Adaora - Featuring Maluca "Lola"

Wesley Pentz, better known as Diplo, is the Indiana Jones
of turntables. He spelunks streets and clubs in far corners of the globe to unearth future grooves and indigenous rhythms. He brought baile funk up from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and straight to the Billboard charts. The blond beatmaker built M.I.A.’s monster Paper Planes. Yet his greatest discovery might have been made in a dinky karaoke bar. It was in some singalong hole where Diplo discovered Natalie Yepez.

Born in the Bronx and raised in Manhattan, the Dominican spitfire goes by the alias of Maluca Mala, or just Maluca. From mala, Spanish for bad girl. Or from Portuguese, in which maluca means crazy girl. At at early age she was slipping into nightclubs. “They didn’t hassle you the way they do now, so it was pretty easy to sneak in.” Unsurprisingly, her party-starting debut mixtape China Food is pure sweat, sass and brass. Moomabahton, reggaeton, Funkytown, My Uzi Weighs a Ton —it’s all shaken up in her Big Apple cocktail. If it has a beat and moves your feet, it’s in there. She calls the sound tropical punk. Steams rises off her records like a sewer cap. “I mostly live in my head,” she says. “It’s beautiful but sometimes can get creepy in there.”

Q & A with Maluca

The first record you owned?

The first record I bought was on 145th and Broadway, a bootleg copy of The Choice is Yours by Black Sheep. I was soooo in love Dres!! Swoon!

Favorite Record?

I can’t chose my favorite. It’s like asking who’s my favorite kid. But Rihanna’s Cockiness is on rotation in my iPod right now.

Your favorite beach?

Isla Catalina in the Dominican Republic.

Something from the past you wish you could bring back.

I wish I could bring my grandmother back. I miss her every day.