Surprise controversy!

[Video][Website]
[5.43]

Jonathan Bogart: “Wepa!” is the national shout of Puerto Rico, a grito de jubilación comparable to “Yeah!” in American English or “Opa!” in Greek. Gloria Estefan is not Puertorriqueña, but Cubana — though at this point she’s an international treasure beloved by just about anyone who speaks Spanish, unless their hearts are of steel and ice. The key to this song is endurance, breathless merengue (originally Dominicano) stomping for an eternity before we reach a breakdown, which when it comes is all the more welcome for being held off for so long. “Arre bote bote bote,” she shouts back at the trombone, and any doubts I might have had about her being too old or too stuck in the past vanish. This ain’t no amateur dance song, vague and tentative, for people who can walk away at any time: this is professional-grade stuff, built for those who party for their lives.
[9]

Iain Mew: I have never reviewed anything on here without listening to it all the way through more than once, but damn was it tempting in this case. Not only did I find myself looking up how long was left to go in hope and desperation several times, but the first of those was after 34 seconds! I think it’s the deadly combination of annoying sounds (argh, the whistles) and the constant unchanging repetition of same until they’re annoying and boring at the same time.
[1]

Alex Ostroff: The lyrics are mind-numbingly stupid, but the lyrics are immaterial when it comes to something like this. At its best, the abrasive clash of noise recalls Buraka Som Sistema. The sonic collision of a military-size drumline, a parade full of whistles, air sirens, a synthesized tuba and the glorious repetition of Wepa! Wepa! We-we-wepa! over and over again is almost too much awesome for my brain to handle.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: When this hit the Internet back in, what, July, I felt sure that even a Pharrell Williams production credit couldn’t salvage her clucking the title like she’s more scared than excited, what with the rest of the song being possibly even worse. The production doesn’t stutter, let along swing, it stammers. That’s a bad thing. Bolsters my long-held belief that even I could probably top the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart for a week. Doesn’t want for enthusiasm on Estefan’s behalf, instead it wants for a single second that isn’t annoying.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Today I’ve discovered a fondness for travelogue songs! “Cape Cod,” “Back in the USSR,” “Empire State of Mind” “New York’s Alright If You Like Saxophones”: classic evocations that pop like a tourism brochure, or a mescaline-induced therapy drawing. Estefan’s demented entry big-ups the fine people of Miami Beach, who clog the streets and flip the bird at sunrises. She loads the track with police whistles, sirens, slack brass, robots yelling “ey” and a door slamming fucking repeatedly. It’s dizzying, gleeful, and the better kind of obnoxious: I can practically taste the blow on my gums.
[8]

Jonathan Bradley: The cacophony is more exciting than the tune; drum lines, sirens, and whistles are great things that work better by not cohering. “Wepa” would be better if it let go entirely its feints at melody and surrendered itself to rhythm and raucousness.
[5]

Alfred Soto: If Miss Thang really wanted to know how “the rhythm of South Beach” sounds, she would have driven less than three quarters of a mile across the bridge from Star Island to check out Pitbull and LMFAO. Now I’ve dispensed with the obvious, let me praise the trombone solo and interpolation of one of my favorite Spanish nursery rhymes — both touches as daft as “Conga” when it became a global hit in 1985. In other words, the song is more than okay, and I’m glad for once she didn’t release a ballad. As a friend and I decided last week, she hasn’t surpassed “Can’t Stay Away From You” and “Here We Are” in that department. Remember, kids: this woman scored three U.S. #1’s.
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