One friend said it sounds like it was recorded for babies on a Casio keyboard. Another called it “Spanish Max Headroom.” I call it Gloria Ke$htefan, a new musical genre that combines — you guessed it — Gloria Estefan and Ke$ha.
Gloria’s new song, “Wepa,” is produced by The Neptunes.N.E.R.D./Pharrell Williams, which may be why it sounds like a hyperactive dance march that borrows as equally from Ke$ha — the Kween of Tra$hpop — as it does from Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. Although it doesn’t necessarily sound like her voice was Auto-Tuned, there is an element of robotic call-and-response that one would more likely expect from, say, The Black Eyed Peas. Basically, Gloria Estefan wants to sit at the kids table, and that is FINE!
Personally, I’ve gone from staring, slack-jawed, at the album art of Gloria looking rather FIERCE, to loving the bejesus out of “Wepa.” As someone who grew up only hearing the Miami Sound Machine in Long Island hair salons, here’s hoping the reinvention of Miami’s finest (sorry, Trina!) gets even kookier.
