NPR Music - A moment for Los Angeles

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Los Angeles is home for me and always in my heart. Watching the fires from afar in my current city, New York, has me thinking a lot about what makes my hometown great: breathtaking mountains, stunning beaches and above all a hodgepodge, tapestry community that comes together in powerful ways during a painful moment.The good and bad of LA's history — redlining and rebuilding, previous fires and displacement, immigration and annexation — have all been building blocks for an exchange of culture that shows up in layers in its music and art. This week on Alt.Latino, we've decided to shine a light on some of the sounds that feel most quintessentially LA, while also specifically honoring the creativity that has come from communities most affected by the fires.We're thinking of family and friends, and the beating heart of the city as a whole. There's nothing quite like LA and we hope this episode is an intro to some and an invitation for others to celebrate what makes it so special. —Anamaria SayreSongs featured on this episode:•José Feliciano, "California Dreamin"•Ry Cooder feat. Lalo Guerrero, "Barrio Viejo"•Banda MS feat. Becky G and Snoop Dogg, "Que Maldicion"•Jasper Bones, "Amor de mis sueños"•Gerardo Ortiz, "Dámaso"•Empress Of, "For Your Consideration"See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

From NPR Music, this is Alt Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Let the Chisemay begin. And this week, Anna, the Chisemay is a little serious. It's a little, a bit heartfelt this week. We're going to dedicate this episode to Southern California, to Los Angeles specifically in light of all the fires

and all the stuff that's going on there. We're both from California. It's touching both of our hearts. You more so, I think, because. you actually are from Southern California. Yeah, Felix. It's a city that I think is really significant to a lot of people in our community. It's almost 50% Latino.

It used to be Mexico. So we just wanted to take some space to talk about the music that has been a part of why it's so special. So we've each dipped into our own personal catalog of music about Southern California to help us send out healing energy and good vibes to the folks that are suffering through that stuff. Felix is going to share a couple of songs that generally remind us of the LA community,

and I'll be sharing some music that's more specifically from the affected areas. Anna always teases me about this. I'm an old softie. I'm going to go back to 1968 and a recording by Jose Feliciano. He did a cover of a song called California Dreamin, which was written from the perspective of someone in New York thinking about California, and it resonates with me because it reflects my own very first trip to New York in December of 1981. And it was cold and gray and dark, exactly like the lyrics say. And it really struck home to me. It really hit me finally. I understood hearing him sing this lament about dreaming of California. And that's sort of where I am right now, thinking about all the folks in Southern California. And just something about the way he says,

L.A. It's, we say it differently. We don't, you know what I mean? It's, it's so, we He says it in the song and it struck me and I heard it. So I wanted to start to show off with that. This is Jose Feliciano in 1968. This is California Dreaming. First of all, Felix, I love this song. And second of all, I'm always California dreamt, especially maybe now more than ever.

You know, I mentioned that it was a cover. There was a group called the Mamas and the Pappas from the 1960s. Kind of a trippy little hippie band, Mama Cass Alley, John Phillips. It was a whole little vocal group. It was a quartet. I had these four-part harmonies and stuff. And John Phillips and Michelle Phillips in that band, they wrote this song and it was very different version.

It was very kind of pop-ish. They wanted to be hippies, but they also wanted to be mainstream. They wanted to sell a lot of records. So they wrote this song. But this song really struck me because of the way he slowed it down and just really just dug into the idea of thinking about California when you're so far away. Of course, Jose Feliciano is Puerto Ricans from the island.

He's lived all over the place, but somehow he's struck. struck a chord with those of us from California on this song. He picks it up at the end and there's all this improvisation. But for me, this is one of those classic songs that, living out here in the West Coast for 20 plus years now, when I hear this song, get the tissue. I'm a mess. Wait, Felix, living out here in the East Coast. What did I say? You said West. Wishful thinking. Okay. Always. Tell it for me.

You can't stop California dreaming, Felix. I know, man. You're absolutely right. I have the first three songs in this show this week. So I'm going to move on to the next song. When I think about Southern California, I think about Los Angeles. There's so much history there. It used to be part of Mexico.

And for the longest time, there were more Mexicans in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County than there were in any other city in Mexico except for Mexico City. And the population there is still, still very, very strong. I'm going to play a song called Barrio Viejo. It's from an album called Chavez Ravine. The album is by a guitar player named Rai Cudor featuring Lalo Guerrero and Flaco Jimenez. There's a whole lot of emotion for me listening to this song.

Just so folks know, let me give you very, very quick, like historical context on this thing. This album is a song cycle from 2005 that tells the story of a Chicano community with very, very deep historical roots. It was called Chavez Ravine, and it was a part of L.A. that housed three predominant, Mexican-American communities, Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop. Reportedly, there were 1,800 families that were forced to relocate in the late 1950s under the guise of building low-income housing, but the land eventually became the home of the L.A. Dodgers. Dodger Stadium sits on top of these old communities. The families were never compensated for having to move.

When I think of Los Angeles, I think of all the great things, but I also think of the troubled and the challenging history that's there. And in a way, it's that history that makes the city so special and the music so special because it does have this ever-evolving transitional status where you see people get pushed out and then find ways to reclaim space, reclaim land, and build new communities throughout the city. It's this very unique L.A. phenomenon, I think, because it's so spread out. And because there's so many variants of lands and communities, it's so big, right? There's so many avenues to create something new.

And the music has always, I think, evolved and reflected that growth and change. And this album by Rai Kuder features Lalo Guerrero on vocals, who is considered the father of Chicano music going back to the 1950s. When he mixed big band jazz with like themes about Pachucos and Zooters, and of course, Flaco Jimenez from San Antonio, who is like the premier Mexican-American accordionist. So this song, all of this stuff, and it tells this story about these families who had to move.

Rikuder is a Southern California native, and he is immersed himself in R&B and blues. He is the guy, the mastermind behind the Buenevista Social Club album in the early 2000s, but his heart is always in Los Angeles, and he's done a lot of music that has Mexican music background and backbone, and he was one of the guys who brought Flacco Jimenez out to the mainstream. So, yeah, Rikudor, great album.

The album was called Chavez Ravine. The track we heard is Barrio Villajo. And just as a postscript, in 2024, there was legislation calling for reparations and passed, but was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom for the folks who were displaced. He said his reasoning was that reparations should come from local L.A. County. And the woman who sponsored the bill and wrote the bill agreed. So that's in the process now being taken care of. So it's not a done deal.

They're still working on reparations. It's a famous part of L.A. history that if you've been around long enough, Chavez Ravines means a couple of things, a home of the Dodgers, but also a displaced community. How could you think about Southern California and not think about this music? Let's play a little bit of the song. This is Banda M.S. featuring Snoop Dog and Becky Jee. on the track

That Maldicion We'll talk about it after But this is everything about Southern California Every time you leave There's only one thing that I know What's that? Baby you're de extraño

Maybe me that's like Guilty because I go away a lot But say you want me to stay And I won't Salia I'm here Whenever you say that you need me If my necessitas I la ride Believe me

Vigo double G So your perido loya Even when I get out I come right back to the y'all Mommy me duly when you're not always I'm your man, I still a friend, I'm still that means I love you dearly

And every time you're going, I'm always going on you, won't you near me? Right? That one always gets me. There's a few mascots of Los Angeles and Snoop Dogg has to be one of them. Yeah, right. Hallmark cultural figure.

The single was released in May of 2020, And then there was a remix with Becky G., which took it to an even higher level at December of that year. Also, Becky G., notorious, L.A., fanatic, hometown girl always promoting. When I heard this song, it didn't strike me as odd or weird.

It just made total sense because it represents the long history of the way the African-American communities and the Chicano communities, the Mexican-American communities, they live right next to each other, man. They're listening to each other. music and, you know, going back to the 70s with bands like War and El Chicano, that

cultural mix came out, but to me, this one and I heard this, I'm like, yeah, thank you for updating that cultural existence. This thing makes total sense about what LA's all about. Again, that was Que Maldison from Banda MSF featuring Snoop Dogg and Becky G. That kind of brings us up to contemporary music. And that's what we're going to do next. We're going to take a break and then come back. And Anna has three songs that she wants to share with you.

That brings us up to where we are right now. You are listening to Alt Latino from NPR Music. We're back listening to music that makes us think of Los Angeles in this really painful moment. I'm going to go ahead and talk about a couple songs that specifically come from artists from the affected communities. I'm going to start with Pasadena, which has been hit pretty badly by the Eaton Fire. Now, Pasadena has undergone a lot of demographic shifts throughout its history. Currently, it's over 30% Latino, and it holds all kinds of generations of Latinos, right? You have people who have been there for ages, people have just got there,

and as a result, it's kind of created its own world of different variants of Mexican identity, specifically within the U.S. So I'm actually bringing in two different artists who are both born and raised in Pasadena, who are doing some pretty different styles of ultimately Mexican-adjacent music. The first one I'm going to show you is Jasper Bones, who goes by Jasper. The song is Amor de My Sweenos. Now, Jasper is a pretty small indie artist that fits really nicely in that bedroom pop space that a lot of other Mexican-American kids have been playing with. You might recognize his sound as being kind of similar to, say, in Omar Apollo, who, by the way, isn't from the city, but does actually currently reside in Pasadena or maybe even a Kuko.

You know, these Mexican-American kids who come from Mexican-Harae, who come from Mexican-Herit. are now building a new kind of Chicano sound, right? And that for them is this kind of indie bedroom pop that mixes English and Spanish. The next artist I want to show you is also Mexican descent, living in Pasadena, but expressing that Mexican identity in a totally different way. This is Gerardo Ortiz, and the song is Damaso.

Herodoro, though, interestingly enough, is a pretty big name in the regional Mexican world. His biggest listener base is in Mexico. But he is California, Pasadena, homegrown, born and raised. And I love the comparison of these two tracks side by side because they are both in their equal, right, expressing that heritage, expressing that Pasadena culture as well. But in these really beautiful diverse ways, it just shows how the city has been able to, foster and grow a Mexican community that is all different versions of that identity. I want to say something, but it's kind of stupid. Well, now you have to say it.

When I think of Pasadena, I think of Van Halen, because the Van Halen brothers are from Pasadena. Also true. A lot of, a lot of amazing musicians have come out of Pasadena. It is like a very, very popular, big space for, I don't know, creativity, I guess. One of the things that also strikes me about Pasadena, because I don't know a lot of people who are from there, but, you know, I used to ride the train a lot from Fresno down to Southern California, and Pasadena has this lovely little train station, and it's decorated with tile that was imported from Mexico. And it's just really beautiful work of art.

And I guess there's no way to know if it's going to survive the fires. But that's what I thought about when I heard that the fires had reached that area, along with, you know, of course, the people who were having to evacuate. So the next community I want to pivot towards is ultimately. Tadina, another community affected by the Eaton fire. This one really broke my heart, Felix, because it really kind of is one of the greatest success stories of a multicultural, multi-generational community built on working class families who have been able to actually buy homes, buy property in the city and build, you know, centers for their family to

come back to and care about. And it has this really incredible. history of starting as an agricultural community. It then became actually one of the first middle-class black communities in the city, shifted because of gentrification. And then in the 60s, it became basically this safe haven and beautiful community for people of color. It's incredibly diverse. Many Latinos living there alongside black folks. The population is now about 30% Latino. So it's one of the most racially diverse places in L.A. County with this exchange of culture that is constantly going on there. So in L.A. in a city that does have a history of a lot of segregation, it's incredible to see. It's a really heartbreaking loss. I specifically wanted to highlight the music of Laura Lee Rodriguez. She goes by the artist named Empress of.

She and her mom actually lost their home in the fire in Altadina, so especially close, talking about her. They're really active members of the community of the music and art scene there. This song in particular was off her latest album, For Your Consideration. It's the title track, and it's actually a nod to her upbringing in L.A. She loves to explore her Latin identity within the city in a lot of her music. So very on point. This is for your consideration.

You know, for people from California, there's this dividing line. You're either a Southern California type person or a Northern California type person. This is true. And I've always, you know, I've always spent more time in Northern California just, because I was born up there, I was born in Sacramento and lived in Fresno, which is almost like a dividing line in a way. It's in the middle of the state, but it was easier for me to drive to San Francisco than it was over the great finding to get to Los Angeles for these midnight run concerts on the way back home.

It's not like I hated Southern California like some people do. My dad's family lived for a time in Gardena. My nephew lives there right now. So, you know, I do have an attachment to Southern California. And, you know, this natural disaster like this just breaks all boundaries. My heart, our hearts go out to everybody that's suffering through this. And it's going to just take a long time, if ever, to try to recover from this. Yeah, I think it's going to be a really, really difficult and painful rebuilding process.

But we're really glad we're doing this show, Felix, because I think it's important to remember how culturally strong the city is. I mean, we could go on and on and on and on talking about just the richness of the music, of the communities, of the variety of cultures and mixes and things that exist. it's a messy place and I think you really learn to love the mess and appreciate it for what it is. I've been reflecting a lot on actually our interview with Ili I bring this up sometimes

because it's so powerful but what she said about Puerto Rico when we interviewed her and that feeling of wanting to be there we are going to include links on our page npr.org slash alt latino. We want to give people a chance to look at a lot of the different mutual aid organizations, ways to donate, ways to volunteer if you are in the area. I wish I could volunteer.

We hope everyone stays safe. Our hearts are with the city. And thank you for listening. You have been listening to Latino from NPR Music. Simon Retner is our audio producer. We get editorial support from Hazel Sills. Grace Chung is our project manager, and Serey Mohamed is the executive producer of NPR Music. Keith Jenkins is our hefe and chief.

I'm Felix Contreras. I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Thanks for listening.