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I Like It Like That: Fania Remixed | Fania

By GUSTAVO TURNER | August 4, 2008

3.5 Stars

What with Blue Note, Impulse, and Motown having handed over their catalogues to all manner of DJs — from the sublime to the Euroclub — it’s now the turn of the legendary Fania holdings, the holy grail of New York–centric Latin music of the ’60s and ’70s, to be remixed and repackaged for a new generation that probably thinks “Willie Colon” is a euphemism for anal sex. As is the case with the other labels, this is a tricky proposition, especially when the reworked tracks are classics. (“I Like It like That” is hardly in need of improvement.) The result, as you’d expect, is a mixed bag, with intriguing choices that work (Quantic’s reinvention of Johnny Pacheco’s “Boogaloo” as a straight-up dub) or don’t (Sinden’s often manic dance-floor mangling of La Lupe’s sublime cover of “Fever”). “Sanoa” has been refurbished by BBC DJ Gilles Peterson (quickly becoming the John Peel of our age) and Sinbad into something completely different from but as good as Noro Morales’s original. And special mention for bravery goes to DJ Format, who tackles Dave Cortez’s “Happy Soul” in the wake of DJ Premier’s complete pownage of that lick in Christina Aguilera’s “Ain’t No Other Man.” Word up to Brother Cleve for his web essay “Christina Aguilera vs. the Moon People”! Now go read it.

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