For years questions about finances and philosophy have plagued the Miami Caribbean Carnival that annually attracts roughly 100,000 revelers. Some support staff claim not to have been paid for their services, and differences over the festival’s direction led this year to the creation of a competing Carnival. But the biggest…
In the dark days of slavery, Carnival offered release. For two days and nights before Lent every year in Trinidad, sorrow gave way to bacchanal as the horrific face of reality was hidden by the mask of fantasy. Now, less than a month after the terrorist attacks, Carnival’s music and…
Heavy beats burst out of car windows across Opa-locka as Trinidadian-American pirate radio DJ Gisselle “the Wassie One” Blanche blasts the latest hip-hop-flavored release from soca queen Alison Hinds. Inside a tidy house on the city’s north side, the big bass of Mixx 96 FM gives way to the tickling…
The most powerful statement made at last Friday’s all-star telethon, “America: A Tribute to Heroes,” was unspoken and unsung. Simulcast by more than 35 networks and cable outlets and 8000 radio stations, the two-hour program quietly provided 89 million viewers with a definition of heroism based solely on saving lives…
Hoping to keep politics from drowning out the music, the Latin Grammys moved from Miami to Los Angeles. Then the suicide-hijacking of four commercial airliners on the morning of the event blasted the sound of Latin music out of the sky. With more than 5000 bodies buried beneath the rubble…
The silhouette of a go-go dancer shimmies above the broad staircase that leads to Billboardlive. Her ponytail flips as she bends, grabs her ankles, and jutts her posterior toward the promoters, producers, politicians, journalists, and stars waiting for their names to be checked off at the velvet rope below. So…
Late one Sunday night at the restaurant Azul in the Mandarin Oriental hotel on Brickell Key, rumors circulate faster than the jerk scallops and sugar cane passed on silver trays. The invitation-only party is in honor of multiplatinum Mexican balladeer Cristian Castro, who has just kicked off a tour for…
In the aftermath of the Latin Grammys debacle, an L.A. Times column pilloried Miami for delusions of grandeur about being the capital of Latin music and cast aspersions at homegrown Latin talent Gloria Estefan, Enrique Iglesias, and Jon Secada. Lord knows, I’ve cast plenty of the same aspersions myself, and…
“Here’s George W. Bush,” says Emilio Izquierdo as he draws a diagram. “Here are all his administrators,” he continues, running his finger down the page. “And here’s Emilio Estefan,” he concludes, placing the music mogul in a chain of command under the president. “But if Shakira says she hates the…
Listening to an old-time radio show years ago, Emilio Reguiera heard a raspy voice slur through a calypso chorus, cracking the words into jagged shards of disappointment without ever losing the beat. He could not understand the English, but he could almost see the lined black face of the chombo,…
“The stars are wearing millions of dollars of diamonds,” comments Level nightclub owner Gerry Kelly, in a cadence as slinky as a catwalk. “The last time Sean Puffy Combs was in, he had $3.5 million worth of diamonds around his neck.” When asked who among the celebs frequenting the club…
Once upon a time on the island of Borinquen there were two kinds of kids: cocolos and rockeros. Cocolos were working class and dark skinned, spoke Spanish exclusively, and listened only to salsa. Rockeros had more money, lighter skin, spoke English as fluently as Spanish, and listened only to rock…
Apparently I was not the only person to get a little delirious over the idea of exile queen Celia Cruz singing a duet with island dame Omara Portuondo at this year’s Latin Grammys. The ever-vigilant patriots of Vigilia Mambisa secured a videotape of Our Lady of the Buena Vista Social…
Matti Bower picked an awkward moment to make her pitch. Eager to get out the word about Music Fest Miami, a Labor Day weekend event designed to celebrate the cultural diversity of Miami-Dade County, the Miami Beach city commissioner joined WQBA-AM (1140) radio commentator Ninoska Perez Castellon on her show…
The performance that reflected best on Miami at the Second Annual Latin Grammy Awards took place outside the American Airlines Arena, far from the red carpet. In a gesture proposed by Ramon Saul Sanchez of the exile group Movimiento Democracia, passionate opponents of the Castro regime stood silent, their mouths…
When Juan Esteban Aristizabal woke up on July 12, he was not a rock star. By the time he went to bed that Tuesday night, he was. “It’s completely absurd,” says the 27-year old called Juanes, while a television camera caresses his face, a newspaper reporter scribbles notes, and a…
The invasion began in earnest four months ago, when the Grateful Dread moved into the house next door. Jahsun set up his psychedelic reggae band on the driveway of what had once been a quiet pitstop for airline personnel between flights. The positive vibrations drew more musicians to the street…
The next time you hear Latin rock on the radio it won’t be a beer commercial, at least not if you’re tuned into Radio Uno (WKAT-AM 1360) between 8:00 and 10:00 any night of the week. Kike Posada, the founder and editor of Boom Magazine who won a local hero…
More peace signs dangle from the ceiling and microphone stands on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on May 15 than from the rearview mirrors of a caravan of hippies. A woman is singing with her eyes closed, straight hair framing her face like a medieval Madonna. Tall and angular,…
For five bucks back in the early Nineties, you could get a bottle of beer and a hand job from a Central American prostitute in the Little Havana dive at 2212 SW Eighth St. Pepe Horta changed all that when he gutted the bar and opened Café Nostalgia, a gathering…
Dressed like a huntress from some faraway heaven, a white feather quiver slung across her back and leather falconry gloves strapped to her forearms, the bald and beautiful Erykah Badu warns roughly 7000 black professionals gathered at the Miami Arena earlier this month: “The papers don’t know us. The commercials…
Feet scrape against concrete in a solar off San Lazaro Street in Havana. Dish towels, underclothes, and a pair of rubber slippers hang from lines strewn above the open courtyard. Two children stand watching from an open doorway as four women, black skin glistening in the afternoon sun, roll shoulders…
