Straight up, Gloria Estefan is the bomb. Bona fide mad cool peoples. For 23 years now, the 40-year-old Havana native has kept it real as lead singer of Miami Sound Machine and as a solo artist. Dance hits. Love ballads. And No. 1 pop singles like 1991‘s "Coming Ouf of the Dark," which told the story of her recovery from a 1990 tour-bus accident. In ’93, the comeback queen hit us with ¡Mi Tierra!, an all-Spanish album that exposed five million listeners to ol‘ time Cuban music styles. Her new disco banger, gloria!, dropped in June on Epic Records. That’s g-l-o-r-i-a.

• Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band – "Hard Times" (RCA, 1976)

G.E.: Reminds me of the old Savannah Band.

B: That’s who it is.

G.E.: Hot stuf. We covered their song "Cherchez la Femme."

B: My sister used to run this record into the ground. I like the line, "Tired of roaches." It was cool that somebody was acknowledging roaches in music.

G.E.: They copped such a unique sound. Tommy Mottola managed them. He’s done everything. He used to be T.D. Valentine, the recording artist. He’s gonna kill me for telling you! Now he’s CEO of Sony, the big cheese.

B: the biggest cheese.

• Yambu – "Sunny" (Montuno Records, 1975)

G.E.: The wahwah pedal in this song is back, big time. Is this Fife & Drum Corp.?

B: It’s Yambu on Montuno Records. Let me play you the Spanish B-side "Caballo."

G.E.: That’s so cool, because with the first record we ever did, Live Again (Almo Sound/Interscope, 1977), one side was in Spanish and the other was in English.

• Eddie Palmieri – "Azucar" (Tico Records, 1972)

G.E.: Sounds like Palmieri.

B: It is. Eddie Palmieri.

G.E.: I guessed that because the song’s style is very jazzy, like Latin jazz.

B: Eddie made a couple of joints with a band called Harlem River Drive, a combination of African-American and Latino musicians and percussionists.

G.E.: They work so well together. One of our first songs was a mixture of Cuban conga rhythms, funky bass lines, and dance drums.

• Big Pun – "I’m Not a Player" (Loud Records, 1998)