The Philharmonik is the stage name of Christian Gates, a 24-year-old future soul and R&B artist in Sacramento. He’s earned a reputation for putting on electrifying live performances at Concerts in the Park, Sol Collective, the Tree Tone Records OnTheBlock Party and at venues all over town. His music blends contemporary rap and hip-hop influences … Read More
I learned about the amazing work of New Economy Coalition from a conference I had been hearing about whose name I loved, CommonBound. It was incredible to learn there was a national movement of people building tomorrow, today through solidarity economies. Now I get to work with over 200 organizations in coalition across many sectors … Read More
Congrats to 95 year old bullerengue singer Magin Diaz and the transnational team of collaborators who successfully crowdfunded and released his “El Orisha de la Rosa” album this year. It just won a Latin Grammy for Best Album Packaging. But inside the package, you’ll be inspired by the global collaboration connecting folkloric Colombian music to … Read More
Check out this piece I co-wrote with Francisco Perez for Africa Is A Country about Despacito, global Capitalism and where we can go from here to own our spirits! “What is the point of decrying the many ways the music industry exploits Afro-Latinos when nothing can be done (and we haven’t even touched on the obvious … Read More
“AfroRazones – a space for Afro-Cuban expression, archiving a Cuban manifestation of Black resistance in 2017 – was born last year inside DJ Jigüe’s Guampara Studios. It was nurtured by a team of Cuban and U.S.-based artists and organizers (including LPZ who produces for Cuban hip-hop luminaries, Danay Suarez and Los Aldeanos) that recognized the impending changes of the current sociopolitical … Read More
I landed this piece in Public Radio International (PRI’s The World) for Cuban songstress Daymé Arocena in advance of her Summer tour in the US. Check it out in full here! “My link with Santería is more musical,” she says. “I fell in love with Santería music before the religion.” She’s a classical composer and director trained … Read More
Being a part of the AfroRazones project – as publicist and advisor – has been a transformative experience for me as the daughter of a Cuban-born mother. Last year, while I was handling the publicity for the inaugural MANANA festival in Santiago de Cuba, I made my way to La Habana on a 14-hour truck ride to get to … Read More
Image via The 80% Alliance Here we are and here we’ll stay. Many are awakening to the harsh reality which has slowly been put in place throughout the last few decades (act like you know). Many have been working to build new systems and propose fresh ideas to a deafening status-quo for far too long. Well … Read More
What an awesome 2016! Thank you for the following projects, festivals and creators who trust conrazón to support their projects. Placements include The New York Times, PRI International, Afropop Worldwide, NY1, Los Angeles Times, Bitch Media, Salon, Spark Mag, La Liga Zine, The FADER, Mask Magazine, Racked, Noisey Colombia, RBMA Radio Panamérika, KEXP, Remezcla and many more. Click the links for highlight placement for the following projects: Dayme Arocena … Read More
Puerto Rican producer Eli Omar Rios (aka El Bles) didn’t expect inspiration to come in the form of a YouTube upload. Yet one six-minute video ended up deciding the fate of his new EP I Am Latin Soul. The Orlando-based artist was up late one night, googling videos of his father’s band Clave Tres. The Afro-Caribbean conjunto was … Read More