SO! Amplifies: Radio Coyote’s #DIASPORADICAL Sound

SO! Amplifies. . .a highly-curated, rolling mini-post series by which we editors hip you to cultural makers and organizations doing work we really really dig.  You’re welcome!

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This whole world’s wild at heart and weird on top —Wild at Heart

Por tu amor. . . — Buyepongo

Radio Coyote is a San Francisco-based web radio program & podcast I co-host with my friend Jesus Varela, aka Sweet Jesus.   Radio Coyote is our effort at amplifying expression which is #DIASPORADICAL – acknowledging movement and humanity in a world alive with ART; most especially of those on the margins who in the current structure, have become the invisible inspiration for the priviliged, hardly benefiting from the soul they emit.

Recently, Jesus and I recorded with Los Angeles’s own future-rooted band of immigrant brothers – Buyepongo – live from the scrappy but charming Radio Valencia studios in the Mission District.  Some topics we talked about included connections between the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the hip-hop influence of Wu-tang Clan & Madlib on the group, and, importantly, the burgeoning yet connected #DIASPORADICAL network building alternatives and manifesting the visceral spirit of our ancestors through drumming.

This particular episode’s conversation is emblematic of how we use sound and voice on Radio Coyote to bring energies together to counter the hegemonic corporate $tandard currently funding the arts and culture industries—live music and entertainment but also tech and media, not to mention the spaces where they intersect—all reflective of a standard which is essentially: THE STRIVE FOR MONETARY SUCCESS MARKED AS WHITE ACHIEVEMENT A/K/A the land of the “Free” where the inspired benefit from those on the margins.

Nahhhhh, FUCK THAT. – emcee Nani Castle in To The People

The type of capitalist cultural extraction we challenge on Radio Coyote can be heard and seen everywhere. Justin Bieber, for example, has a #1 record right now (produced by Skrillex) that is clearly influenced by Caribbean dembow. I’m still waking up from that dream where Macklemore wins a Grammy award over the 2014 jazz griot giant that is Kendrick Lamar. The FADER, like so many media outlets, assigns white writers to cover emerging Latin culture in the US:  Exhibit A on contemporary cuban music & Exhibit B on J. Balvin and reggaton. And, I could go on. But because it is so pervasive, we need to keep asking, “Who benefits?”

It don’t make you right cause you majority.- Bree Newsome, South Carolina-based activist & artist who removed the Confederate Flag earlier this past Summer from SC’s capital

Mamacita, pass me a beer-a – Will Smith on Bomba Estereo’s “Fiesta” (Remix) for SONY

Because all around the world – or the worldwild, I like to say, people are waking up and acknowledging themselves, their neighbors, and the stories of their movement, exploring what those moves truly meant and what they will mean for a humanity needing to be increasingly inter-reliant in our crumbling late-Capitalist era.  Radio Coyote is a product, a revelation, and a confluence of these worldwild movements, amplifying the true vibration and rhythms of a very specific history and examining how they will mutate in the future.

Our voices and spirits have always been dangerous. During the conquest in what is now Mexico, for example, the Spansh conquistadors killed the ceremonial drummers first.  In Chile, when Augosto Pinochet seized power in 1973, he ordered revolutionary singer Victor Jara executed, and his soldiers kidnapped Jara, smashed his hands and wrists and shot him 44 times. But what was once dangerous has been disempowered and I predict, increasingly exploited. Now Canadian DJ A-Trak calls himself “Plantain Papi,” Roots drummer Questlove goes by “Questlove Gomez,” and Kendrick raps in Spanish. Bieber just dropped that dembow-influenced pop record while dembow legacy artists, Los Rakas (via Panama & Oakland) switched to Latin pop.

Cause I just need one more shot at second chances – Justin Bieber in “Sorry”

I get a lot of success because I’m white. – Diplo in YourEDM.com

Radio Coyote is our chance to explore these ideas and who benefits from the global flows of culture . To empower me. To empower us. To get back to the place where this expression was dangerous . We are smuggling these sounds to you over what was once pirate radio – now, online – because the boundaries between u$ are quite pronounced. Radio Coyote is my moment of love in a land$cape of domination and hate. We are powerful. It’s clarity through the confusion. Radio Coyote simply must be. It’s an effort at radically witnessing the expressions all over the world of people who’ve had access to Internet these last 10 – 15 years, but who also seek to honor, understand & feel a past which we are indisputably products of!

Though I am fiercely frightened to get on the mic every Friday from 2 – 4 PM PST, I like to think I’m reversing the common programming Latinas go through, constantly told to shush in this world.  I also feel a true duty. We simply need to step up and be ourselves! We need to acknowledge and be proud of our own particular story of being human in a world with the same level of equality as the other, together, with immense respect for the planet we live on and all the resources she provides (another topic I like to think about, but more on #PACHAMAMAISM at another time…).

There is nothing else we should be doing but seeing ourselves in each other and being very adamant about that. So this is my love force to you and I hope you continue to enjoy/share it. Lift your voice in love, too, in any way you feel is important out in the worldwild! And, then, tell me about it so we can have you call in and talk to us on Radio Coyote: radiocoyotesf@gmail.com! 😀

Tune-in to #RadioCoyote: Smuggling #DIASPORADICAL Sounds Across Borders Every Friday From 2 – 4 Pm PST With DJ Nipslip aka Naticonrazon and Jesucio aka Sweet Jesus: www.radiovalencia.fm. Archives:www.soundcloud.com/radiocoyote

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all images courtesy of the author

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Nati Linares aka Nati Conrazon is an artist advocate and cultural lobbyist rebalancing the world who was raised in New York City, but is currently living a #Bicoastalidad lifestyle which is rooted in Oakland, California. Her womanagement clients include Brazil-via-Brooklyn’s Vocalista Making Interracial Music Babies, Zuzuka Poderosa & Powerfully Raw Chilean/Irish Emcee, Nani Castle. Check out all her current projects: www.conrazon.me/projects/current-projects and follow her on Twitter: @conrazon, Instagram: naticonrazon and beyond! Embrace the hybrid!

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