I would like to add one quick update regarding what I previously posted on the blog. Out of the over two-hundred tracks in the compiled playlist, some of the video games listed focused specifically on music and rhythm by using Latin American and Caribbean instruments as controller peripherals. Instead of playing a given game with a joystick or controller with buttons and directional pads or thumb sticks, the player takes control of instruments like maracas, conga drums, or bongos. Games like Donkey Konga, Mambo a Go Go, and Samba de Amigo stand out for that very reason. These titles do tend to exhibit some moments of visual and aural confusion by combining Spanish and Portuguese music cultures. Still, such deviations from the norm, whether in arcade formats or for game consoles, can help to create and enhance a more immersive interactive experience.
Digging deeper into that specific approach to Iberian, Latin American, and Caribbean influences in video game music reveals that some companies had previously applied a similar approach, allbeit with a different consumer electronics medium. Nintendo is known to people from my generation who grew up in the 1980s and 90s (as well as future generations) for its video games. However, the company originated in the late- nineteenth century by making playing cards and gradually shifted to creating toys. One of those toys consisted of an electromechanical conga drum called the “Ele-Conga.” Released in the 1970s exclusively for Japan, the “Ele-Conga” featured miniature disks with different “Latin” rhythmic patterns, which could be inserted on the drumhead and operated by a hand crank. This does not suggest that Nintendo has completely forgotten about the “Ele-Conga” in the 2020s, nor their history with creating toys. The device has recently resurfaced in a digital format as part of a series of minigames in WarioWare: Get It Together! (2021) for the Nintendo Switch.
Digging deeper into that specific approach to Iberian, Latin American, and Caribbean influences in video game music reveals that some companies had previously applied a similar approach, allbeit with a different consumer electronics medium. Nintendo is known to people from my generation who grew up in the 1980s and 90s (as well as future generations) for its video games. However, the company originated in the late- nineteenth century by making playing cards and gradually shifted to creating toys. One of those toys consisted of an electromechanical conga drum called the “Ele-Conga.” Released in the 1970s exclusively for Japan, the “Ele-Conga” featured miniature disks with different “Latin” rhythmic patterns, which could be inserted on the drumhead and operated by a hand crank. This does not suggest that Nintendo has completely forgotten about the “Ele-Conga” in the 2020s, nor their history with creating toys. The device has recently resurfaced in a digital format as part of a series of minigames in WarioWare: Get It Together! (2021) for the Nintendo Switch.
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