Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and
Speaker 1: Culture Latino USC Latino USA.
Speaker 2: I'm Maria Inojosa.
Speaker 3: We bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to.
Speaker 2: You, overlooked by the rest of the media.
Speaker 3: And while the country is struggling to deal with these,
Speaker 3: we listen to the stories of black and Latino Studio
Speaker 3: United Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront
Speaker 3: of the movement.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Inojosayan or La Latino USA. Listener, como tuta.
Speaker 1: Here's a show from Los Alchivos from Futuro Media and PRX.
Speaker 1: It's Latino USA. I'm Maria no Josa.
Speaker 4: Today.
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican indie band Uscabuya.
Speaker 4: I Demand.
Speaker 1: It's the voice of Raquelberrios that takes us through Baya's
Speaker 1: ever evolving sound is the Puerto Rican experimental duo formed
Speaker 1: by wife and husband Raquelberrios and Luis Alfredo del Baym.
Speaker 1: In May, they released their new ALBUMA and With expands
Speaker 1: on their Caribbean synth pop sound by using a variety
Speaker 1: of rhythms and influences from marching band drums to R
Speaker 1: and B vocals. By twenty eighteen, was one of the
Speaker 1: most beloved LATINX bands in New York City. Raquel and
Speaker 1: Luis had just released their second EP and confirmed a
Speaker 1: performance in that year's Coachella Music Festival. Around this time
Speaker 1: of success, Raquel and Luis also decided to move back
Speaker 1: to Puerto Rico. It was a significant life change, but
Speaker 1: when they were certain they wanted to make as artists
Speaker 1: and as new parentsless Reggaisa Buscabuya's debut album follows Raquel
Speaker 1: and Luis in their journey back home. Through their dream
Speaker 1: like sound, we access a subtle portrait of hopes and
Speaker 1: anxieties brought on by their return to the island after
Speaker 1: living in New York City for many years. In the
Speaker 1: video for their song Neil, you can read the sign
Speaker 1: of an upcoming tourist resort in the town of Aguadilla.
Speaker 1: It's weaved in with scenes of the gritty, pink and
Speaker 1: green masks of the traditional festival Las Mascaras. The song
Speaker 1: lyrics give a war to those who think that they
Speaker 1: can own what isn't theres Creque Sandres. In this segment
Speaker 1: of our How I Made It series, Raquel and Luis
Speaker 1: join us from Aguadilla Puerto Rico to tell us how
Speaker 1: they got there.
Speaker 4: My name is Raquel and I do vocals, kis and sampler.
Speaker 5: My name is Louise and I play the bass and
Speaker 5: drums sometimes as well guitar as well, a little bit
Speaker 5: of everything.
Speaker 4: And the name of our band is I am from Trujeerio, Alto,
Speaker 4: which is fifteen minutes from the capital, San Juan. It's
Speaker 4: a mountainous part of Puerto Rico and very tropical and
Speaker 4: and lush.
Speaker 2: I am from the town of Bones in the south.
Speaker 5: It's much drier than someone like really hot summer afternoons.
Speaker 4: Luisa and I met in New York. They're both Puerto Ricans,
Speaker 4: so I think that it was sort of destiny and
Speaker 4: we were bound to probably bump into each other because
Speaker 4: Puerto Ricans in New York really look for each other.
Speaker 4: My mother was born in the Bronx. My great grandmother
Speaker 4: migrated there when things got really bad in the forties
Speaker 4: here in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 5: At some point, you know, I had worked on music
Speaker 5: enough in Puerto Rico and things were starting to fall
Speaker 5: apart with my band that I had, you know, growing up,
Speaker 5: I just had to make a decision of what to
Speaker 5: do next with my life, and I think the logical
Speaker 5: thing for a lot of Puerto Ricans is is to
Speaker 5: go to New York.
Speaker 4: We met at a friends party, Puerto Rican Thanksgiving Day party,
Speaker 4: so there was a lot of dancing.
Speaker 5: Rachael had this girl group with her her best friends,
Speaker 5: you know. They they sort of wanted to start playing live,
Speaker 5: and I was like, oh, well, you know, I could
Speaker 5: play drums, I play guitar, I can play all this stuff.
Speaker 5: And there was this one night where they were playing
Speaker 5: their cover of like a Lady Gaga song. There playing
Speaker 5: a bad romance cover that they had sort of translated
Speaker 5: to Spanish. It's called mild Romance. But they were always
Speaker 5: mess up in the chorus chords, and I remember, like
Speaker 5: I was a stepping and I was like, I remember
Speaker 5: those chorus chords.
Speaker 2: That's how I earned my way into the girl group.
Speaker 4: And we started talking about music, and I had already
Speaker 4: been working on some sort of weird demos and I
Speaker 4: just you know, showed them to him without really thinking
Speaker 4: that much of them. And then he got really really
Speaker 4: excited and he saw a lot of potential and he
Speaker 4: thought that I should keep going and that we should
Speaker 4: really like start collaborating and working on stuff.
Speaker 5: The first thing I remember us really working together on
Speaker 5: was a cover of a song called Tuloco Loco Fiodrin.
Speaker 2: I believe it was an assignment that you had for
Speaker 2: piano class.
Speaker 5: Yeah, your composition and piano class.
Speaker 2: She came home, she had this assignment.
Speaker 5: She had to rearrange an old classic sal satoon and
Speaker 5: then she was like, Yo, can you help me like
Speaker 5: sort of finish.
Speaker 2: This, and of course obliged.
Speaker 5: We were already living together at that point, so it's
Speaker 5: all very informal, you know, it's not like one day
Speaker 5: I was like, we need to do something together and
Speaker 5: it has you know, they excited about music and saw
Speaker 5: that in each other, and it started naturally sort of
Speaker 5: building up.
Speaker 4: After Hurricane Maria, all Puerto Ricans in US mainland and
Speaker 4: big cities, we all felt very in depth and everybody
Speaker 4: kind of that everybody wanted to help, and you know,
Speaker 4: helping independent artists was sort of the way that we
Speaker 4: could help. Prima was kind of this labor of love.
Speaker 4: Prima means Puerto Rico independent musicians and artists. It supports
Speaker 4: and it also amplifies the voices of independent musicians and
Speaker 4: the island our independent scene a small but very rich
Speaker 4: and very varied. I mean, I think after a while,
Speaker 4: like once you kind of feel like you've sort of
Speaker 4: discovered what you want to do, and you start doing it,
Speaker 4: and you start establishing yourself doing it. You know. Really,
Speaker 4: what we started to feel was like how we wanted
Speaker 4: to just really have more time to kind of expand
Speaker 4: as artists. And not only that, but also I mean,
Speaker 4: we all dream about going to New York, but as
Speaker 4: a Puerto Rican I think a lot of us also
Speaker 4: dream about coming back home. I also really wanted to
Speaker 4: take advantage of all the opportunities that the city was
Speaker 4: giving us. But eventually it all started to kind of
Speaker 4: feel very hectic and stressful. We had a baby. We
Speaker 4: only really want our daughter to be back home, to
Speaker 4: learn Spanish, to be close to he abuela an auelo,
Speaker 4: and in a way like while we were in New York,
Speaker 4: like our dreams became really about coming back home and
Speaker 4: making music here.
Speaker 5: I remember feeling super emotional on the plane ride. As
Speaker 5: soon as we got to the plane and we were
Speaker 5: on board, I think we all hugged and it just
Speaker 5: seemed like something that was never going to end. And
Speaker 5: suddenly we were here and we were Homeregresa.
Speaker 4: Was in the way that I see it as you know,
Speaker 4: I remember. I think it was our drummer who once
Speaker 4: told me, you know that each album that you work
Speaker 4: on is sort of a chapter of your life, and
Speaker 4: that is very, very true. And I think that because
Speaker 4: of the fact that we knew that we were were
Speaker 4: going to go through this process, that it was worth
Speaker 4: sort of pouring those emotions into the music. You know,
Speaker 4: the marching band drums really were inspired by going to
Speaker 4: all these carnivals in the island and seeing sort of
Speaker 4: the school marching bands, and the energy and the charge
Speaker 4: behind the rhythms is really kind of the way that
Speaker 4: I was feeling when I came back home, where I
Speaker 4: felt that there was so much to do trying to
Speaker 4: create from that space, and it was really really hard.
Speaker 4: The transition was really hard, and I think I was
Speaker 4: confronted very much with myself and my fears. The record
Speaker 4: really kind of captures this moment in time when we
Speaker 4: come back, you know, the joy and the sorrow of
Speaker 4: being here.
Speaker 5: Sort of macro difference, which was our mindset in trying
Speaker 5: to make a narrative that cast a wider net was
Speaker 5: more complex and longer. We did get some help producing it,
Speaker 5: especially in one track called Glube Doo. We had our
Speaker 5: friend Robert to lange Lade record a sort of string
Speaker 5: and horn arrangement.
Speaker 2: It's very cool.
Speaker 5: And it's the first song I've sort of wrote for
Speaker 5: the band.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a dystopiano. It's a song.
Speaker 5: About us, you know, I guess us ends in Racquel
Speaker 5: and I being together, having a kid, have going through
Speaker 5: this whole experience together and moving out here together as well,
Speaker 5: just the loneliness that can exist even within the security
Speaker 5: of a relationship.
Speaker 4: Nydia, I feel, is a pretty special track because I
Speaker 4: feel it's sort of the hinge in the record, and
Speaker 4: most of the songs before Nydia are about of angst
Speaker 4: and existentialism and wailing in a way I think, and
Speaker 4: then when Nydia comes along, it's sort of the turning
Speaker 4: point and the record, and it means a lot because
Speaker 4: Nadia is actually named after Nidiacato, who is actually the
Speaker 4: woman speaking the words at the end of the track.
Speaker 4: A song of hers that was pretty popular in the
Speaker 4: seven is called Ela More.
Speaker 5: What she's saying translates to the darkness can be your impulse.
Speaker 5: Towards the light, and then she says, you can't see
Speaker 5: the stars without a dark night.
Speaker 4: And it's really about kind of like coming to terms
Speaker 4: with your own fears, coming to terms with accepting flaws
Speaker 4: and being okay with it and not beating yourself over.
Speaker 4: And it's also about just trying to really pull yourself
Speaker 4: up from kind of a dark place. But the interesting
Speaker 4: thing is, like, you know, this quarantine feels a lot like,
Speaker 4: you know, I would talk to my dad after the hurricane.
Speaker 4: My dad didn't get power for at least like I
Speaker 4: think it was maybe like five months after the storm hit.
Speaker 4: People didn't know, people couldn't communicate, people couldn't buy food,
Speaker 4: couldn't get water, you know, and people took it day
Speaker 4: by day. The album is very much about that, is about,
Speaker 4: you know, the angst and the hardship of trying to
Speaker 4: live in an island in the present moment and how
Speaker 4: you just really want to stay here and you want
Speaker 4: to persevere and you have to persevere.
Speaker 1: The words of Raquel Verrios and Louis Alfredo de Vaye,
Speaker 1: best known by indie fans as Uscaulla. This episode was
Speaker 1: produced by Adrianatakia and Gini Montalbo. It was edited by
Speaker 1: Louis Trees and mixed by Julia Caruso. The Latino USA
Speaker 1: team also includes Victoria Estrada, Renaldo Lean Junior, Andrea Lopez Cruzado,
Speaker 1: Lori mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Nor Saudi and
Speaker 1: Nancy Trujillo. Penileei Ramirez is our co executive producer. Our
Speaker 1: director of engineering is Stephanie Lebau. Our marketing manager is
Speaker 1: Luis Luna. Our theme music was composed by I'm Your
Speaker 1: host and executive producer Maria no Josa. Join us again
Speaker 1: on our next episode and in the meantime, I'll see
Speaker 1: you on social media. See you there as bye.
Speaker 4: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Ford Foundation,
Speaker 4: working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide,
Speaker 4: the John D.
Speaker 2: And Catherine T.
Speaker 4: MacArthur Foundation, and the Heising Simons Foundation, unlocking knowledge, opportunity
Speaker 4: and possibilities.
Speaker 2: More at hsfoundation dot org