are all braggadocio but with no bite, and Peluso’s personality is drowned by a strained Imagine Dragons-style epic, Ideas Radicales. These hiccups are small, though. Peluso may open the album with a lyric suggesting her ambition is killing her, but the scope and execution here suggest an artist who is very much alive.
