Last March, the LA Times had proclaimed that Nathy Peluso had found her musical language. Later that year, the Argentine singer decided to mix things up by releasing her 2025 EP, “Malportada.”
Straying away from her urban and alternative leanings mixed with notes of R&B, the six-song EP was a traditional, stripped-down salsa offering that featured a collaboration with hybrid Venezuelan salsa band Rawayana on the title track.
“My experience being a woman and making music has always been to talk about my freedom [and] “How I feel,” he told The Times in a recent interview inside the famous Amoeba Music record store in Hollywood. “Salsa seems to me to be a stage that invites you to fully express yourself, speak out loud, dance freely and feel powerful.”
Peluso had previously ventured into the salsa genre with songs such as “Puro Veneno” from 2020, “Mafiosa” from 2021 and 2025. erotic sauce He tuned into “Erotika,” but had never dedicated an entire project to the Caribbean musical style.
The 31-year-old artist's turn was especially bold, as she had previously been accused of cultural appropriation for recording salsa songs.
“Is [my] function in society,” Peluso previously told The Times in a 2025 interview when asked about criticism of her salsa improvisations. “I'm not the kind of complacent or politically correct artist. I don't do anything with the intention of pleasing others. I chose the mission of bringing salsa to the present because I am passionate about it. If a genre gives me so many wonderful feelings, I want everyone else to feel them too. As long as people argue, they will have to listen to the songs and, as a result, they will listen to salsa.”
Peluso’s gamble paid off, as “Malportada” was so well received by critics, fans, and the salsa community at large that she managed to be booked as a co-star of the Hollywood Bowl’s upcoming Salsa Spectacular on Wednesday.
In recent years, salsa music has enjoyed something of a renaissance, thanks in part to the success of Bad Bunny's universally acclaimed album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” which included the salsa fusion hits “Baile Inolvidable” and “Nuevayol,” and Rauw Alejandro’s 2024 LP, “Cosa Nuestra.”
But for Peluso, his integration into the world of salsa took a long time to come.
“I grew up listening to Gloria Estefan, I fell in love [the 2000 album] 'Alma Caribeña', I fell in love with the richness of that music,” said Peluso. “I have had a strong relationship with salsa music since I was young, although I did not grow up in a place that was the cradle of that genre.”
Peluso was born in the Argentine city of Luján and lived there until the age of 9, when his family moved to Spain, eventually settling in the southeastern city of Alicante.
In addition to Estefan, he cited the inspiration of Nuyorican percussionist Ray Barretto, the Puerto Rican salsa orchestra El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico and the icons of the genre Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
“Throughout my career, I have always flirted with gender,” Peluso said. “After doing the press for [the 2024 album] 'Grasa' reached a point where I realized I was ready to make my salsa album, and it coincidentally coincided with the current salsa boom.”
While respecting musical tradition, Peluso also imbued her spin on the genre with some of the arrogant feminine energy often found in urban music, as evidenced in the track “A Caballo” from “Malportada.”
“I grew up listening to a lot of masculine salsa and I thought it would be interesting to approach that kind of energy from a woman's perspective,” she explained. “[To take] all these stories of danger, sex and desire that the genre is known for, but giving them a feminine twist.”
Peluso further bolstered his salsa bona fides when he teamed up with a pair of Caribbean music legends over the past year.
In September, he collaborated with his idol Estefan for a remix of the 1993 song “Chirriqui Chirri.” The duo performed the explosive song at the 2025 Latin Grammy Awards. In February, Peluso jumped into the studio with Puerto Rican salsa singer Marc Anthony to record the original song “Como en el Idilio.”
“It was wonderful to sing with [Anthony] because he is one of the all-time legends that we have in salsa and who expanded the genre worldwide,” said Peluso. “It was a blessing to sing with Marc and Gloria at this moment in my career in which I have decided to represent salsa from my point of view.”
For her concert at the Hollywood Bowl, Peluso will be accompanied by Colombian salsa collective Grupo Niche, a Grammy and Latin Grammy-winning group that has been around since the late '70s.
“I have admired Grupo Niche for years,” Peluso said. “We met at the Latin Grammys a few years ago and we really hit it off. A while ago, when they offered me to do the Hollywood Bowl show with them, I didn't think twice.”
But the greatest honor Peluso hopes for is playing on the hallowed stage of the Hollywood Bowl.
“For me it's like playing in a palace,” he said of the historic venue. “The last time I was in Los Angeles for the 'Grasa' tour, I was left wanting more. I knew I would have to wait until my next tour to try it, but I didn't expect my next tour to come so quickly. It's such a mythical place, it's a luxury.”
