Gloria Estefan

Last March, the L.A. Times had proclaimed that Nathy Peluso had found her musical language. Later that year, the Argentine singer decided to mix things up by releasing her 2025 EP, “Malportada.”

In a departure from her urbano and alternative leanings blended with notes of R&B, the six-song EP was a straightforward, traditional salsa offering that featured a collaboration with Venezuelan salsa hybrid band Rawayana on the title track.

“My experience being a woman and making music has always been to talk about my freedom [and] how I feel,” she told The Times in a recent interview inside the famous Amoeba Music record store in Hollywood. “Salsa seems to me like a stage that invites one to express themselves fully, speak loudly, dance freely and feel powerful.”

Peluso had previously dabbled in the salsa genre with tracks like 2020’s “Puro Veneno,” 2021’s “Mafiosa” and the 2025 salsa erótica tune “Erotika,” but had never dedicated an entire project to the Caribbean musical styling.

The pivot by the 31-year-old artist was especially bold as she had previously been accused of cultural appropriation for recording salsa tunes.

“It’s [my] function in society,” Peluso previously told The Times in a 2025 interview when asked about the criticism of her salsa jams. “I’m not the kind of artist who’s complacent or politically correct. I don’t do anything with the intention of pleasing others. I chose the mission of bringing salsa back to the present because I’m passionate about it. If a genre gives me so many wonderful sensations, I want everybody else to feel them as well. As long as people argue, they will have to listen to the songs — and as a result, they will listen to salsa.”

Peluso’s gamble paid off — as “Malportada” was so well-received by critics, fans and the wider salsa community that she managed to get herself booked as the co-headliner for the Hollywood Bowl’s upcoming Salsa Spectacular on Wednesday.

Over the last few years, salsa music has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance — thanks in part to the success of Bad Bunny’s universally acclaimed album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” — which featured the salsa fusion hits “Baile Inolvidable” and “Nuevayol” — and Rauw Alejandro’s 2024 LP “Cosa Nuestra.”

But for Peluso, her integration into the salsa world was a long time coming.

“I grew up listening to Gloria Estefan, I fell in love with [the 2000 album] ‘Alma Caribeña,’ I fell in love with the richness of that music,” said Peluso. “I’ve had a strong relationship with salsa music since I was young, even though I didn’t grew up in a place that was a cradle for that genre.”

Peluso was born in the Argentine city of Luján and lived there until she was 9, when her family moved to Spain, eventually settling in the southeastern city of Alicante.

In addition to Estefan, she cited inspiration from Nuyorican percussionist Ray Barretto, Puerto Rican salsa orchestra El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico and genre icons Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always flirted with the genre,” Peluso said. “After doing the press for [the 2024 album] ‘Grasa’ there reached a point where I realized I was ready to make my salsa record, and it just happened to coincide with the current salsa boom.”

While paying respect to the musical tradition, Peluso also imbued her spin on the genre with some of the swaggering feminine energy often found in urbano music — as is evidenced in the “Malportada” track “A Caballo.”

“I grew up listening to a lot of masculine salsa and I thought it would be interesting to approach that type of energy from a woman’s perspective,” she explained. “[To take] all these stories of danger and sex and desire that the genre is known for, but give them a feminine spin.”

Peluso further bolstered her salsa bona fides when she teamed up with a pair of Caribbean music legends over the last year.

In September, she collaborated with her idol Estefan for a remix of the 1993 track “Chirriqui Chirri.” The duo performed the explosive song at the 2025 Latin Grammy Awards show. In February, Peluso jumped in the studio with Puerto Rican salsero Marc Anthony to record the original track “Como en el Idilio.”

“It was so awesome to sing with [Anthony] because he is one of the all-time legends we have in salsa who expanded the genre worldwide,” Peluso said. “It was a blessing to sing with Marc and Gloria in this moment of my career in which I’ve decided to represent salsa from my point of view.”

For her Hollywood Bowl gig, Peluso will be accompanied by the Colombian salsa collective Grupo Niche, a Grammy- and Latin Grammy-winning group that has been around since the late ’70s.

“I’ve admired Grupo Niche for years,” Peluso said. “We met at the Latin Grammys a few years ago and really hit it off. A little while back, when I was offered to do the Hollywood Bowl show alongside them, it was a no-brainer.”

But the biggest honor that Peluso is looking forward to is playing the hallowed stage of the Hollywood Bowl.

“It’s like playing in a palace for me,” she said of the historic venue. “The last time I was in L.A. for the ‘Grasa’ tour, I left wanting more. I knew I’d have to waiting until my next tour to try it, but I didn’t expect my next tour to come so quickly. It’s such a mythical place, it’s such a luxury.”

May 28 (UPI) — The story of the Cateura Recycled Instruments Orchestra, a Paraguayan music project born in a vulnerable community surrounding the Cateura landfill in Asunción, will reach U.S. stages this Saturday with the world premiere of Basura, a musical produced by Gloria Estefan at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta.

The production, inspired by the internationally recognized group led by Favio Chávez, tells how children and young people from low-income backgrounds learned music using instruments they built themselves from recycled materials recovered from the landfill.

“Taking the story of real people and of a country like Paraguay here in the United States are stories that are still waiting to be discovered, so it remains an important undertaking,” Chávez said in a recent interview with Paraguayan news outlet NPY.

“We have to understand that this musical is also a major risk for these producers,” Chávez said.

The musical will feature original music by Gloria Estefan and her daughter, Emily Estefan, as well as elements connected to Paraguayan culture, including phrases in the Guaraní language, one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages in South America, and compositions in 6/8 rhythm, characteristic of Paraguayan polka.

“These people are placing Paraguay on one of the best and most important artistic stages in the world,” Chávez said.

The production is based on the story of the Cateura Orchestra, founded by Chávez in 2006 in an area marked by some of the country’s highest levels of poverty.

The community is home to nearly 150,000 people, and residents face extreme vulnerability, periodic flooding caused by overflows of the Paraguay River and a lack of basic services and adequate infrastructure.

The project uses recycled instruments that imitate violins, violas, cellos, double basses, guitars, saxophones, trumpets and percussion instruments, all made from waste recovered from the landfill.

“The world sends us trash, we send back music,” became one of the project’s emblematic phrases.

In addition to teaching music, the initiative seeks to provide educational and social opportunities to vulnerable youths.

According to Chávez, the program also includes scholarships and academic support so members can continue their studies and gain access to better job opportunities.

“We do not stop at simply bringing the kids onto a stage to receive applause, but we also support them so they study something,” he explained. “Most of them maybe music, but if not music, then another career that allows them to have a better future.”

The Cateura Orchestra gained international recognition following the 2015 documentary “Landfill Harmonic” and shared stages or collaborations with artists including Metallica, Megadeth, Stevie Wonder and Damon Albarn, leader of Gorillaz and Blur.

Metallica invited the Paraguayan group to open part of its South American tour in 2014, while members of Megadeth participated in project activities and presentations connected to the documentary.

Basura will run from May 30 through July 12 in Atlanta. The production is directed by Michael Greif, known for productions such as Rent and Dear Evan Hansen, with a script by Karen Zacarías and musical supervision by Alex Lacamoire, a Grammy and Tony Award winner for Hamilton.

Gloria Estefan said in previous interviews that she was deeply moved after watching Landfill Harmonic and decided to become personally involved in the project because of its message of resilience and social transformation through music.