En La Misma Onda

As I am currently experiencing a serious writers block (or is the recently released latin music just not good enough to inspire me?), another overview of what other blogs have to say.

The Paz Sin Fronteras concert held two weeks ago (an initiative by Juanes in the hope of sparking peace between Colombia and Venezuela, more info here) was quite the success. A crowd of 300,000 turned up all dressed in white, to watch the performances of Juan Fernando Velasco, Miguel Bose, Ricardo Montaner, Carlos Vives, Alejandro Sanz, Juan Luis Guerra, and Juanes himself. If you weren't there, you can catch parts of the concert on YouTube right here. That crowd is an amazing sight, let's hope it inspires some Latin American leaders to lay aside their personal and political differences for a while. (via The Latin Americanist)

Legendary Cuban bassist Israel 'Cachao' Lopez passed away at the age of 89. He was famous for popularizing mambo in the US in the 1950s, and for his mastership in the distinctly Cuban descarga genre (basically a jam session à la latin jazz). UPDATE: Captain's Crate has a great post on Cachao's life and music.

Emo teens are having a hard time in Mexico City, where adversaries of the punkrock movement are engaging in violent attacks on emo kids. Though you can't blame the attackers (hell I've been wanting to punch some emo's myself lately), this kind of mass brutality is just horrible. Read this controversial article about the emo attack on Turn That Shit Off, and don't forget to read the heated discussion in the comments.

According to this video, shot at a Wisin y Yandel concert, the year-long catfight between Don Omar and Daddy Yankee is over. Though their body language still suggests a strong aversion to each other :) (via Latin Gossip)

Turn That Shit Off interviewed digital cumbia producer Villa Diamante on the release of the ZZK Records mixtape we posted about earlier.

[...] Este mix tiene como idea ser el Lado B del disco oficial de ZZK Records [...] Cuando lo grabé pensé en que dieran ganas de bailarlo desde que pones play hasta el final, muy recomendado para ir por la calle caminando.

Looks like we can add another song to our Told You This Would Be A Hit! list. "Ella Menea" by young salsa duo NG2 is topping the radio charts in the US now, after conquering Puerto Rico and Central America. Read our article again here!
Sadly, we can say the same about "Te Quiero" by Nigga a.k.a. Flex. The return of reggaeton panameño, a softer, more tropical and more woman-friendly variety of the often criticized genre, shows further in the renewed popularity of female duo La Factoria (video "Perdoname") and the interest of famous producers Luny Tunes in underground star El Roockie (video "Martes de Galeria")