Alt.Latino

Alt.Latino

The global Latinx community is evolving and growing fast. Alt.Latino is here to celebrate it and all of its nuances through music. Each episode, NPR Music's Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre sit down with a different living legend or rising star to discuss Latinx culture, heritage, and the shared borders of our experiences. Let the chisme begin! Support NPR and get your music exploration sponsor-free with Alt.Latino+. Learn more at plus.npr.org/nprmusic

Episodes

A Brazilian summer and a lost Mexican masterpiece

February 18, 2026 • 33 mins
So, I was away for a bit and the new music just piled up during the holidays, and while we were watching Bad Bunny make headlines at the Grammys and the Super Bowl. Our first new music episode of the new year has quite a variety of styles from lots of different countries. We could say that about just about every new music show we produce. But what are we to do when the amount of creativity that comes our way pretty much overwhelms ...
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Puerto Rico takes the field at the Bad Bunny Super Bowl

February 11, 2026 • 33 mins
Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show was many things: a time-traveling journey through the history of Puerto Rico, a statement of pan-American unity, and a masterpiece of cultural expression. This week, co-hosts Felix Contreras and Anamaria Sayre are joined by Isabella Gomez Sarmiento — who brings on-the-ground reporting from San Juan — to unpack the symbolism embedded in Bad Bunny's performance.

Learn more about sponsor m...
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Bad Bunny makes history at the Grammys. Up next, the Super BBowl

February 4, 2026 • 37 mins
Last Sunday, Bad Bunny's 'DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS' became the first exclusively Spanish language album to win album of the year at the Grammys. This coming Sunday, the Puerto Rican megastar will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. For this week's episode, Anamaria Sayre and Isabella Gomez Sarmiento chat about what these two moments mean for Bad Bunny, the island of Puerto Rico, and the role of Latin music in America more broadly....
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Venezuela speaks: Producer Ella Bric spins songs with a 'teardrop of optimism'

January 28, 2026 • 31 mins
This month we’ve been looking at the music of Venezuela from a lot of different angles. For this episode, we’ve invited trumpet player and producer Ella Bric to be our guest DJ. She shared what she thinks are the most socially, culturally and politically impactful pieces of music to come out of Venezuela in the last half century.

Ella Bric grew up in a migrant-rich town in Venezuela called San Antonio de los Altos, surroun...
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Rawayana on their new album and a changing Venezuela

January 21, 2026 • 26 mins
Sometimes life imitates art - or at least the two can seem eerily connected. On Jan. 1, the Venezuelan band Rawayana released a new album, '¿Dónde Es El After?,' which began with a lyric that many interpreted as a wish for their country's leadership to be gone. A few days later, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was ousted from power and seized by American forces. For this week's episode, we chat with Fofo Story and Beto Monteneg...
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Our Love Letter to Bob Weir

January 14, 2026 • 28 mins
Over the weekend, we lost a musician who shaped the lives of countless people: the late, great Bob Weir. He was a founding member of the Grateful Dead who played guitar, wrote and sang in the band for 30 years. After Jerry Garcia died and the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir kept the spirit of the music alive for three more decades, creating new Deadheads for generations to come — he brought John Mayer, Billy Strings and even ...
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Music as protest in Venezuela

January 8, 2026 • 26 mins
Venezuela has a deep tradition of reflecting political change through music. This week, as the country reels from the seizure of its president by American forces, we explore the recent history of Venezuelan protest music, and from the Nineties right up until the present. First, we share an excerpt of an episode we made at another moment of political turmoil in Venezuela, in the summer of 2024. Then, we'll walk up to the present and...
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What We Missed In 2025

December 17, 2025 • 31 mins
The sheer volume and variety of Spanish-language music released every year is breathtaking. Even those of us with our ears to the ground are bound to miss things. So, in this episode we travel back through the year to resurface some of the remarkable albums that somehow didn't make it on the show. Catch Afro-Caribbean jazz, a history-spanning classical strings project, the return of Juana Molina and much, much more.

Artist...
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What Were Felix and Ana's 2025 Favorites?

December 10, 2025 • 34 mins
This year was bookended by two major statements in Latin music. In January, Bad Bunny released DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, and followed that up with a 31-show residency in Puerto Rico over the summer. Then, in November, the Spanish vocalist Rosalía released her genre-defying masterpiece LUX, which sent legions of music lovers scrambling to try to grasp the magnitude of an album performed in 13 different languages.

But they were ...
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Zen and the art of new music

December 3, 2025 • 28 mins
Some folks think by December all the releases for the year are complete. Not quite. This week we feature a new music show with albums that should be considered along with the year’s best.  

We've got pop and alternative from Mexico, funk from Colombia, rock and ambient from New York and a Tejano master celebrated by his fellow Texans. Plus, Felix brings the zen. 

Artists and songs featured in this episode: 
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Roots and unity at the Latin Grammys

November 19, 2025 • 27 mins
The annual Latin Grammy awards are always full of glamour and glitz. But they're also an ideal time to take the pulse of the industry - which is exactly what Anamaria Sayre did this year, perusing the red carpet to talk with the most exciting names in Latin music. 

In this episode, Ana brings Felix her report from Las Vegas, where Bad Bunny won Album of the Year, the independent Brazilian music scene made a splash, and the...
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Rosalía in her own words

November 12, 2025 • 32 mins
Spanish vocalist and composer Rosalía has been a major presence in Spanish language music since she released her 2018 album, "El Mal Querer." She started by leaning into her flamenco roots, but since then she has expanded her musical vision to become one of those musicians who defies category.

Her new album "LUX" stretches that descriptor to its limit. Her musical tools this time include the London Symphony Orchestra, sing...
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Portraits of Jazz and Identity in Latin America

November 5, 2025 • 28 mins
Ever since I heard the Argentine saxophonist Gato Barbieri back in the Seventies, I’ve been fascinated by musicians from South America who found their way to jazz.

Lately there seems to be a strong showing of contemporary musicians from various Latin American countries who not only play jazz but also mix certain Latin American folk traditions into their sound.

So, this week I spoke with six of them: vocalist Claud...
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Salsa, bossa nova, and Argentina's next big thing

October 29, 2025 • 32 mins
Not to sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again: the variety of creative expression in what is inadequately labeled "Latin music" continues to astound me.

From the bossa nova-by-way-of-Guatemala of Fabuloso and Los Skeepers, to the evolving torch singing of the Chilean-via-Mexico vocalist Mon Laferte, to the ‘Western noir’ of California singer Andrés Miguel Cervantes, to Nathy Peluso’s Argentine take on Seventies ...
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What's in our mailbag? The beauty of simplicity

October 22, 2025 • 30 mins
The past month has been a whirlwind. The El Tiny takeover of the Tiny Desk... interviews with some of the most exciting artists in Latin music... and, of course, puppets! So, for today's episode, we emerge from the craziness and dig into our neglected mailbag, which is brimming with new music. What did we find? Simple beauty. A young songwriter from Veracruz whose spare compositions have wowed his elders. An offbeat producer from M...
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A Tiny Desk chat with Silvana Estrada

October 15, 2025 • 35 mins
There's no question that Mexican vocalist and composer Silvana Estrada is special to Alt.Latino. Ever since she launched her 2022 album "Marchita" with a series of revelatory singles, she seemingly spoke directly to Alt.Latino co-host Anamaria Sayre.

Since those earliest days, the two have been able to spend quite a bit of time together in interviews and other public gatherings, which only brought them closer on a personal...
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A conversation with Gloria Estefan

October 8, 2025 • 28 mins
Gloria Estefan is one of those musicians whose work and mere presence in the record industry deserves without question platitudes like ‘pioneering’ or ‘ground breaking.’ In fact, we have often mentioned her in that light throughout the 15 years of Alt.Latino. So it was a thrill to invite her to chat with us once again, this time immediately after a stunning Tiny Desk performance that will publish Oct. 13. She gives serious Favorite...
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The return of El Tiny

October 1, 2025 • 30 mins
It's that time of year again: NPR's Tiny Desk becomes El Tiny, featuring concerts from some of the most exciting and legendary Latin artists around. So, this week Felix and Ana run through this year's El Tiny lineup and listen to performances from Fito Paez, Carlos Vives, Chuwi and more. Plus, a conversation about the news that Bad Bunny will perform at next year's Super Bowl LX.

This podcast episode was produced by Noah C...
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Latin honky tonk and imaginary collaborations

September 24, 2025 • 28 mins
The way new music comes to Alt.Latino World Headquarters says a lot about our slight age difference. I still get CDs in the mail, with an occasional music file sent via email. Ana is constantly playing me audio files she gets vial email or texts from her new music sources, very rarely on CD. So while we were busy putting the finishing touches on our fist annual El Tiny takeover of the Tiny Desk Concert series, our mail piled up. Wh...
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Bad Bunny Closes Out His Residency

September 17, 2025 • 35 mins
Bad Bunny's months-long residency in Puerto Rico is coming to an end. The shows brought in hundreds of millions of dollars to the island, and sparked new debates about Puerto Rican identity and politics.

For this week's episode, Ana and Felix traveled to San Juan to take in one of the final performances, and interview both locals and tourists about the musical and cultural impact of the summer of Bad Bunny.

This ...
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