Dancng Sobr Podcast

Erick Huerta is an undocumented immigrant with a temporary work permit via Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. He is a digital strategist and communications consultant for non-profits, labor unions, and grassroots organizations.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBRFind ERICK at:Instagram: @elrandomeheroWebsite: http://www.elrandomhero.com----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​----Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

Joe Benitez is an American comic book artist who has worked on such titles as "Titans" and "Superman / Batman" (DC Comics), "Magdalena" and "The Darkness" (Image Comics), and "Soulfire" (Aspen Comics). He is also the creator of the urban fantasy "Wraithborn" and the steampunk series "Lady Mechanika", which are published by his own studio Benitez Productions.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBRFind Joe at:Instagram: @eljoebenitezWebsite: https://www.joebenitez.comKickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eljoebenitez/lady-mechanika-the-devil-in-the-lake-part-1----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​----Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

Jose Lozano received his Master of Fine Arts from California State University, Fullerton. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited widely at venues that include the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, Orange County Museum of Contemporary Art, Patricia Correia Gallery, Self Help Graphics, and Avenue 50 Studio. He has received many awards including a J. Paul Getty Mid-Career Grant in Painting and a California Arts Council Grant for Drawing and Painting.Born in 1959 in Los Angeles, his mother soon moved the family to her birthplace of Juárez, México. On the border, he found many of the cultural touchstones that continue to influence his work today as an artist and as a children's book writer. The family returned to Southern California in 1967 where his teachers encouraged him to draw and paint. José is considered a principal in the vibrant Los Angeles Latino arts scene. His art has been featured in numerous prestigious exhibits in Southern California; his public installation “La Metro Lotería” entertains passengers at the La Brea Metro stop in Los Angeles; and Cheech Martin collects his work for his important Chicano Art Collection. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees from California State University at Fullerton. He lives in Anaheim, CA. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBRFind Jose at:Instagram: @joselozanoartistWebsite: https://www.joselozano.net----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​----Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...******

Artist Rachid Bouhamidi was born in Palm Springs in 1981 and raised in Southern California to a French mother and a Moroccan father. He started drawing about the time he first learned to pick up a pencil and took to the idea of being a serious artist when he was 14 after seeing an exhibition of etchings by Francisco Goya in Pomona, California. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006 and his MFA from Boston University in 2010. The formal and figurative concerns in Bouhamidi's work draw inspiration from his mixed cultural identity, from observations of the natural world and from popular art forms such as comics and by the working class culture of the Hispanic neighborhoods of Los Angeles. In Morocco he is represented by Galerie Tindouf in Marrakech, which shows a number of major Moroccan artists, among them Laila Essaydi and Tahar Ben Jelloun. See more of his drawings and other work on Instagram.

Corissa Hernandez is the co-founder and visionary of Legacy Full Circle Financial & Insurance Services, The Empire Tavern, House of Xelas, and Nativo HLP.Instagram: @CorissaHernandez

Luis C. Garza began his artistic career as a photojournalist recording the tumultuous social events of the 1960s and 1970s for La Raza magazine—the journalistic voice of the Chicano movement in Los Angeles. During that time, he was a film and theater arts student at UCLA whose images captured the attention of television executives, leading to his new career as a producer-director for the Emmy-award series Reflecciones/Reflections, and over 50 documentary projects and primetime shows for Los Angeles affiliates of ABC and NBC, including a one-hour special for the exhibition Treasures of Mexico from the Mexican National Museums, which was broadcast live from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1978.

Carlos Santos is an Actor/Comedian based out of Los Angeles. He is best known for playing Chris Morales on the Netflix original series, Gentefied. He's also been featured on Vacation Friends (20th Century), "The Valet" (HULU), and the Prime Video series "Undone". Carlos and the members of the improv group "Spanish Aqui Presents", host a monthly all-latine comedy variety show at The Paramount in Boyle Heights. He also tours the country doing stand-up comedy. Carlos just wrapped on the first season of "Primo", a new Shea Serrano/Mike Schur comedy for Amazon Freeve. He was born and raised in Puerto Rico.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBR Find Carlos at:Instagram: @ofcourseitscarlosIMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1972614/----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

Fabian Debora was born in El Paso, Texas and began his career in 1995 as a member of the East Los Angeles Streetscapers. He was mentored by many Chicano artists and muralists, and was introduced to creative expressions of all forms, from graffiti and murals to sketching and fine art painting.Fabian's work has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Brooklyn, and throughout Latin America.Fabian served as a counselor and the Director of Substance Abuses Services & Programming as well as a mentor at Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles for a decade. He then moved on to worked as Community Connection Director at Arts for Incarcerated Youth Network, He is also a teaching artist for ACTA Alliance of traditional Arts, bringing arts to adult correctional facilities. He also works in collaboration with Latino Producers Action Network (LPAN) as the Art Director, and is an instructor for community artists and students throughout Boyle Heights, He has now returned to Homeboy Industries as the Executive Director of Homeboy art Academy perusing and developing his vision to continue to serve greater Los Angeles area, and abroad. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBR Find Fabian Debora at:Instagram: @fabiandeboraWebsite: https://www.fabiandebora.com----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

Albert Reyes was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Panorama City in 1971 and grew up in the working class neighborhood of El Sereno. Having been known to create artwork out of anything from what he has in his pockets to whatever he can find walking through his neighborhood. He has also shown in a gallery along with a painting by Picasso. These same strange dualities and juxtapositions are highly prevalent in his work, which tackles both conceptual and graffiti art. Recognized for his ubiquitous “GIVE “ tag, Albert has a distinctive artistic approach inspired not only by street art, comic books, and American pop culture; but also by contemporary and classical “high art “. Many of his drawings and illustrations incorporate everything from icons of corporate America to Hollywood stars to mass media to politics to consumerism. His goals are simple: make a living as an artist and use his talent to make a positive impact on people's lives.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBR Find Albert Reyes at:Instagram: @thealbertreyes ----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

From artists website: As a Chicana artivista, music and the power it invokes is at the heart of my practice as a musician, scholar, and activist. Fandango and collective songwriting as empowering methodologies have helped me and members of my communities summit into new forms of analysis and thus action. Music as a tool of dialogue. Music and its respective dance as a participatory practice are generative and artivistas like myself see these and similar practices as part of the lexicon of social justice movement. Like most fellows I want to acknowledge that I have never learned, worked and or played music in a vacuum. That my intellectual and physical labor, passion for music and activism was nurtured in local and transnational communities. I am indebted to them as well as my family, mentors, teachers, and maestr@s in the US, Veracruz and Chiapas, Mexico. Finally, I want to thank my partner in life, music and social justice struggle, Quetzal Flores for all that he has done for me and our son Sandino. From music, organizing, dialogue to child rearing I could not have accomplished as much as I have in my professional and music life without his guidance, love and support---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBR Find Martha at:Instagram: @marthavistaWebsite: http://marthagonzalez.net----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

Melly Trochez is an artist involved with painting and assemblage searching for pop culture and its intersection with kitsch. She underscores the psychological and healing properties of art for insights and tranformations in personal experience. Although her paintings are often biographical, they underline a serch for subjective truth. Melly has studied art history at the Sorbonne University in Paris, France and graduated from the Fine Arts program at the University of Fullerton. She has collaborated with graffiti artists, printmakers and has painted murals throughout California. Melly is much concerned with art education and teaching art to children with both typical development and special needs. She is currently working on a body of work for a solo show next year and has enrolled in a graduate program for art therapy in the fall 2009. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBR Find Melly at:Instagram: @melly_trochez----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

As Executive Director, Allegra creates a sustainable financial foundation for Levitt LA and develops equitable community engagement strategies to connect Levitt LA to the MacArthur Park / Westlake neighborhood and beyond.  She served as the Director of Community Relations & Partnerships with Levitt LA from 2019-2023 and was recently selected to fill this role. A lifelong Angeleno, she brings 15 years of experience in the non-profit field, focusing on community organizing, youth development, arts, and culture. She received her education in the communities where she has worked—Pasadena City College and UC Santa Cruz—earning a BA in Community Studies and Art History. She has worked with: Occidental College, Heidi Duckler Dance, Jewish Vocational Service, 24th Street Theatre, Homies Unidos, and Inner City Law Center. She was a Cultural Policy ACTIVATE fellow with Arts for LA in 2016-17 and a mentee of the Women of Color in the Arts Leadership Through Mentorship Program in 2018. Allegra has also served as a grants panelist with the LA City Department of Cultural Affairs, Long Beach Arts Council, LA County Arts Commission, the MAP Fund, and the CA Arts Council. The approach she takes in fundraising is rooted in building upon long-term reciprocal relationships. Her work demonstrates her commitment to being a strategic community builder who is passionate about social justice and creating equitable access to the arts. During her off time, she can be found hiking, traveling, attending cultural festivals, and attending concerts with loved ones enjoying genres such as global bass, hip-hop, reggae/dancehall, cumbia, soul, funk and more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBR Find Allegra at:Instagram: @Allegra213, @levitt.la ----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

A pioneer of Chicano rock, Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara performed with Frank Zappa, Johnny Otis, Bo Diddley, Tina Turner, and Celia Cruz, though he is best known as the front man of the 1970s experimental rock band Ruben And The Jets. Here he recounts how his youthful experiences in the barrio La Veinte of Santa Monica in the 1940s prepared him for early success in music and how his triumphs and seductive brushes with stardom were met with tragedy and crushing disappointments. Brutally honest and open, Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer is an often hilarious and self-critical look inside the struggle of becoming an artist and a man. Recognizing racial identity as composite, contested, and complex, Guevara—an American artist of Mexican descent—embraces a Chicano identity of his own design, calling himself a Chicano “culture sculptor” who has worked to transform the aspirations, alienations, and indignities of the Mexican American people into an aesthetic experience that could point the way to liberation.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Donate through VENMO: @DANCNGSOBR Find Narsiso at:Instagram: @rubenfunkahuatlguevara----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics*************************************Suicide prevention:Dial: 988, for Suicide and Crisis LifelineOnline visit: https://988lifeline.orgSubstance Abuse and Mental HealthSAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-4357Online visit: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/nati...*************************************

Narsiso Martinez's drawings and mixed media installations include multi-figure compositions set amidst agricultural landscapes. Drawn from his own experience as a farmworker, Martinez's work focuses on the people performing the labors necessary to fill produce sections and restaurant kitchens around the country. Martinez's portraits of farmworkers are painted, drawn, and expressed in sculpture on discarded produce boxes collected from grocery stores. In a style informed by 1930s-era Social Realism and heightened through use of found materials, Martinez makes visible the difficult labor and onerous conditions of the “American farmworker,” itself a compromised piece of language owing to the industry's conspicuous use of undocumented workers.

Los Angeles artist Ramón Vargas makes paintings that amplify and investigate the cultural reality of Brown communities. Utilizing a representational style, he alternately challenges, celebrates, and subverts prevailing concepts of identity, tradition, and interpersonal relationships. Drawing on his own life experiences, Ramón's figurative paintings blend realism with a surreal sense of color and place, often incorporating heavy symbolism, repeating patterns, and flat geometrical elements. Throughout his career, he has taught art for non-profit and grassroots community organizations, and is a known mentor for arts education and community outreach in Los Angeles and Orange County. In addition to painting, he is also a muralist and printmaker and has worked in Los Angeles, New York and throughout California.

Valerie J. Bower is a photographer based in Los Angeles. She uses childhood nostalgia, and the visuals and experiences of growing up in the working-class L.A. Harbor Area as influences in her work. Her subtle, dream-like, monochrome street photography show a softer, feminine point of view on typically masculine themes and subjects, such as lowrider, street, punk, and skate culture. Her work focuses primarily on brown and black cultures of Los Angeles, and in other parts of the U.S. (including Northern California, Las Vegas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah). She also documented lowrider/ West Coast culture in Tokyo, Japan. Valerie's work also includes her collection of self-published books and zines, documenting various street cultures, events, and everyday life in Los Angeles.

Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. (b. 1989, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles) is an artist whose work developed from close observation of his father's skillful trade in commercial sign painting. He draws inspiration in the permanence of hand-painted signage and the physical weathering remnants of Los Angeles to narrate his own familial histories of labor and image-making.​Gonzalez's paintings, while seemingly passive still-lifes, excavate the sedimented interactions that happen on everyday public surfaces. His multi-layered works function as contemporary palimpsests, surfaces in which the original facade has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain. Gonzalez's works are not merely metaphors, but objects that uphold the visual as a form of knowledge and language.

Vel Nine aka Vel the Wonder, is a rapper from Baldwin Park, California and based out of Los Angeles who gained a substantial social and internet following first posting a few incomplete verses uploaded on Soundcloud before she stepped in front of the cameras and introduced the world to her soothingly consistent delivery reminiscent of Bahamadia and Guru.Without even having an established stage name, Vel's life changed one shoot in 2012. A half-dozen women ready to showcase their rhymes assembled on a rooftop overlooking Los Angeles for The Cypher Effect YouTube series. She has since released a number of albums, most recently 2020's Trophy Wife and 2022's Freakjet. Her song "Mija," off her album La Sena Ave, was featured on the Netflix original series Blockbuster and is a song dedicated to herself from the perspective of her loving father.Vel's down-to-earth demeanor about her life as a rapper these days owes, in part, to how unlikely the path seemed, even with growing up in a musical family where classic '90s hip-hop proved to be a ubiquitous soundtrack. "I had no desire to make music," she says of her younger days. Her father used to DJ with a party crew back in the day, but had to sell his equipment when he helped bring her into the world. "He always says that it came back to him through me."

"My interdisciplinary art practice interrogates the long history of displacement in the Americas, starting with Indigenous dispossession and genocide to current issues around gentrification, evictions, and homelessness. At its root, however, it is a critical reflection on the commodification of land as private property and the issues that arise out of this. I articulate these subjects through printmaking, installation, and sculpture, to outline the contested use of space and the ways that social and political policies have shaped our contemporary urban environment. I am particularly interested in creating work that exists in the intersections between theory and praxis, articulating a visual form of knowledge production." - From:  https://www.alvarodmarquez.com/about

Deladeso is the art persona created by Richie Velazquez. Based out of Riverside California, he has been developing his Digital Death and Grime art aesthetic since 2012. As the originator of grime art, he pays homage to those that have molded himself into the Spookek that he is today!

Yolanda González was born into a family whose artistic heritage dates back to 1877. Her world is one of curiosity, demonstrating her love of people and their surroundings. González's travels in different countries, the bonds forged with individuals in those places, and the resulting transformative experiences are reflected in her art and her life. She is known for her strong, bold brush strokes of color and texture, intent on evoking imagination and emotion.González studied at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design after winning a painting competition that awarded her a scholarship to the prestigious school. This led her to Self-Help Graphics, an involvement that lasted for years and resulted in her being sent to Spain and Scotland as a representative for exhibitions in those countries. Over the years, she has exhibited her works in solo and group exhibitions across the United States, throughout Europe, and in South Africa.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find Yolanda at:Instagram: @yolandagonzalezartWebsite:https://yolandagonzalez.com-my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobrDonate at venmo: @ DANCNGSOBRRecorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics

Los Angeles based multimedia artist Erica G. Peralta uses video, cardboard sculptures resembling East Los Angeles architecture and, what she calls, “floorplan paintings” to reflect and dissect the institutions of her Mexican American roots.

Alan Nakagawa is an interdisciplinary artist with archiving tendencies, primarily working with sound, often incorporating various media and working with communities and their histories.Nakagawa has been working on a series of semi-autobiographic sound-architecture/tactile sound experiences, utilizing multi-point audio field recordings of historic interiors; Peace Resonance; Hiroshima/Wendover combines recordings of the interiors of the Hiroshima Atomic Dome (Hiroshima, Japan) and Wendover Hangar (Utah); Conical Sound; Antoni Gaudi and Simon Rodia combines recordings of the interiors of Watts Towers (Los Angeles) and the Sagrada Familia (Barcelona, Spain). Premiered in 2023, Point of Turn, is his first vibratory sound work involving the human voice; utilizing collected stories about moments or events that resulted in someone leaving their organized religion. For this work, the combining of these stories and the analog data stretching of a verse and chorus of the 1970's seminal pop band, 10CC's hit song, “I'm Not in Love”. Point of Turn is a commission by Prospect Arts.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find Alan at:Instagram: @nakagawa2015Website:https://alannakagawa.com-my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobrDonate at venmo: @ DANCNGSOBRRecorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics

Edgar "Meshlee" Modesto of Buyepongo is the group's vocalist and also a percussionist who plays conga and guacharaca, a thin percussive instrument that's used in cumbia. The group's line-up is fluid, but at the center of it are Modesto and his brother Randy, who plays bass, as well as Jorge "Yuka" Valleo, who plays accordion, clarinet and guitar in addition to singing, and Angel Hernandez, who plays saxophone, clarinet and flute. The musical backgrounds of the members of Buyepongo run the gamut from punk to hip-hop to jazz to metal. The band itself began life as a cumbia outfit. After the second version of Buyepongo formed, they brought more nuggets from their collective knowledge of music into the mix.

Salvador de la Torre is an artist and educator, born in Guadalajara Jalisco, raised in Laredo, Texas and currently resides in Long Beach, CA. De la Torre earned a Master of Fine Art from California State University, Fullerton and a Bachelor of Art from Texas A&M International University. The artist has exhibited in and around Southern California, Texas, Georgia, Tijuana, Taiwan, and Berlin. They have been invited to speak at a TED X Conference in Laredo Texas, at Washington State University, Eastern Washington University, and Georgia State University Athens.

Liliflor was born and raised in Los Angeles, her inspiration comes from her upbringing, family, community and underground cultural movements. As a first generation Mexican American “Chicana” she navigated thru L.A' art scene during the 80's and 90's hip hop movement. Graffiti subculture was a critical part in her development, inspiration and path towards a professional art and educational career. Liliflor hones her artistic ability to create vital images on canvas and walls that are representative of Angelinos. She is a cultural art educator championing youth in the arts, using art as a tool for education, cultural awareness, civic engagement, healing and transformation. Lilia's strength lies in her bold approach in integrating Nahuatl cosmology aesthetic experimentation. She brings knowledge of her indigenous roots to bear in her work that dignifies the everyday people of Los Angeles. Her artwork weaves various subjects such as spiritual, urban environments, women, children, indigenous cosmology and culture. Aesthetically Lilia's work reproduces familiar visual symbols and iconography, that enables her to create a composition of multilayered visuals and storytelling. The themes in her fine art and murals are combinations of ideas inspired by the communities she serves, as an artist, muralist and educator. The lively color schemes bind the iconography with the subject matter and composition. 

MICHAEL ALVAREZ is a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He lives and works in Los Angeles.Alvarez is a figurative painter with a fascination for human interactions, experiences and history. His paintings pull from his collection of visual artifacts, stories and his own daily experiences and observations. The artist describes the subject matter of his work as simultaneously dysfunctional and celebratory. Alvarez' use of technical details and distortion add nuance to the content of his paintings.---------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find MICHAEL at:Instagram: @__MichaelAlvarez__Websites:https://michaelalvarezart.com-my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobrDonate at venmo: @ DANCNGSOBRSPONSORS:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe---------Esquina Bycicle Shophttps://www.esquina.laRecorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics

Judithe Hernández first won acclaim as a member of the celebrated Chicano artist collective Los Four. The collective would become a major force in the Chicano Art Movement and the first Chicano artists to break through the mainstream museum barrier. After graduating from Otis Art Institute in 1974, she and Carlos Almaraz earned recognition as muralists during the renowned Los Angeles mural renaissance of the 1970's. Together they painted murals for labor rights leader Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union, as well as community murals, such as the Ramona Gardens Housing Projects in East Los Angeles where they painted a pair of the first feminist empowerment murals. While in graduate school, her mentor was the legendary African American artist, Charles White. His influence and encouragement to pursue her interest in social realism art was critical to her later work. Like White, she shared a love of drawing which resulted in a studio practice dedicated to works on paper. Following graduation from Otis, her inclusion in museum and gallery exhibitions in California began immediately with landmark exhibitions at the Oakland Museum, "In Search of Aztlan" and "The Aesthetics of Graffiti" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.MORE AT: JuditheHernandez.com

Luis Guizar is a Los Angeles based filmmaker. He has a history in theater and acting.  He is Executive Produce and Director of Photography on the movie 'Hope, Soledad.' He is part owner of an independent production studio.

John Valadez is a realist painter and muralist whose works has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the U.S., Europe, and Mexico. In the 1970s and 1980s Valadez worked actively with Chicano Arts collectives such as Los Four and Centro de Arte Publico in Highland Park.--------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find JOHN at:Instagram: @JOHNVALADEZARTWebsite: https://johnvaladezart.com-my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobrDonate at venmo: @ rafa-LA SPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe---------Esquina Bycicle Shophttps://www.esquina.laRecorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_____Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics

-------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.-my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobrDonate at venmo: @ rafa-LA SPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe--------Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com___Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics

Carolina A. Miranda is a Los Angeles Times columnist focused on art and design, who also makes regular forays into other areas of culture, including performance, books and digital life. In her years at The Times, she has covered the ways in which communities are rethinking the nature of monuments, how architecture is shifting to accommodate a denser Los Angeles, the significance of political graphics in the post-Roe world and how narco-culture has permeated TV and the internet. She was a winner of the 2017 Rabkin Prize in Visual Arts Journalism and the 2021 Sigma Delta Chi Award presented by the Society of Professional Journalists.______Find Carolina at: @CMONSTAH

Sergio Teran graduated with a BFA from Art Center College of Design and an MA in Studio Art from New York University. He lives and works in Los Angeles where he is also an Associate Professor of Art at Cerritos College.Sergio Teran's studio process filters divergent memories, real and imagined places and current events with cultural symbologies from everyday life and reassembles them into richly painted narrative tableaus. For the past 20 years, his paintings have investigated the particularities of a specific cultural identity, originating from intensely personal reflections that are elaborated through a struggle with process and material to elevate representations of a Mexican American experience.

Self taught artists, Adriana Carranza and Alfonso Aceves, are Kalli Arte Collective from Boyle Heights. "Kalli is our home.The foundation of our culture. It allows for our survival and protection. We must understand that the status of our bodies, homes, and community reflects the status of our spirits."-----------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find KALLI ARTE at:Instagram: @KALLIARTEWebsite: https://kalliartecollective.square.site---my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobrDonate at venmo: @ rafa-LA SPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe------------Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_______Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics

Gustavo Hernández García, tenor, began his singing career through the Young Musicians Program of UC Berkeley, where he studied with renowned baritone David Tigner.  Before completing his first year of voice lessons, Mr. Hernández sang the tenor solos in Handel's Messiah with the University of Berkeley Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Hernández's forays into Oratorio and Concert repertoire as a soloist include Mendehlsson's Elijah, The Messiah, The Mozart Requiem, Rossini's Stabat Mater, Mozart's Coronation Mass, the Mozart Vespers, Beethoven's Choral Fantasy, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Hiawatha's Wedding Feast and others.-----------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT!Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find Gustavo at:Instagram: @gustavoHG63TikTok: @tenorHG63---my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobrDonate at venmo: @ rafa-LA SPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe------------Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_______Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics

Dorian Wood is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Using subject matter informed by their own perspective as a genderfluid brown person, a child of Costa Rican and Nicaraguan immigrants, and an autodidact, Wood's intent of “infecting” spaces and ideologies with their artistic practice is born from a desire to challenge traditions and systems that have contributed to the marginalization of people.-------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT! Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find Daniela at:Instagram: @dorianwoodmusicTwitter: @dorianwoodmusicWebsite: https://www.dorianwood.com-----my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobr Donate at venmo: @ rafa-LA  SPONSOR:MOVITA JUICE BARhttp://movitajuicebar.com​​​​​​​​​​​Instagram: @movitajuicebarSPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe--------------Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com_________Recorded on TASCAM Mixcast and Mics

Daniela Garcia Hamilton (b.1995) is a first generation Mexican-American painter. Her work revisits the rituals and traditions she experienced as a child of immigrant parents. Color and pattern is integrated throughout her work as she describes the vibrancy of her cultural traditions through portraits of her family members. Settings are fabricated to draw attention to shifts in immigration policies, each shift in color for the backgrounds represents the color her family home in Guanajuato was painted, at the time of the policy change. Contemporary American tile patterns are used as the veil through which she remembers these events. As she went through her higher education at CSULB, she began to reflect on her traditions through the American lens. She received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from CSULB in 2018, shortly after she received her Teaching Credential from there as well. She currently works full time as a High School Art teacher in Thousand Oaks. Her work has been exhibited throughout the California Coast, with galleries such as Artbug Gallery, TAG Gallery, Luna Anais Gallery, Artshare LA and the Irvine Fine Arts Center.---------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT! Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find Daniela at:Instagram: @dahnniiiWebsite: https://www.danigarciaart.com-------my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobr Donate at venmo: @ rafa-LA  SPONSOR:MOVITA JUICE BARhttp://movitajuicebar.com​​​​​​​​​​​Instagram: @movitajuicebarSPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe----------------Recorded at Espacio 1839https://www.espacio1839.com___________

Sonia Romero is a Los Angeles artist known for her paper-cut and printmaking aesthetics which she incorporates into both her fine art and public art commissions. Born in 1980, she grew up in an artistic household in Echo Park before formally studying at the Rhode Island School of Design. After returning to California, she began working as a public artist, and was the artist in residence at Avenue 50 Studio in Northeast Los Angeles from 2007-2014.

Elmer Guevara (b.1990) was born and raised in Los Angeles and is currently working bicoastally in New York City. In the 1980s, his parents fled a war-torn El Salvador finding refuge in the City of Angels. Along with South Central's vibrant energy and the culture his parents brought with them, he became inspired to reflect on his upbringing and the hybridity of cultures. He often constructs narratives by sampling family photos from his youth, reframing compositions that form dialogue about identity and concepts of inter-generational trauma.          Furthermore, he depicts observations from his own and neighboring immigrant families, who dealt with issues of marginalization. Through his teenage years he met with friends, commuting throughout the city on public transit becoming obsessed with exploring the city's crevices favoring the late nights to paint on walls and highways. This obsession later opened an appreciation for painting and an education in the arts. In 2017, he received a BFA in Drawing and Painting from Cal State University Long Beach and is currently an MFA candidate at Hunter College in New York City.  

Marcos Trinidad is the Center Director at the Audubon Center at Debs Park and also works as a Senior Regional Manager at TreePeople. He was born and raised in Northeast Los Angeles, where his family has lived for 75 years, Marcos has deep roots in the community. Marcos' formal education is in geology and anthropology.For two decades, Marcos has advanced equity, diversity and inclusion in the environmental movement, including co-directing LA's Environmental Professionals of Color chapter. Through that work, Marcos promoted and sponsored forums for people of color working in environmentally-related careers. He was recognized by the North American Association for Environmental Education as the recipient of the Rosa Parks and Grace Lee Boggs Award for his leadership in environmental justice, education and advocacy. Marcos loves to go bird watching with his two children, Paloma and Bija along the Los Angeles River.-----------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT! Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find Marcos Trinidad at:Instagram: @huskynaturalistFind Audoban/Debs Park at:Website: https://debspark.audubon.org---my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobr Donate at venmo: @ rafa-LA  SPONSOR:MOVITA JUICE BARhttp://movitajuicebar.com​​​​​​​​​​​Instagram: @movitajuicebarSPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe------------------Recorded at Outer Circle Mediahttps://www.outercirclemedia.com   ------------------

ULI BELLA, is a saxophonist for the LA based band Ozomatli. They have been touring the world for over twenty years spreading love and activism through music. -----------------------------------------Find Uli Bella at:Instagram: @ulibellaFind Ozomatli at:Website: https://ozomatli.com---my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobr Donate at venmo: @ rafa-LA  SPONSOR:MOVITA JUICE BARhttp://movitajuicebar.com​​​​​​​​​​​Instagram: @movitajuicebarSPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe------------------Recorded at Outer Circle Mediahttps://www.outercirclemedia.com   ------------------

Magallanes is a Los Angeles-based artist working with painting, sculpture, and mixed media. His work often touches down at the intersections of cultural iconography, the folkloric, and the aesthetics of propaganda. His artwork is informed by the cultural and social elements of his upbringing in a Mexican-American barrio east of downtown Los Angeles. At the age of fifteen, he was expelled from high school but was accepted into the Ryman Arts program at the Otis College campus, which encouraged him to become a professional artist.In 2016 Magallanes founded 3B Collective along with five other fellow UCLA Art students. They have focused on large-scale, site-specific public works. Since then, the 3B Collective has created permanent site-specific and public art projects for the Museo Infantil Oaxaca, UCLA, UCSD, California State University Stanislaus, and is currently working on public works for the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, University of California San Diego, and City College San Diego.

Ever Velasquez is an artist and curandera/santera.Ever's performance /photo series Baños and collage series use the visual language of Yoruba religious culture to explore the legacy of colonialism and its interweaving with the Lucumi religion, which she practices with a personal look into both personal spiritual look of ancestral self- care.The inspiration for the works were sparked by dreams and spiritual divination. Ever is fully initiated crowned priestess of Obatala and OshúnShe studies so she can preserve and defend this knowledge that has survived colonization while her continued work cultivates traditions for generations to inherent. While resisting the prejudices that continue to battle to this day from colonial religions .

Nathalie Sánchez is an interdisciplinary artist, social justice arts educator, and arts advocate raised and rooted in Los Angeles. At VPAM, Nathalie provides leadership and support to the Museum Studies Certificate Program at East Los Angeles College, an academic and professional development program aimed at cultivating a new generation of museum professionals. Nathalie firmly believes in the transformative power of arts education and community. She has developed and led visual arts and museum education programs at ArtworxLA, Avenue 50 Studio, ESMoA, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), and P.S. ARTS. In 2016, she founded the Art Education + Social Justice Book Club with over 300 members internationally. She graduated with her B.A. in Art History and Studio Arts with an emphasis in education from Loyola Marymount University and received her M.F.A. in Public Practice from Otis College of Art and Design.

David Gomez is a musician with a long history of bands and road manager for Chicano Batman.

Jen Martín was born and raised in Southeast Los Angeles.  At the age of 12, while watching the technicolor classic Auntie Mame (1958), Jen realized the limitless stories that can be told through costume design.  Jen's endless curiosity has led to immersion in music subcultures, art history, Almodovar films, and has traveled to Europe, Asia, and extensively throughout Latin America.  All of these experiences have fed into her unique worldview and eclectic style. ​While studying sewing and garment construction in college, Jen successfully began her own online vintage clothing shop. She has shared her ability to date any garment at a glance through her work as a 705 Union Costumer on period films including Carol, Dunkirk, Vice, Hairspray Live, Lovecraft Country and Blonde. Some of Jen's own contemporary costume design projects include those for Netflix, HBO, BET, Dazed Digital and Nowness, with several going on to showcase at Cannes and Sundance Film Festival.

Rudy Espinoza is the Executive Director of Inclusive Action and an urban planner with a passion for neighborhoods, entrepreneurism, and financial empowerment. He specializes in designing and managing place-based initiatives, identifying profitable investment opportunities in low-income communities, building private/nonprofit partnerships, and training the working poor to participate in the socio-economic revitalization of their neighborhoods. Rudy holds a Masters Degree in Urban Planning from UCLA and a B.S. in Business Administration.

Nico Avina. Poet, Artist, Entrepreneur.------------------------------------------Please SUBSCRIBE, LIKE and COMMENT! Share with your friends.Thank you for listening.Find Nico Avina at:Instagram: @espacio1839Website: https://www.espacio1839.com---my LINKS:Merch: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​/shopMy photography: http://rafa.LA​​​​​​​​​​​​​​NFT: https://opensea.io/collection/dancngsobr Donate at venmo: @ rafa-LA  SPONSOR:MOVITA JUICE BARhttp://movitajuicebar.com​​​​​​​​​​​Instagram: @movitajuicebarSPONSOR:PICARESCA CAFEhttps://www.barrapicaresca.comInstagram: @picarescacafe------------------Recorded at Outer Circle Mediahttps://www.outercirclemedia.com   ------------------

Born and raised in Montebello, California, Chelsea Rendon has been a working actress since the age of six. Her first role was a lead in the feature film  No Turning Back. Recipient of a Young Latinos In Hollywood award, Chelsea has been known to portray dominant roles for over a decade. Most recently, she is recognized for her role as a young “woke” activist ‘Mari' in STARZ's hit drama Vida. Chelsea was also nominated for her work in Vida for the Imagen Awards for Best Supporting Actress (2020). One of the fan favorites, Chelsea's character is from the Eastside of LA where Chelsea herself grew up. Equally as dedicated to film, Chelsea has brought her talents to Disney's McFarland, USA, and the Oscar-nominated film A Better Life. She can also be seen in Netflix's original hit Bright alongside Will Smith and Netflix horror film Thriller. Chelsea recently starred in the immigration drama, The Infiltrators. The film mixed documentary with narrative dramatization premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2019. Directed and produced by Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra, the film centers on a small group of young undocumented immigrants who embark on a high-risk mission inside America's for-profit detention system in order to set people free. Teaming up again with Bright director, David Ayer, Chelsea stars in the gritty American crime thriller, The Tax Collector (August 2020), alongside Shia LaBeouf, Lana Parilla, and George Lopez.

Marisol Medina-Cadena is a radio reporter and podcast producer. Before working at KQED, she produced for PBS member station, KCET, in Los Angeles. In 2017,  Marisol won an Emmy Award for her work on the televised documentary, City Rising, examining California's affordable housing crisis and the historical roots of gentrification.***This episode has some serious sound issues. I apologize to everyone and especially my guest for this distraction.

Pavel Acevedo, Oaxacan printmaker based in Riverside, California. His artwork uses the traditional language of relief print on wood. He was  awarded a fellowship from “James Irvine Foundation.”  Acevedo was part of two simultaneous projects at Getty Pacific Standard Time, Visualizing Language: Oaxaca in LA at the Los Angeles Central Library and Self Help Graphics,  and “ Myth and Mirage” with photographer Douglas McCulloh at the Riverside Art Museum.