TV

  Texas-born Grant Dull has generated a little miracle. After moving to Buenos Aires, he started the Zizek collective, a group of DJs and electronic musicians devoted to a blend of digital rhythms and cumbia. What started as weekly parties is now a record label and a touring troupe. Watch my interview of Grant clicking…

To watch my interview with Arturo Guzmán, bass player of L.A.-based vallenato band Very Be Careful, click here. To listen to their music, click here.

Meet wonderful Portugese singer Catarina dos Santos, who just released her debut album “No Balanço do Mar.” [VIDEO]  [Sorry, no music in the interview, but you can listen here.]

Relishing the rich and varied canon of Latin music, I could not believe my bad luck when I moved to New York in 2004 and all you could hear blasting from cars, delis and bars was Daddy Yankee’s “Gasolina.” Not only was it the dance-du-jour, ready to spread like fire throughout the continent, but somehow…

The Dalkey Archive Press recently published The Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction, a stunning bilingual collection of 16 short stories by writers born after 1945. Álvaro Enrigue contributed with “On the Death of the Author,” which begins as an anecdote —a writer trying to tell the story of the last pure American Indian—, and seems…

A few weeks ago, I had the good fortune of interviewing Mexican literary critic Rafael Lemus and Mexican-cum-New-Yorker writer Carmen Boullosa. Among other thoughtful things, Lemus —who had recently published a collection of short stories— said he saw no difference between writing fiction and book reviews: just a leap from text form to another. Boullosa,…

In 2004 I was surprised by the elegance of Federico Aubele’s LP debut, Gran Hotel Buenos Aires. On his third record, Amatoria, the Argentinean musician has moved from  downtempo and electronic tango to pop ballads, and replaced the female singers with a (deep) voice of his own. Watch the interview (with Aubele performing a fragment…

Andrea Valeria, a Mexican writer who prefers to be called an “astrologist” before “astrologer,” makes a brave an intelligent effort to defend the study of the stars as a source for self-knowledge. She has Galileo on her side, she claims. Watch.

Yerba Buena’s lead vocalist CuCu Diamantes has released what promises to be one of the best Latin pop records of the year: her solo debut “CuCuLand.” The opening track, “Más fuerte,” is an amazing blend of chanson, flamenco, tango and go-go horns. I recently had the chance to interview CuCu Diamantes at NY1 Noticias. Watch…

It is hard to remember any other television interview I have made that has generated more feedback than this one, with astrologist Andrea Valeria. Perhaps it was the fact that it had to do with sex and she mentioned the number of erections that men are supposed to have everyday (11); perhaps it was the…