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The Austin 100: Bad Gyal

Canada
/
Courtesy of the artist

Hometown:Barcelona, Spain

Genre:Dancehall / Reggaeton

Why We're Excited:Alba Farelo sings in Catalan, Spanish and English, filtering each through the universal language of AutoTune. Her sleek, playful pop incorporates strong strains of reggaeton, dancehall and other sounds of the Caribbean. (On "Jacaranda," those sounds are courtesy of producer Dubbel Dutch.) In other words, everything she does sounds like a mash-up, unconstrained by genre or borders.

SXSW Schedule:

  • March 14: Bungalow (92 Rainey St.)
  • Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)