La Giraffa’s First Day of Spring Playlist

Mother Nature loves the irony of burying us in 24-hours worth of wet, sticky snow just as the calendar announces Spring. My apartment, though, is a tropical paradise.  Why? Because of music.

I love music: I grew up with Motown and Bluegrass, spent my adolescent years head-banging to grudge and learning to dance with R&B, went on to hip-hop in my young adult years, had a short soca and reggae phase, and now I’ve been pretty steadily stuck on music of Latin America. All of this over the backdrop of my professional musician father’s jazz and classical. This is the simplified version. Now I date a musician who’s band creates avant-garde jazz/R&B fusion. Because of the scope of music I’m exposed to, I think I have pretty great taste.

My boyfriend agrees, and recently suggested I share my favorite songs with the world. So, here you are: the very first La Giraffa playlist. I cheated a bit for this one, because most of the songs were on a mix CD I made for my father years ago. It was such a hit that he’s since made copies for all his friends and the rest of the family.

Here’s the YouTube version:

And here’s the Spotify (which do you prefer?)

A short description: Most of these songs are from Brazil, Colombia, or from elsewhere in Latin America. I lived in Latin America for a few years, and for me Samba is has an almost unbearably romantic sound. And the rhythms of the Caribbean are unbeatable.

This playlist is pretty mellow: all instruments and voice, no electronics, no reggaeton or funk carioca, sorry! That will have be another playlist.

And if you made it all the way to the end of this post, here’s an old video of me pretending to samba in a waterfall. Those were the days!