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Speaker 1: I loved seeing how people reacted when somebody was singing

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Speaker 1: stuff like that that would give you goose bumps or

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Speaker 1: like that kind of stuff. I want to be able

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Speaker 1: to do that. I still don't know if I do that,

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Speaker 1: but it was just something I always wanted to do.

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Speaker 2: Cattle New Chin need.

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Speaker 1: A sound.

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Speaker 3: From Puturo Media. It's that you know Usa. I'm Maria

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Speaker 3: ino Hoosa today one of our How I Made It

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Speaker 3: segments with Omar Apollo, a rising star in the Indie

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Speaker 3: R and BC. Omar Apollo began making music on his own,

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Speaker 3: teaching himself chords from YouTube videos and honing his sound

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Speaker 3: in an attic in a small town in Indiana. His

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Speaker 3: musical inspirations transcend borders and cultures, reflecting his experience as

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Speaker 3: a son of immigrants from Guaalajara, Mexico growing up deep

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Speaker 3: in the Midwest. The music of this twenty three year

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Speaker 3: old Mexican American artist courses with rich funk, sweet soul,

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Speaker 3: and upbeat pop, and his lyrics often flow seamlessly between

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Speaker 3: English and Spanish. Omar began performing music at house parties

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Speaker 3: and open mics in his hometown of Lake Station, Indiana.

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Speaker 3: Then in twenty seventeen, while working at a fast food restaurant,

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Speaker 3: Omar found his first breakthrough on Spotify with the.

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Speaker 4: Song you Got Me.

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Speaker 3: He then began receiving invitations to play at venues in

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Speaker 3: Chicago and eventually across the country. Almost four years later,

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Speaker 3: Omar has amassed more than a hundred million streams on

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Speaker 3: Spotify and has signed a recording deal with Warner Records.

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Speaker 3: Before the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a halt,

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Speaker 3: Omar had relocated to Los Angeles after wrapping up nearly

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Speaker 3: two years of touring throughout North America, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

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Speaker 3: When California went on lockdown, Omar decided to scrap everything

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Speaker 3: that he'd been working on, daring himself to turn quarantine

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Speaker 3: into a lab of sonic experimentation. On this episode of

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Speaker 3: How I Made It, Omar takes us to the early

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Speaker 3: days of making music on bowered equipment and tells us

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Speaker 3: how he explored everything from funk music to corridos in

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Speaker 3: order to make his debut album, Apologno.

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Speaker 1: It was up Omar Apollo and I'm an artist from Indiana.

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Speaker 1: I'm from Lake Station, Indiana, where I grew up, so

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Speaker 1: I don't need a GPS to go around anywhere. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of very small, everybody knows everybody type of thing.

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Speaker 1: The It wasn't really much of a music scene, but

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Speaker 1: I would go to little events. I just wanted to perform.

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Speaker 1: I don't knew what you need. The first bands that

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Speaker 1: got me into music there's a band called the Internet

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Speaker 1: and they released album called Ego Death when I was

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Speaker 1: like seventeen.

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Speaker 4: Need for Your Thoughts and Knowledge.

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Speaker 1: I remember I just listening to the album and then

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Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, I need to get a

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Speaker 1: guitar tomorrow. So after I heard that, I just went

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Speaker 1: to the pawn shop and got a guitar. My friend

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Speaker 1: let me borrow his bass. Then my other friend and

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Speaker 1: let me borrow his interface. My first memory really of

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Speaker 1: getting started with music was in the garage. I had

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Speaker 1: a few friends who played. I was eighteen when I

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Speaker 1: started performing. After we started playing in Indiana, people were like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you could play, Like, come play over here. It was

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Speaker 1: just a hobby of some I did, but I wasn't

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Speaker 1: sure that it was gonna happen. I made you Got

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Speaker 1: Me twenty's seventeen, and I remember I was by myself

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Speaker 1: really and then I called my cousin because he lived

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Speaker 1: down the street, and I was like, Yo, you gotta

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Speaker 1: come through, fool, come listen to this song I just made.

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Speaker 1: He's like, all right, I'm coming. He flew up in

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Speaker 1: his little Monte Carlo and then I played it for him.

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Speaker 1: He was just like, bro, what Like that's insane.

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Speaker 2: Maybe there's something you know, but really say, I'm not good.

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Speaker 2: I think that I really.

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Speaker 1: My friend was like, you gotta put on Spotify, and

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Speaker 1: then I didn't have any money, so he gave him

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Speaker 1: money to put it up and then got like playlisted

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Speaker 1: or something. I got on like three playlists or something,

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Speaker 1: and then I woke up and I had like all

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Speaker 1: these plays and I was like whoa. I was like,

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Speaker 1: that's crazy. I was like working on McDonald's and collected

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Speaker 1: in the work that day, and then my friend told

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Speaker 1: me the next day. He was like, Yo, you gotta

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Speaker 1: you gotta put it another one on? You got another one?

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Speaker 1: I was like yeah, And then I had break lights

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Speaker 1: like ready to go, markers like you.

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Speaker 4: Cute?

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Speaker 1: Right though? So I wanted to get good at making music,

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Speaker 1: so I was just made it a bunch of songs

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Speaker 1: a month for like the whole summer, like thirty five

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Speaker 1: songs a month, and I would put them out or nothing.

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Speaker 1: None of them ever came out. It's just on this

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Speaker 1: hard drive, whether it was just an idea or like

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Speaker 1: or a full song or just a bunch of mumbles

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Speaker 1: or a bunch of harmonies. It was not until I

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Speaker 1: started like selling out shows that I was like, Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is possible. So after I got off the tour,

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Speaker 1: I didn't like the music I had been making, and

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Speaker 1: I had this process and I was just bored with

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Speaker 1: the process, and so I figured out needed to do

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Speaker 1: like a lot of different things, like try different things

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Speaker 1: in music. I had twenty five twenty seven songs or something,

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Speaker 1: and I was getting ready to put it together, you know,

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Speaker 1: release it. But then Quarantine happened, and yeah, it kind

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Speaker 1: of hit me. Made a lot of stuff I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: normally make. But I had just started using a lot

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Speaker 1: of pedals, and there was this one pedal in particular,

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Speaker 1: it's called the Mutron.

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Speaker 5: It's like wow, wow, wow, wow, It's like WoT won't

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Speaker 5: Steve you wanted to use it? Bootsy Collins use it,

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Speaker 5: George Clinton, everyone used it. I ordered it because I

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Speaker 5: was like, oh we got money, now I can I

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Speaker 5: can order things. Then then I woke up the next

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Speaker 5: morning after playing with it all night, and then like

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Speaker 5: made stay Back.

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Speaker 1: And obviously it's very Booty Collins inspired. Booty Collins is

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Speaker 1: one of the pioneers of funk music. He was the

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Speaker 1: first one to like slow it down and make this

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Speaker 1: funk music that was sexy and slow. I just kind

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Speaker 1: of said the ideas to my managements that would be

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Speaker 1: really cool for got Bootsy Collins on this, so yeah,

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Speaker 1: it would be so then I just d M him

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Speaker 1: and then then you like responded and then uh, you

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Speaker 1: heard the song and he was down.

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Speaker 4: Especial and I'm thinking about you all the time.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I still have a lot of things

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Speaker 1: that I want to do to like satisfy myself, and

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Speaker 1: I think I had the same feelings when I was

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Speaker 1: younger too. I played with the La Philharmonic recently and

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Speaker 1: they learned this corrido called those that I made cordrido.

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Speaker 1: It's a Mexican style of music. It was just crazy

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Speaker 1: to hear, like I have the sheet music that transcribed

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Speaker 1: sheet music in my studio just because it's really cool

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Speaker 1: to look at you. I don't know I've never looked

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Speaker 1: at music that way, and so it was just really

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Speaker 1: interesting to see people play along to it in a

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Speaker 1: very trained way. My earliest memory of a corrido was

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Speaker 1: probably my uncle's my Theo's playing it in the living

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Speaker 1: room like two in the morning, drunk, just singing. It's

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Speaker 1: just music that is nostalgic to me and the family.

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Speaker 1: And I'm telling the story of just my life Jesse

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Speaker 1: being from Indiana. That's talking about where I was from

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Speaker 1: and how people didn't take me serious because I wanted

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Speaker 1: to do something different. Well, then the pre chorus, I'm

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Speaker 1: just talking about getting money. Yeah, one day.

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Speaker 4: Last I make.

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Speaker 1: Honestly, getting money I think is always the goal now

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Speaker 1: because I never thought about it on the way up.

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Speaker 1: I never thought about money when I didn't have it.

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Speaker 1: I was just thinking about music. I love music. And

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Speaker 1: now I'm like, oh, I want to have generational wealth

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Speaker 1: because it's never it's never ran in my family. You know,

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Speaker 1: We've never had money in my family at all. And

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Speaker 1: then the second verse, I'm talking about how much I'm

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Speaker 1: making now it's dream was just this and all everyone

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Speaker 1: who is hating on me back home, and yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of toxic.

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Speaker 2: Jamara Calatroya, Ma com pre Auuraa's Diamonds Sambag. You know

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Speaker 2: Dmulo Barabras can be made, don't you go?

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Speaker 1: Letsie Yagame Compre. I go back to Indiana. It just

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Speaker 1: feels different and yeah, just seeing people that you knew

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Speaker 1: and they know and they know how you're doing.

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Speaker 4: Now would choose my body?

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Speaker 1: I changed every day. I changed this morning, I had

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Speaker 1: a breakthrough this morning. I changed every day. I think,

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Speaker 1: I think that why would you stay the same?

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Speaker 3: That was R and B artist Omar Apollo. His debut album,

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Speaker 3: Apolonio is out on all streaming platforms now. This episode

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Speaker 3: was produced by Julia Ne Sparsa with help from Julia

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Speaker 3: Rocha and edited by Martha Martinez. The Latino USA team

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Speaker 3: includes Miguel Massias, Andrea ro Pescrusado, Julieta Martinelli, Alissa Escarce,

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Speaker 3: Gini Montalvo, Alejandra Salasad and Reinaldo Leannos Junior with help

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Speaker 3: from Raoul Perez. Our engineers are Stephanie Lebau, Julia Caruso

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Speaker 3: and Lia Shaw, with help from Elishuba YouTube and gabriel

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Speaker 3: Le Bayez.

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Speaker 1: Our digital editor is.

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Speaker 3: Luis Luna Our interns are Samantha Friedman and Carli Rubin.

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Speaker 3: Our theme music was composed by Zeerbinos. If you like

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Speaker 3: the music you heard on this episode, stop by Latinousa

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Speaker 3: dot org and check out our weekly Spotify playlist. I'm

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Speaker 3: your host and executive producer Marino Posa. Join us again

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Speaker 3: on our next episode, and in the meantime, I'll see

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Speaker 3: you on all of our social media Estella Proxina Chao.

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Speaker 6: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising

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Speaker 6: Simons Foundation Unlocking Knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities more at hsfoundation

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Speaker 6: dot org, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,

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Speaker 6: and funding for Latino USA is Coverage of a culture

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Speaker 6: of health is made possible in part by a grant

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Speaker 6: from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Can we get quiet?

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Speaker 5: Please?

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Speaker 1: Please?

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Speaker 3: Three minutes please? One way to engender a lot of

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Speaker 3: love from your family? Okay too, one. I'm Maria Nojosa.

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Speaker 3: Next time on Latino USA, Doctor Anthony Fauci on why

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Speaker 3: this pandemic has revealed the deep health inequities in the country.

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Speaker 3: When we get out of this, make sure we commit

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Speaker 3: ourselves to the decades long correction of those social determinants

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Speaker 3: of health. That's next time on Latino USA.