Felix Contreras

"Mi Burrito Sabanero" is about a little donkey making its way to Bethlehem on the night Jesus was born. We hear about a reimagined version of the classic Latin American Christmas song by Gaby Moreno.

For this edition of our holiday special we turn to the healing and uplifting power of the human voice with the Washington, D.C.-based group, Cantigas. The group's 25 members assembled in NPR's Studio 1 in front of a live audience to present an eclectic mix of songs and rhythms ...

Davíd Garza was already a favorite son for folks in Austin when I discovered a collection of his past works, filled with stunning songwriting and a voice that seemed familiar yet new. Once I heard his music, I knew I'd always look forward to whatever he produced.

Being a ...

When Los Lobos' Steve Berlin sent me an audio file of a band he was producing, I stopped what I was doing and listened closely. There was something about the energy coming from Enrique Chi's vocals as the rest of Making Movies enveloped him in sound.

The band has been ...

I was introduced to Santana in 1969, and have followed along ever since. At times, it was simply a musical path: I discovered jazz through the band's spiritual and jazz-influenced mid-'70s albums. Then, as Carlos Santana — a child of Mexico — made a name for himself in mainstream ...

A friend who lives in Mexico just wrote on her Facebook page to wonder whether the dead are hip to social media. She's moved around so much in the last year that she wants to make sure the people she's lost over the years know where to find her.

Such ...

Singer Raquel Sofia has spent most of her career 20 feet from stardom as a backup singer for Juanes and Shakira. But these days, she's got her own new album and tour, leading a small band of gifted musicians. Sofia's songs are about matters of the heart — and, as ...

Latino migration in the U.S. has placed people of Afro-Caribbean heritage all over the country. Bio Ritmo's heritage leads directly back to that migration — and to the sound of Fania Records, which fueled Latin dance music's transition from the big-band mambos of the 1950s to the cutting-edge sounds of ...

Achieving any kind of longevity in the music business is a tricky proposition. So when a genuine legend continues to produce engaging and artistic music, we take notice.

This week, we play a track from such a legend: Sergio Mendes. He played with the pioneers of bossa nova back ...

The first time I heard it, Irene Diaz's voice stopped me cold: Her sheer power belies her compact stature, and her musical impact is simply immense. With her musical partner Carolyn Cardoza strumming away intently on ukulele, Diaz conjures a place where emotions run deep and beauty is unmistakable. Watch ...

This week, something magical happens when independent thinkers take on pop music that we might normally skip. The Dominican indie musicians Las Acevedo take on the Ricky Martin megahit "She Bangs" in a gloriously unexpected way, reminding us that it's all about the song. An artfully written set of melodies, ...

The Southern California band Quetzal recently celebrated its 20th anniversary with a blowout concert that seemed to attract as many musicians as regular people. The band has maintained such a strong presence in the SoCal Chicano music scene that its members could be considered padrinos and padrinas of that free-flowing ...

From the beginning, Alt.Latino has been an experiment. We've tried many ways to present music as a window into Latin culture and experiences, and this week we come at our subject from another angle: a collection of interviews with artists whose recent albums offer distinct takes on Latin music.

New ...

Twenty years is a long time in the life of a band. In the case of Quetzal, its two decades have been spent playing the soundtrack of its East L.A. neighborhoods: an evolving mash-up of Mexican son jarocho, low-rider oldies, cumbia, boleros, rock and blues.

Many Angelenos consider Quetzal as ...

It can get so busy at Alt.Latino that we hardly have a chance to put down our earbuds and notice the little things in life — like our show's fourth cumpleaños on June 15. That's four years of scouting out great new music and bands in the Latin Alternative scene, ...

Adrian Quesada has a restless artistic vision — so much so that he needs four bands to accommodate his musical ideas, as well as a handful of producing gigs to help other artists realize their sound.

The Austin musician and producer is Alt.Latino's latest Guest DJ. We asked him on ...

One of my first album purchases ever was Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality in 1971. I actually took it back to my local Tower Records where I bought it because it sounded like there was something wrong with the sound. The guitars, I told them, they sound muffled and ...

Singer Jimmy Scott died of natural causes Thursday morning at his home in Las Vegas at age 88, according to his booking agent, Jean-Pierre Leduc.

Scott suffered from Kallmann's syndrome, a lifelong affliction that prevented his body from maturing through puberty. The condition slowed his growth, leaving ...

It takes just two words to sum up Salvadora Robot, the new album by the Colombian band Meridian Brothers: "happy weirdness."

Last year's release of the anthology Devocion: (Works 2005-2011) introduced the quirky group to audiences beyond avant-garde circles in Bogota, and Salvadora Robot reiterates that these free thinkers don't ...

They had me at "vintage Mexican circus music." Maroma, the new album by the roots band Pasotono Orquesta, is dedicated to music of the one-man circuses — known as maroma — that traveled in rural Mexico during the late 19th century. The big-tent circuses, or carpas, were pared down to ...