Recorded at Electric Lady Studios , NYC

By Phil Joly

Mixed by Michael Brauer

Mastered by Joe La Porta

Produced by Henry Cole

Co-produced by Jason Lindner & Phil Joly

Liner notes by Ned Sublette

This timeless album is makisi nsi. That’s the term the Cuban scholar of Kongo thought Bárbaro Martínez Ruiz uses instead of “traditional.” He glosses it as “what is proper to a place.” The “traditional” forms are also grounds for experimentation, every time a drummer sits down at a barril or a quinto. This record’s traditionalism is forward-looking.

What places is De Mayagüez proper to? In its sound, it’s proper to New York, and specifically to Electric Lady. The sonic identity of the studio unifies the album. But it was chosen for spiritual reasons as well, and for what Henry calls the studio’s “culture of greatness” that extended to the interns and the cables. He wrote me about the Electric Lady experience:

Every take a great take is the mission of everyone not only the artists
this changed my life.

The musical content is proper to Mayagüez, Henry’s home location in the great crossroads of Borinken, or to give it its colonial name, Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans have survived colonization, ethnic cleansing, genocide (of the indigenous people, of Africans), eugenics (look up la operación), odious debt (look up Promesa), the grossest racism, and countless hurricanes recapitulating the route of the slave trade from Africa. The island is criss-crossed by musics that came from elsewhere and coalesced in the process of creolization. Even that most makisi nsi of Puerto Rican musics, bomba, is a crossroads of rhythms from different parts of the Afro- Antillean world, which are in turn played differently in different parts of Puerto Rico. Mayagüez has its own styles. - Ned Stublette

“After surviving a fire in his New York apartment, Cole has returned to the island, and as this record hints, he’s back for good. Let's celebrate the bounty of his courage to opt for what’s simple: I dare to say that De Mayagűez is a musical manifesto for this new decade.” - Rita Indiana