Latest / Locatora Radio [A Radiophonic Novela] / Muévelo with Radio Menea | Capítulo 284

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Muévelo with Radio Menea | Capítulo 284 · Locatora Radio [A Radiophonic Novela]

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the music that we love
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: gets rejected by certain people for being overly sexual or
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: even sexist, right? Like if you think about reggaeton or,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: you know, that it's music that's like associated with violence
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: or crime and some of the same dynamics with rap
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: in the US.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And for us, what we like to say is no,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: like this is the music is a mirror, right?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: The music is a reflection of what happens in the world.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: And so the dynamics going on in the world, including
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: sexism and racism, poverty, you.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: The music is not creating those dynamics.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: And it was reggaeton was one of I wrote a
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: piece about reggaeton.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Like this idea that like you have to.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Sort of put your politics aside to like consume this
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: music that is so.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: And what we've done really is refuse to do that.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: Right. And we consume the music and enjoy the music
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: alongside an analysis of both what's happening in the music,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: but also not short sightedly believing that the music is.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Creating these dynamics.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like we all know that rape culture
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: exists and it's not, you know, it's not reggaeton that's
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: making that happen. And so that's another kind of, I think,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: thing that we've rejected that the, you know, some parts
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of the music industry or even the, you know, people
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: who are consuming music want to say certain music is
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: bad and other music is good.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: And we don't, you know, we don't buy into that.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Locatora Radio!
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: Hola, hola, Locamores. I'm Diosa.
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: And I'm Mala.
• 1:12
  Speaker 4: You're listening to Locatora Radio, a radiophonic novella.
• 1:15
  Speaker 5: Which is just a very extra way of saying... A podcast.
• 1:18
  Speaker 6: A podcast.
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: We are so thrilled to be joined by Radio Menea,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: a podcast hosted by Veronica Valletti-Flores and Miriam Soyla-Perez, two
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: Latinx friends with wildly different music tastes. Radio Menea ran
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: for nearly nine years and 300 episodes, and together they
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: published a book inspired by the show. It's called Muevelo,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: the Enduring Legacy of Latin Music Across Borders. Welcome to
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: Locatora Radio.
• 1:45
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having us. We're so thrilled
• 1:48
  Speaker 6: to be here.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is our first interview about the book. So
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: love that we're doing it with you.
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: So exciting.
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: It's an honor. Thank you for joining us. Where are
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: you guys calling in from?
• 1:56
  Speaker 6: I'm in Brooklyn, New York.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: And I'm based in Washington, D.C.
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: I love it. We're bi-coastal today.
• 2:04
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: That's right. I love that because one of the themes
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: of the book is, or not themes, but one of
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: the things that y'all talk about is like being on
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: the East Coast, right? Being like Caribbean folks and like
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: how that influences the types of type of music you
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: grew up listening to, the type of music you're into now.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's so clear, right? In how
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: we always say like Latinos are not a monolith, right?
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: And us being on the West Coast, us being L.A. based,
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: born and raised, Mexican, Peruvian, like there's all these different
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: ways that we come to, quote, Latin music. So let's
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: start there with the origin, like your the influences of
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: the genres that you grew up listening to and how
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: that's like all maybe also influenced by living on the
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: East Coast.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: Um, so I grew up in Venezuela and I've been
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: in New York for 20 years now. And so the
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: influence of both of those places, like where I grew
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: up in Venezuela is extremely Caribbean. I always talk about
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: Venezuela as like Venezuela is a baseball country and not
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: a soccer country, right?
• 3:14
  Speaker 6: Like Cuba, DR, Puerto Rico, those.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Are like I feel like that's, like, the mark of
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: the Caribbean Latinos is, like, the baseball countries. But I
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: feel like those, both the sounds that I grew up
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: with in Venezuela, talking about, like, you know, merengue, salsa,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: reggae en español, and, you know, like, proto-reggaeton, like, el chombo.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: And then, like, when I started going back after I
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: came to the United States, listening to, like, sort of
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: reggaeton develop, that really sort of influenced what I think
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: of as, like, you know, sort of home. And then
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: living in New York for so long, also, this is
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: such a Caribbean place, both in terms of like, the
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Latinx communities in the West Indian community. And I just
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: really begins to sound like home to me. So it feels,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: you know, I've really, I've really come to enjoy a
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: lot of different kinds of Latinx music over the last
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: few years, and also have enjoyed, obviously, so much, especially
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Mexican music, because it was such a place of cultural production.
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: Throughout the years.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: So, you know, Juan Gabriel, Thalia, the list goes on
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: forever and ever, has been part of my growing up.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: But doing this work has really expanded it. But Caribbean
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: music feels like home.
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: I love that. How about for you, Perez? How has
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: it shown up for you?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I grew up in, so my family's
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: from Cuba, and.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I grew up kind of like to say like in
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: exile from the exiles because everybody, our family was all
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: in Miami. Um, and our extended family is all Miami,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: but my parents, um, ended up in North Carolina where
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: they raised me and my brother because that's where they
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: found work. But we were constantly going back to Miami.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Like they were professors. So they had a lot of
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: time off. So summers in Miami breaks in Miami. It
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was kind of like they wanted to be there, but
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: that they couldn't find work there. And so they ended
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: up in North Carolina. So there was always this like
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I wasn't growing up in a place that was culturally
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: connected at all. There were almost no Latinos in that
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: part of North Carolina in the 70s and 80s. And
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: that changed a lot in the 90s and early 2000s
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: with like the waves of immigration from Central America and Mexico.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So as a teenager, it started to change around me,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: but it was very different than the kind of Cuban culture.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: So for me, Miami was really like this Cuban, this
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: cultural route. And the music, my father was really into music,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: my mother also, but my father especially. And so I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: was surrounded with a lot of things that Vero mentioned,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of salsa, boleros. A little bit
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of merengue was like just starting, you know, to cross over.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So there was just a lot of of that kind
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: of music really, really rooted in that in those traditions.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: A lot of dancing also, but nothing, very little exposure
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: to anything really outside of the Caribbean. And that's what
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed about doing this podcast for so many
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: years is that I've gotten to really expand my interest
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and like, And I love watching like the rise of
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Mexican regional and all these things that are bringing different,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: you know, cause Caribbean, Caribbean music can kind of be
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: a little bit hegemonic sometimes I think in the U
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: S especially with like, the way reggaeton has been so
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: popular and so dominant. And so it's really cool to see,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to hear tubas and these like things that come really from, um,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: from Mexican regional on the, on the charts. So, so yeah,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I love nostalgic, um, music, a lot of, you know, eighties,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: nineties salsa, and then, you know, the classics, a lot
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: of Cuban music classics, but it's been fun.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: I didn't really develop my own taste until college.
• 6:33
  Speaker 6: Really.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I started to like branch out into listening to latin
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: music on my own of my own accord and so
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: that's why i you know i happened to be during
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: like the reggaeton boom and so i got to really
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: enjoy a lot of uh of new music that wasn't
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: through my father anymore it was really my own taste
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: and then the podcast has just allowed that to.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: Blossom And the podcast, I mean, you guys were podcasting
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: before anybody was podcasting, really. And really, you came up
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: at a time where, like, yeah, few to no Latinx
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: podcasts existed. And I remember when Diosa reached out to
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: me about starting a podcast, your show was one of
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: the shows. that she had been listening to and was
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: an inspiration for even the idea of podcasting. So what
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: is it that you love about the medium? What do
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: you love about this art form?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I remember we started in March of 2020, 2016, and
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I had actually been listening to a few months before
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: that I had been started to listen to like call
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: your girlfriend was an early podcast that I listened to. Um,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and they were too long to their like whole tagline.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It was like too long distance besties. So I was like, okay,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: you can do a podcast and not be in the
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: same place, like helpful to know. And it was like
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: such a, the, the industry was, yeah, like you said,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: so new. Um, and so, yeah, I, I reached out
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: to Vero and, and, you know, we'd already been friends
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: who were always talking about music and texting about music. And, um,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and I was like, maybe we should start a podcast.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: It was really just like, kind of a crackpot idea that,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: you know, has spout out of control. And a decade later,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: here we are with a book and 300 episodes, you know?
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Um, but I think I like the intimacy of it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Like, I, I mean, I still listen to podcasts a lot,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: but I, especially then, you know, even the, the sort
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: of like that feeling of you're hanging out with some
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: friends was really like the, the style, I think at
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the time that I found really interesting and what, you know,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Ann and Aminati were doing with their.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Show that I was like, this is, this is cool.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And so, Um, yeah, we really didn't know what we
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: were doing in terms of how far it would go,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but we were just like, this sounds interesting.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Why don't we, why don't we try this out?
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: I love that. I think there's so much magic in that.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: But what do you like, what is it about the medium?
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: And like, could you have imagined like everything that came afterwards?
• 8:43
  Speaker 6: Oh, absolutely. Never.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Um, like I said, it was just sort of like
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: a crackpot idea and we're like, yeah, let's do it.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: You know, I have, um, I jump into huge projects
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: sort of like with a lot of hubris and be like, yeah,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: I can do that. And then, you know, like proceed
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: to have all my various panic attacks about how much
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: work it actually is later. Um, but I, uh, I
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: really like how much freedom there is in it creatively.
• 9:09
  Speaker 6: Um, you know, we really just got to do whatever
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: we wanted.
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: Right. And, Um, as soon as we came up with like,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: sort of like a very loose concept, which is like
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Latin music is a very loose concept.
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: And we knew that, you know, we met doing reproductive
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: justice work. We knew that we, um, sort of viewed
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: everything from like a socio-political lens. So that was always
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: going to be part of it. But, um, as people
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: who were doing political work, um, as our main gig,
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: we were like, let's not like make this the main
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: thing here. Let's like make the main thing music and
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: the joy and like the sociopolitical analysis of like what
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: it means in the world like will come because it's
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: just who we are.
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: But yeah, and we have so much freedom with that.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: And I really I think that like when you're starting
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: up in a medium that feels new for the moment,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of freedom to figure out what it
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: can look like.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that. And that's that thing that was
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: similar to us.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: And how we we just were like, let's figure it
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: out as we go.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: Well, there were no rules.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: There were no rules. There were no rules. You didn't
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: have to be on video like that was not a standard.
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: It was like you just you put it out and
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: it sounds like you're chatting with your with your friend.
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: Go ahead, please.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: And I think that when like you all came out,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: when we were out, there was just like such there were,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: you know, like the NPR podcast, right? The things that
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: were on the radio that you could listen to in
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: a podcast form. And there were like a few like,
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: you know, like I said, call your girlfriend. But there
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: were such few Latina people doing podcasts that like where
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: you could feel like, oh, like this feels like my people.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: It feels like my friends. It feels like my community.
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: Right. Like, and it was just not.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: To say that, you know, the only kinds of podcasts
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: that I enjoy are by Latina creators. I enjoyed a
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: lot of different kinds of podcasts, but, um, it felt
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: like such a cute little moment. Like when you all
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: were coming out, when Latinos who lunch were there, it
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: was like, it was like just like a little smattering
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: of us. And it was, um, it felt like we
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: were really adding something to, uh, this media landscape.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we've been talking about that. I mean, not to
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: like I want to talk about the book, but just
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: like quickly, like we've been talking about that moment and
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: how like it really deserves like some type of. feature,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: some type of documentary, like there was something in what
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: we were all doing, you know, at the same time.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: And like everyone had their own trajectory and their own
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: type of show. And like everyone was bringing something different.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: And there was just so much magic in it that
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: we still think about, like, how do we like really
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: encapsulate that?
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: It was very quirky. It was very quirky and like
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: artsy and just fun and not super like glossy, not super.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, because it was all indie and punk rock.
• 12:11
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: And just popping up in all these, you know, different
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: places and different parts of the country. And just it
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: was very fun.
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: It was fun.
• 12:19
  Speaker 6: It was fun.
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: And it had a lot of personality and a lot
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: of a lot of texture.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:25
  Speaker 5: You know, it wasn't so slick.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: And, you know, we weren't like. plugging anything you know
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: there was no merge there was no go here subscribe
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: here we weren't like pointing people in directions you know
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: yeah we were just like here's the episode.
• 12:45
  Speaker 6: Thanks for listening. That was the marketing.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Here's the episode.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: But I remember I feel like you two have always
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: been really on it with the marketing. I feel like
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: your social media from the beginning did kind of look
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: a little glossy.
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: Oh, thanks.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: But not in a good way.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: You know, like I feel like you guys really understood
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: how important like Instagram and social media marketing was like
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: way before Instagram. I think a lot of us understood
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: how important it was. And I, I've always respected that,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: but you really like.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Took a lot of care with that aspect of your
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: project you know and I think it's part of your
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: success too yeah the visuals yeah.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: I honestly like I love that thank you so much
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: and I think like there's so much of it is
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: that we also just liked to be photographed oh yeah honestly.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: You know and like that helps.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: Like in our in our early 20s we were like
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: yeah let's let's do a photo shoot yeah let's do
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: it for the season you know and now we're like
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: oh my god there's like a set we got the
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: makeup like the outfits but at the time it was
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: like let's just throw it together and see what comes
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: out yeah You know, but that that helped.
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: And so and so the podcasting, the love of the game,
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: how does all of that and your long distance working relationship,
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: your creative friendship, how did that pave the way for
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: the book?
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Like, how does one lead to the other? Well, it
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: all started with an email.
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: In 2020, I looked it up recently for we did
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: a little behind.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: The scenes episode.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: So I looked up the I looked up all the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: receipts in 2020. Elizabeth Copps, our litter agent, sent us
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a cold email and was like, hey, I love your podcast.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Have you ever thought about writing a book? And it
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: all started with that.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And we had it, you know, Vero and I think
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: independently had thought about different book kind of projects and whatever,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: but we never talked about it together. We never talked
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: about it related to the show. But yeah, she was
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: a literary agent who just like listened to the show
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: and was a fan and saw something that we didn't
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: even see yet.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: And so it was a slow process.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Also, the pandemic, you know, there's a lot going on
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: during that time. But we're really lucky that she saw
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: something in us and was willing to work with us
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: on a proposal.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: So we worked with her for four years. I mean,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: it didn't you know, we weren't actively working for her.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: She had a kid. A lot of things happened during
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: that time.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: But it took four years to get from that first
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: conversation with her to a proposal for a book that
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: then she shopped around.
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: So.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was just like once the idea
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: was placed in our heads, we're like, actually, that sounds
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: really cool. And like we we immediately were like, we
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: want it to be visual. We don't want it to
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: be like a narrative, like a traditional chapter book. We
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: want it to be. different and creative and visual and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: yeah unique like we kind of immediately knew there was
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: this vision that was something really different than just like
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a traditional book and and yeah it took a long
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: time but but we did.
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: It it's so beautiful aesthetically go ahead.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: And I think that the sort of like the ethos
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: of the original podcast era that we came up in
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: with all the freedom sort of let us come up
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: with this book concept too, right? Like I feel like
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: to my last question of like how that paved the way,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: we sort of came up with this unconventional book concept
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: that we're like, okay.
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: Like we're going to illustrate it. We're going to do
• 16:05
  Speaker 6: little vignettes. We're going to do playlists.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: And yeah, it feels like very much a product of that.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: There's also like dialogue in the book.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: Which I think is really cool and definitely plays on
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: the fact that this started as a podcast because there's
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: these little moments throughout where it just looks like text bubbles.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: For folks that have not seen it yet.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: It's like text bubbles and it's y'all like dialoguing. And
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: I think that's so cool because it shows like, yeah,
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: they're they also are podcasters. It started as a show.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we definitely wanted to incorporate that.
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: The dialogue that the US is describing, is that like
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: you guys sat down and wrote that or are these
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: pulled from transcripts from past episodes?
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: A little bit of both, actually.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Well, the dialogues.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: So we did most of the writing remotely, but then
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: we spent a week together at the beach a couple
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: of summers ago and did kind of like a sprint
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: for the book. And during that time, we would have
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: conversations that were trying to get at what those dialogues
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: would get at because they're at the end of every
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: section of the book.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: And then we would create a transcript and I would
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: edit it.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: And that's so that so it actually did start as
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: a conversation. But we knew we were what we were
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: trying to do. We were like, OK, let's let's try
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: to talk about the themes of this section of the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: book and see what's missing. So and then I edited
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: it into a or we edited it into a conversation.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: That's beautiful. Let's talk about the first chapter, and it's
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: titled Dime Si Son Latinos. And I love that you
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: open with this and you talk about Latin music as
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: a genre. And you in particular, you both in particular, define,
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: as you mentioned, Latin music as... music made by anyone
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: who is Latin A. And I don't know if that's necessary. That's,
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's like the industry definition, but y'all
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: like are doing something very intentional with that. So can
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: you talk about that in particular and how you define
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: Latin music?
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we, uh, had this conversation really early on because
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: if we were going to say, okay, like we're going
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: to have a Latin music podcast, like what does that
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: actually mean? And, uh, we talk about this a bit
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: in the book, right? But like, Latino already is such
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: an uneasy category, right?
• 18:25
  Speaker 6: That, um, it's sort of made up.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: It like contains so many actually different cultures and communities
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: of people that, um, have things in common and, you know,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: like can work together towards common goals and also like
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: have like inter-community trauma and beefs and.
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: All this stuff, right?
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: So we explore some of that and how like that
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: as a category is sort of uneasy. So with that said,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: we were like, well, why not be the most expansive
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: that we possibly can, right? If Latin music is music
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: that made by any person that is from Latin America
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: or the Latina diaspora, then that is we can we
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: have a lot to explore there. And yeah, we just
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: decided to be playful and big with it.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: It allowed us to claim people like Mariah Carey, for example,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: who doesn't get categorized as definitely not Latin music. And
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: I don't, you know, exactly know how she claims her heritage,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: but has a father who's been as Afro Venezuelan. So,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: you know, it allowed us to include lots of music
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: that you wouldn't necessarily expect on a show like ours.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: And then I think the only place where we're less
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: inclusive than a lot of people when it comes to
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the genre or the label is we don't include Spanish artists.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: So we didn't include, you know, we wouldn't include Rosalia,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: for example, as a because she's from Spain.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And while in the U.S.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Those distinctions, I think, are lost on most people. For us,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: it felt important to be like, no, this is about
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: music from Latin America and not from Spain.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Can we talk about that for a second?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: You also had a hot take.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: I didn't think it was a hot take. Okay.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: It went super viral and people are still commenting on
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: this clip.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: They're so mad at me.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: It's been like two weeks.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: I know. Of like nonstop.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, we missed it.
• 20:19
  Speaker 5: Visit us at locatora underscore radio on Instagram to check
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: out this clip. But Diosa talks about how the unserious
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: hill she's willing to die on, that Spanish music is
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: not the same as music in Spanish. Would you like
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: to elaborate?
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. So often people, when referring to Latin artists
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: or Latin music, they will say Spanish music. Oh, I
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: love listening to Spanish music. Oh, I don't listen to
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: Spanish music. However, right. The phrase may be. And so
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: I was saying that, well, there's a distinction.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: Is it from Spain?
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: Then it's Spanish music. Is it from a Spanish speaking artist? Well,
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: then that's music in Spanish.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: And I didn't think this was going to be polarizing.
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: But it was.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: It was definitely a mix of like one. It's not
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: that serious. And then another mix of like people saying, like,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: who cares? like semantics, but I think it falls under
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: this umbrella of Latin music, right? And how people define
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: it and how Spanish people from Spain or Spanish artists
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: will be included in like the Latin Grammys, right? Or
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: in Latin music, but y'all made that distinction. So what
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: do you think about that?
• 21:39
  Speaker 6: Well, I think you're right.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Um, first of all, you did say it was an
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: unserious feel to die and to die. And so, you know,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: it's not that serious. You did admit that.
• 21:49
  Speaker 6: And also words matter.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: I believe that words matter and, um, language really shapes
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: how we think about things and how we come to
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: understand things. And, um, maybe it's not that serious. There's
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: a genocide happening right now. Like, is that the most
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: serious thing in the world? Like, no, but does it matter?
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: I think it does. Yeah.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: What's interesting, too, I think it may be the part
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of the issue comes with that some people still use
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the term Spanish to describe a Latino person in the U.S.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: who's not from Spain. Like I feel like even in
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: like in New York City, right, like someone who's Spanish.
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: The East Coast is very common.
• 22:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: So Spanish.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Are you Spanish? And they don't mean Spain.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: They mean Mexico or wherever the fuck, you know. And
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: so that also might be part of the confusion in
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that term is that they're thinking of Spanish really is
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: like a term. standing for Latino and not actually Spain.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I, I think you're right. And I don't know, we, yeah,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: we never brought, we never brought a song by just
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: a Spanish artist and had to have some sort of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: collab with someone who had a Latin American tie. We just,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: it was just something that it felt, it felt like,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: a boundary that made sense to us you know it's
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: like let's let's the one limiting factor really of our
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: show like why not you know and yeah these artists
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: get a lot of attention most people don't care about
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that distinction but for us it felt important.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah it is important i'm i'm with y'all i'm glad
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: that y'all are with me your opinion is what matters
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: most to me honestly i'm like if they they agree
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: with me that's.
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: What matters Yeah, it's interesting in the in these comments.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: It's very polarizing. Actually, people feel very strongly about like
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: either like, yeah, totally with you. You're right. It grinds
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: my gears, too. But there's also people who are upset
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: that that you should even attempt to make the distinction. Yeah.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: Like there seems to also be. And these are people
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: who are clearly like of Latino heritage and who are like.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: You know, there's the go-touch-grass sort of contingent who very
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: strongly feel that even having these conversations, even diving into
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: this nuance, like even discussing the differences is sort of
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: like a ridiculous undertaking.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: Which is like also interesting to me because it's like, well,
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: you know, can't we as people like dive into the
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: specificity and the complexity of who we are? Like, can
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: we have nuanced conversations?
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: Not on the Internet.
• 24:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: Like, why are you mad that we're having a discussion?
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: You know, so I find that fascinating. So something else
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: that you guys talk about in the book is working
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: to reject the specific vision of Latinidad that is warped
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: and sold online. by the music industry. And, and so
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: we're curious, what is that, that specific vision of Latinidad
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: that you're rejecting and what are you with your work
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: imagining and creating instead?
• 24:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think that we can see it in how, um,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: you know, reggaeton, just like as an example, one example
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: that is not particular, but is, um, it's not like unique,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: but is like a good microcosm of how things work, right?
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Like reggaeton is a genre that started out as like
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: black and poor.
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: And Puerto Rican.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: And now the, you know, like the most like visible
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: people in the genre and worldwide and who are like
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: most associated with it, making the most money off of it. Um,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: most recognizable worldwide are folks who are white or light skinned, um,
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: and maybe they're Puerto Rican, maybe they're not. Um, and so,
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, this is not to say like, again, like our, um,
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: our countries are so mixed that like having a U.S.
• 25:41
  Speaker 6: Racial lens, applying a U.S.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: Racial lens to Latin American racial politics doesn't always fit
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: super comfortably, but it's not to suggest that those same
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: dynamics around race and colorism don't, and hierarchies are not
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: the same there too, that they just might play out
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: in different ways.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: And I.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: Think that the like safest, most like, easily visible uh
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: version of latinidad is that right like a a a class, race,
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: more palatable, what's considered more palatable as somebody that maybe
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: doesn't have a regional accent, maybe somebody that doesn't, that
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: isn't too dark skin, maybe somebody whose hair is straight, right?
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Like all of these markers that we associate with whiteness
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: or proximity to whiteness in Latin America, which, you know,
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: has been really strongly rewarded in our communities. And it's
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: not hard to understand why, right? Like it's, you know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: racism is really rampant and in a system where you
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: might be able to like get away from that, not
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: like the one drop rule system here in the United States,
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: like people make choices about pragmatic, you know, access to ease.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: But yeah, we, there's also within that a lot of
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: resistance and we like to show what that is too.
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: I think another element is also, you know, a lot
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: of the music that we.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Love gets rejected by certain people for being.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Overly sexual or even sexist, right?
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Like if you think about reggaeton or, you know, that
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: it's music that's like associated with violence or crime and
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: some of the same dynamics with rap in the U.S.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: And for us, what we like to say is, no,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: like this is the music is a mirror, right? The
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: music is a reflection of what happens in the world.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And so the dynamics going on in the world, including
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: sexism and, um, racism, poverty, you know, class dynamics, those,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: those exist in the music itself. The music is not
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: creating those dynamics, right? We don't believe that the music
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: is creating those dynamics, it's reflecting them. And so rather than,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I feel like this, this, this is not as, um,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: common now, but I feel like there used to be
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: like this, like I did a long time ago on
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: a feminist blog. I used to write for feminist thing.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I used to have a series called, um, um, anti-feminist
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: guilty pleasures.
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: We'll be right back.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And it was reggaeton was what I wrote a piece
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: about reggaeton, right?
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Like this idea that like you have to sort of
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: put your politics aside to like consume this music that
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: is so, and we, what we've done really is refuse
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: to do that. Right. And we consume the music and
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: enjoy the music alongside an analysis of both what's happening
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: in the music, but also not short-sightedly believing that the
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: music is.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Creating these dynamics.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, we all know that rape culture
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: exists and it's not, you know, it's not reggaeton that's
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: making that happen. And so, Um, that's another kind of,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I think, thing that we've rejected that the, you know,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: some parts of the music industry or even the, you know,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: people who are consuming music want to say certain music
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: is bad and other music is good.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: And we don't, you know, we don't buy into that.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and you talk about, you write about that,
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: both of you write about that in the book, and
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: I don't think we've actually had this conversation on Locatora.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: This is obviously a feminist podcast, and we've talked about
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: reggaeton over the years. We've had, like, Catalina on the show,
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: Reggaeton con la Gata, and we've talked about reggaeton artists,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: but I don't think we've talked about, like, that complicating reggaeton, right,
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: of being able to love it and like the joy
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: that comes with like shaking your ass on the dance
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: floor and like, you know, but there's, you know, this,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: I think from maybe like powers that be or like,
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: you know, folks that view, you know, reggaeton as like
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: associated with like a quote lower class or like from
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: the barrio right the puerto rico um that can like
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: reject it right like oh no this is bad this
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: is inherently bad because of the lyrics because of the
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: the movement um but we know that it's more complicated
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: than that so can you talk about that in particular
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: and like how you do that not only in the
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: book but also like in the podcasts that you have
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: of radio menea.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was I don't know if you all remember
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: this a long time ago when Twitter was Twitter and
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: not owned by that loser. There was a thing going
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: around that people are like, what is a thing that
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: is popular? classy when rich people do it, but, uh,
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: but tacky when poor people do it. And I thought
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: it was so interesting because the answer is literally everything.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Like that's actually how it functions. It's not the thing
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: that's done. It's who's doing it that makes people define
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: like what's classier, what's not right. Like if you see
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: like somebody that is like, maybe like an immigrant Latin
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: American that like works at a factory doing something like
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: people tend to see that as tacky and if you
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: see like that on the runway at Prada then you're
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: like oh how chic right and so it's I think
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: that to that end the music feels really similar right
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: like we tend to, uh, or like society tends to
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: think of, let's say genres that come from marginalized communities
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: as violent and, um, sexist and, uh, you know, like
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: maybe like emblematic of rape culture. And while that might
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: be true, what they're doing is a, I think missing
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: all the places where the reggaeton is feminist and consent oriented. And, um,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: and really like resisting racial hierarchies, for example, like resisting
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: police violence, right? Like doing like actually like a method
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: of resistance. And also they're missing all the ways that like,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: I don't know, rock and roll is rapey, right? Like
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: rock and roll also, or like all these like white genres,
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: like opera, like, you know, like it reflects rape culture
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: or is sexist or, you know, like, as better said,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: like they're simply a reflection of what our society is. And, um,
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: this thinking about like a certain genres is very much
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: shaped by where they come from and not as much by,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: I think their contents.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Like a great example is like the salsa music that like,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: your mommy listened to in the nineties or two thousands,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: like those lyrics are very sexual. Like if you actually
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: take a second to listen to them, it's extremely sexual, like.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Burbujas de amor. And I mean, there's all sorts of stuff, right? Um,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: like it's just metaphor. It's just metaphor.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: And it's a different kind of metaphor than the, what
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the reggaetoneros are doing.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: But like, it's no less like raunchy, you know?
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: But again, it's like, it's packaged in something that is
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: seen as, as more appropriate or more, um, Whatever. And
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's also it's just it's about where it's
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: coming from. So I think it's a really interesting conversation.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: It's like, can we acknowledge that everyone loves sex, drugs
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: and crime? We just talk about it in different ways
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: and it's just veiled in different ways. You know, we
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: just dress it up differently, but it's like a human drive.
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: To do this.
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: I think there's just more. Maybe there is just a
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: straightforwardness and an honesty coming out of different musical genres
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: and art forms. It's like we're not we're not shrouding
• 33:31
  Speaker 5: this in mystery. We're telling you exactly what we enjoy
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: right now. And maybe that's kind of what scares people.
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: It's kind of like, like, don't do it, but be
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: quiet about it.
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 33:43
  Speaker 5: Be subtle.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Be subtle about it.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: Which is also cultural and class, right?
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: Like in like, you know, some class strata, like being like,
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: you know, diplomatic and quiet.
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: Demure.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: Demure.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Yes, demure is valued, whereas in some cultures being like
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: straightforward and honest and direct is valued.
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: And that can be classed and raced as well.
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: Mm hmm. Yeah. It's fascinating stuff. I'm curious on this
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: point about the music we love and what the music
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: is doing for us. Who is a Latine artist right
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: now that is really moving you, that is exciting for you?
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: Who's on your radar who you think we should all
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: be listening to or maybe they're going to blow up soon?
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: I have a couple. I can get started. One is a.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: Artist who is of Venezuelan descent who lives in Spain
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: right now, and her name is Judaline. She's doing such
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: interesting things. I think that she has a really interesting
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: career ahead of her. She did a song called Joropo,
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: which is a cowboy genre in Venezuela. It's very traditional music,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: but she made it sound like so fresh and new. And,
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: you know, I play the Afro-Venezuelan drums. There's my drum
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: right there. And one of the things that the women
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: that I play with do is think about Venezuelan traditional
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: music as also evolving and part of the present, not
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: stuck in the past. And I think Judaline does that
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: very well with that song, but she has all sorts
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: of great, great tracks that I really, really love. And
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: the other person that I'm keeping my eye on is Jandri.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: She's been around for a minute, and she has a
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: new album coming out soon. And it's her debut album,
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: and I have my eye on her.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: Fab. Those are great recs.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: So then I'll throw in, there's actually one that Vero
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: turned me on to, and it kind of goes back
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: to our conversation about like reggaeton and salsa and the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: generational divide. So Neutro Shorty has done, has put out,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: is that the right name, Vero?
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Neto Shorty put out an album. You know, he's
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: a rapper.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: He's got he's got a lot of tattoos that comes
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: from a particular world of music.
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: But he put out a salsa album and it's incredible.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: You know, he really he really walks in Bad Bunny's
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: footsteps in some ways and in the ways of bringing
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: those genres together. But I'm obsessed with it. And I
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: think it's it really does play with all of the assumptions.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And a lot of the lyrics also talk about like
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: who he is and what the expectations are for like,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: who should be making certain types of music.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: And, um, but I'm also just obsessed with the sound.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So, um, check out Soy Así, I think is the
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: song that we brought to the show.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Um, but the whole album is really great.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: I love that. Thank you so much. Can I share mine?
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 36:36
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: So this artist that I'm really into right now, his
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: name is Achal. And he's based from New York, I believe.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: And he's Peruvian-American. And similar to the artist that you mentioned, Vero, he,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: I feel, is bringing, like, huayno. which is a Peruvian
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: and Andean sound, a musical genre. And he's, like, infusing
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: it into this, like, rap, but also, like, kind of
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: R & B style. And he's just, like, bringing the, like, Sampoño,
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: the Andean flutes. And there's just, like, some, like— Really
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: incredible like genre blending he like sings in Spanish It's
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: Spanish only and then it's English like just incredible and
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: I feel like he's someone to watch I haven't seen
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: like a peruvian u.s born artist like really pop off
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: yet you know and so i'm like i have my
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: eye on him i'm like i'm wondering like is he
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: is he.
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: The one his visuals are great his visuals are great
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: that cholo elegante is great cholo.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: Nice.
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: I'm loving. So we had Sophie Castillo on the show
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: and she's Colombian Cuban, but raised in the UK. So
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: she's British. And she has been doing a lot of
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: work here stateside. And she has been like collaborating with
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: Vanita Leo, who's Tejana. And she makes kind of like
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: girly pop cumbias. And so Sophie Castillo is bringing her
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: like British sound to.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: She does like R & B like very sultry very
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: soulful she's very much.
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: Like a sirena she's like sirena music yes and so
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: she and Vanita have been making music together and so
• 38:25
  Speaker 5: that like Tejana British crossover has been really cool and
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: they've been putting stuff out on Instagram and then there's
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: a jazz singer named Suzette who does very sort of
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: like avant-garde Latin jazz who I've been living for so
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: I mean there's just so much out there so much
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: out there Yeah.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: And I love I love this because we all brought
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: like these different genres, which I think speaks to like
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: the case that y'all are making.
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: They're like Latin music is not just this like restrictive,
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: definitive thing that the music industry has really put forward.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: But it's actually more expansive than what we that what
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: we've been taught to think about when we think of
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: Latin music.
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: Absolutely. Yeah.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: Well, last question for you, because I don't want to
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: spoil the book, but I do want to like one,
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: encourage all of our listeners to go out and buy it.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: But I also you can see it's here. It's beautiful.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: It's beautiful. Thank you. But, you know, in your in
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: your final chapter, you talk about the colonial project failing.
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: and it's. so beautiful it's so poetic i don't want
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: to like say the beautiful line that you end with
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: so people can actually go read it but um it's
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: so good and so i i want to like ask
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: you how you one i agree and i think we've
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: been talking about that on this podcast for a decade
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: now but like how did you come to through the
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: music like having the music represent why the colonial project
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: is failing Yeah.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think to me, when I think about
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: the colonial project, its main goal is erasure and especially
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: erasure of black people, erasure of indigenous people, their descendants
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: and specifically and also maybe most importantly, their culture.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: Like.
• 40:18
  Speaker 6: And our cultures that have.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Really risen out of those traditions and the proximity, the
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: physical and intimate proximity.
• 40:28
  Speaker 6: That we've all had to each other in Latin America.
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: That as much as the industry today tries to continue
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: some of that colonial legacy, uh, we see so much resistance, right?
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: We see indigenous artists.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: We see, um, you know, people, uh, talking about blackness
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: and indigeneity and about how the sonic legacies of those
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: communities live on in our music today, both in ways
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: that we know and in ways that like might remain
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: a mystery to us still.
• 41:04
  Speaker 6: And so in that sense, we think that it is failing, right?
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: Like we can't imagine a world, a Latin America that
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: isn't shaped by and completely, you know, just made who
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: it is by the legacies of the black people who
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: were brought to the, to the continent as a legacy
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: of slavery and the indigenous people that were there when
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: Europeans arrived.
• 41:35
  Speaker 6: And even like the Europeans that came there, right? Like,
• 41:39
  Speaker 6: either as colonizers, as indentured servants to those colonizers, et cetera,
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: et cetera, right? Like, we can't.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Imagine a world that is not shaped by the legacy
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: of those people that colonialism is trying to erase. And
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: in that sense, we think that it's failing. It's failing
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: because we're here and we can hear it.
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: We can hear it in the music. Mm-hmm.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: But I don't know if you remember, we had a
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: debate about that, that ending about whether we wanted to
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: say that colonial, the.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Colonial project had failed or was failing.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: And I think I was the one who said, you know,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I think, I think we have to say it's failing
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: because that's.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: The paradox of the time that we're in, right.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Is that there's this evidence of resistance and there's also
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: so much harm still happening. And, you know, we wrote,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: we finished the book before, um, Trump's latest term in office.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Um, but we knew it was coming.
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: And, um, you know, some of the, I think the
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: paradoxes that exist in this moment, if you think about
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: the way that the United States government is treating immigrants,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: but particularly Latino immigrants in this time, right.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: The massive amounts of.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Um, inhumane incarcerations, deportations, all the things that are happening,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: like that's also, I think part.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Of the colonial project, right.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Even though the U S was a colony, um, because
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it's an attempt to erase, you know, people of color
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: and attempt to erase immigrants. It's attempt to, um, I mean,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: really it's just an attempt to, uh, harm people and,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: and be, um, yeah, just create a lot of harm.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: But it, I, I do see it as part of
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: this larger project of like trying to make the United
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: States a certain thing, some idea of what the United
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: States should be, which is a myth of the colonial
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: project of the United States. Um, and, but at the
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: same time, right, you have this, this thing happening, this,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: all this harm happening, um, all this, uh, oppression and suffering.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: And you have something like Bad Bunny being the, the,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: the Superbowl halftime show. and being the most popular, like
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: the most watched ever Superbowl halftime show and bringing us
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: a show that was so deeply Latino and like making
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: this argument that no, actually we are part of this
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: colonial project, right? Latinidad is part of the United States. Um,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and is, it's not something you can actually erase no
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: matter how hard you try. Right. And so those paradoxes
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: I think are, are what it means to be part
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: of this moment of like watching the failure happen. Like
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: it's not, There's a lot of tension and there's a
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: lot of paradox, but for us, it's really important to
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: both talk about the harm, but also the resistance and music.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you can see it in the music it's so amazing
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: you can watch how you like we we say in
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: the book that if if all people had of our
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: of our civilization was the music they could trace where
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: people moved throughout space based on the way music moved
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: right they could feel like oh these you know because
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the accordion ended up in mexico it's like how did
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: that happen it's because germans you know so all of
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: these things are evidenced in the music the music is
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: like one um.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Mirror, one reflection of these dynamics.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: And it's true also with the suffering and the joy
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: that we can find. And like Veto said, you know,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think the colonial project functions if the people
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: and the culture still exists.
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: And they do. Very much so.
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: Thank you. I just want to say also, thanks for
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: shouting out tubas and accordions in this episode. Yes.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: You know, a quick plug in my chapter. Well, in
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: my conversation with them, we do talk about Mexican regional
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: music because it is having a moment and it's been
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: a part of, right, quote, Latin music. But it's like
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: having a mainstream moment.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 45:11
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: Which is exciting. Well, thank you both so much. I mean,
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: this is better is what you said. Like, I think
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: that is to be like of the Latin American diaspora.
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: To like hold these complexities of like joy, resistance, suffering,
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: but perseverance and like being present and being here and
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: having our mark. So thank you both so much for
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: the work that you've done and continue to do and
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: for gifting us this incredible piece of actually not just
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: the book, but also 300 episodes like that people can
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: still listen to. And you're currently producing and recording, telling
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: us about the behind the scenes of making the book,
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: of writing the book. And then now the actual book
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: is out in the world.
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: Go get it.
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: Thank you so much thank you so much.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: And maybe we can include a little gift for your
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: listeners which is that we made a we made a
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: playlist for the book that's out um on youtube so
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: we can put that in the show notes if you'd
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: like for people to listen to just kind of like
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit of the vibe of the book so
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: we have that for.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: Everyone yes yes well thank you so much you're welcome
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: to come back anytime.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Yes well thank you and thank you for holding it
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: down and Staying as one of the one survivors of
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: this Latinx podcast boom.
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: We're trying.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: We're trying. Good job.
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: We live to.
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: Cry another day.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: Well, thank you so much. All right, Locamores. Thank you
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: for tuning in to another capítulo of Locatora Radio. We'll
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: catch you next time. Besitos.