Sometimes, I feel that there’s no truer saying than this one: “you can never be a prophet in your own land”. It still boggles my mind that a) Coati Mundi’s The Former 12 Year Old Genius has never been reissued in any digital format and b) his work was never remotely as popular in his homeland as it was elsewhere. Released in 1983, at the height of his other band’s (Kid Creole and The Coconuts) popularity, The Former 12 Year Old Genius functioned as both a brilliant window into a very brief/peculiar musical scene and into a talented musician who earned it not for lack of talent but through sheer hustle.
Coati Mundi the nom de plume of one Andy Hernandez couldn’t have been more appropriate. Born and raised in Spanish Harlem, in the Bronx, in the heart of the Puerto Rican neighborhood, Andy always had an inkling that doing something in show business was his true calling. He had to, there was no other way out. Influenced by the music of Latin Jazz great Cal Tjader he procured a vibraphone and basically self-taught himself. When he was comfortable enough to play out, Andy would try to steal the stage by hamming it up, playing the role of chief instigator. But being a vibes player wasn’t going to be his means to get out.
One day, at a massage parlor (!), Andy would meet August Darnell, and history would set itself in motion. Forming together the vision and music of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah band would give him an out. He was invited to audition as a piano player, an instrument he had no training in, and taught himself something new again. Now, known as Sugarcoated Andy, it was his charisma that pulled him through. Fully aware of that early post-Eisenhower era of music they wanted to mutate — mambo, rumba, and more Latin Tropical music — Andy played the perfect, wilder foil, to the coolness of Kid Creole (aka August Darnell).
With time, as the success of Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band failed to translate within the U.S., Andy was at another loggerhead. They felt like royalty travelling abroad but once home he’d have to settle down in his rundown apartment, barely making ends meet. Together with August Darnell and Swiss-born singer Adriana Kaegi they conjured up another vision that of Kid Creole and the Coconuts. With Kid Creole and The Coconuts they’d fully buy into the world of exotica (in imagery and style) but use this new image to explore futuristic sounding Latin funk that could be as verse in the music of Kraftwerk as the music of Tito Puente.
Signed under the condition of being their arranger and composer, Andy kept bluffing his way through it and self-taught himself musical composition. With wondrous amazement, in short time, he’d come up with songs like “Me No Pop I” that’d capture that “mutant” sound iconic NYC label ZE Records was trafficking in. On every cut that he’d write for the Kid Creole crew his distinctly outre Latin Pop ideas were laid bare. Further work outside the group with others like space disco maven Cristina and the Aural Exciters, proved he had enough ideas to spread around. However, much like other groups that have known leader on the marquee, there was only so much spotlight that he could (or would have been allowed) to steal from Kid Creole.
As Coati Mundi, he would inhabit the true id to the ego that was “Sugar Coated” Andy. Signing with Virgin Records, on The Former 12 Year Old Genius he rounded up a few Kid Creole band members, friends from NYC latin funk scene, and one Fania icon, Ruben Blades, making quite an intriguing cameo. Trading in the overtly tropical influences for more urbane, gritty grooves, Coati Mundi was sung and performed by Andy with the swagger of someone who was more aware of music made since the ‘70s.
“Sey Hey!” opens the album with a quick-fire Afro Cuban mutation that finds Andy singing in Spanglish in a way that’s far less suave and more fiery than any of his previous work. “Oh! That Love Decision” at first seems like a trip back to his Savannah days, with equally sophisticated big band swing…but it’s a false motif. The music keeps moving away from a steady groove working itself through various jazz mutations. As “Beat the Bullies” shifts the mood to a far less constrained tempo, we finally start to get a truer sense of the macro style.
“¿Como Esta Usted?” takes its cue from the great Afro-Latin grooves and repurposes them with newer school post-disco ideas. Much like the album cover and music video, it’s cartoony but surprisingly rich and complex. It’s a kind of groove that one Coati Mundi has no bizness creating but did so in such a way that should put a smile on any face and a jiggle in any shake — it’s like biting into a big chocolate chip cookie and dolloping a cookie spread on it for the next bite. Early proto-consciousness “rap”, “Everybody’s On An Ego Trip” uses a tongue in cheek rap diss to create his own slithery funk workout, that truth be told, someone else could rap over but lose all the magic of this sprawling shapeshifting groove.
“Prisoner Of My Principles” with its equally mesmerizing music video, finds inspiration from the more minimal, dark side of greater Manhattan. Equally arresting body politic, hypnotic vibraphone workout, and quite avantgarde, on this cut Coati comes close to matching the embers of Latin Jazz with the modernity of global techno bubbling elsewhere. Speaking of future dance music — “Pharaoh (Can’t Take It To The Grave)” uses Afro Pop and gospel motifs to create something I’d agree with others as pointing to house music yet to be born. Pairing down chordal vamps and adding some priceless horn parts, Coati treats us to another hypnotic track perfect for future dance floors. Ditto for “I’m Corrupt”.
Let’s end this review on perhaps the most surprising track, for most. Originally found on Captain Beefheart’s equally mesmerizing Shiny Beast, “Tropical Hot Dog Night” is the track that appears closest to Coati Mundi’s gravitational orbit. Here, Andy is joined by Panamanian salsa icon Ruben Blades to reimagine that swampy bellwether of outre Latin Blues as an equally inspired, modern, cumbia dance floor workout. Coloring outside the lines of a track that already is out of its own ledger, The Former 12 Year Old Genius ends as a 20-something year old master who stumbles into their own bit of greatness. Who needs talent when you have an eye, an ear, and the elbow grease to hoist something special out of the ether?
As y’all, would probably be right to discover, America (once again) wasn’t ready for that kind of discovery and Coati would have to go elsewhere to find that win. Here’s hoping things change…