On the DL…

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[5.50]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Smoky and tantalizing, “Clandestina” has an immediate allure that’s accompanied by a hollowness, a guarded sadness. Even the short runtime adds to a sense that these pleasures are but a temporary reprieve.
[6]

Alfred Soto: If FILV had dropped this percolating little number during the August vacation season, it would’ve made sense. Emma Peters’s insouciance doesn’t mitigate her faint anxiety: this song rhymes “cocaïna” and “clandestina” because as a Miamian I know how the two are often indivisible. 
[7]

Josh Langhoff: In the 2016 original, Moroccan-French dude Lartiste used a reggaeton-ish beat to tell the sad story of the Miami drug orphan he was sleeping with. That song opened, like Matchbox Twenty’s “Push,” with the ol’ “she said” gambit; it confused exoticism for empathy. Now, singing from the drug orphan’s POV and dwelling on a few key phrases, Peters and her remixers stare into the haunted distance of memory. A nagging two-note guitar figure ripples like a flashback dissolve. Peters chain smokes and murmurs a mantra of abandonment. Gunfire and screams echo in her mind. The guy sitting on her bed awkwardly checks his phone under the wobbly revolutions of an ancient ceiling fan. Nobody’s even trying for empathy any more — not when there’s a melodramatic singalong hook about cocaine to lob onto the dance floor. 
[7]

Brad Shoup: Somehow, I find Lartiste’s original more affecting for being upbeat, almost boastful. Like “The Night Chicago Died” or something. In his hands, it feels like overhearing a shouted convo in a club. Our three remixers strike on a whole different vibe: a half-remembered spy novel trapped in a headcold. If someone tried to remix this, it might melt like cotton candy.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: “Clandestina” is the kind of background music that is played at any kind of fancy event where nobody is listening to the song because they are too busy talking. It is exactly what you need when you want music that doesn’t call the attention of people: boring, lifeless and repetitive.
[4]

Michael Hong: FILV and Edmofo transform the original “Clandestina” by giving Emma Peters’ voice a hollow echo and stripping back the production. They relegate the original chorus to the opening and fixate on a throwaway line of the original, “cocaine took my family,” resulting in the clubs beats feeling inappropriate for the track’s somber atmosphere. They might remove some of the sleaziness of Lartiste’s heavy Auto-Tune, but they’ve also removed the life of the track, with the final outcome being a coffee commercial version of “Clandestina.”
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