Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and
Speaker 1: Culture Latino US. Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. We
Speaker 1: bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you,
Speaker 1: overlooked by the wrest of the media, and while the
Speaker 1: country is struggling to deal with these, we listen to
Speaker 1: the stories of black and Latino Studio United Latino Front,
Speaker 1: a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Inojosa, Cepaso, Latino USA. Listener on show the
Speaker 1: ros Achivos.
Speaker 2: You know do liquados No, I would do liquado's. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm the best.
Speaker 1: What would she put in?
Speaker 2: You know, bananas, bananas, milk, bananas?
Speaker 1: You should put an egg in it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, she.
Speaker 2: Raw egg.
Speaker 1: From Fudu Media and PRX. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria
Speaker 1: Rosa and today a portrait of Miguel. His name is
Speaker 1: actually Miguel Pimentel and you know him as a Grammy
Speaker 1: Award winning artist from la He's the son of an
Speaker 1: African American mother and an immigrant father. Born in Samora,
Speaker 1: mitrok Gan in Mexico, Miguel rose to prominence as an
Speaker 1: R and B singer, and he's often been compared to
Speaker 1: Prince for his eclectic sound, which draws from a wide
Speaker 1: range of musical currents.
Speaker 4: Tell how strange, says wee last kid.
Speaker 1: Miguel is getting more and more acclaim and at the
Speaker 1: same time, he's increasingly embracing his Latino roots. Last year,
Speaker 1: the hit movie Goco featured a version of the song
Speaker 1: remember Me, which Miguel sang with Mexican pop singer Natalia
Speaker 1: la Furgade. Miguel performed the song earlier this year at
Speaker 1: the Oscars. This year, he'll be releasing a deluxe version
Speaker 1: of his album War and Leisure, which will include some
Speaker 1: of his songs in Spanish. The project was inspired by
Speaker 1: a recent trip to samoramitra, Gan, which is the town
Speaker 1: where Miguel's dad was born, and there for the first time,
Speaker 1: Miguel finally met his family in Mexico. Miguel joins me
Speaker 1: now to talk about his life changing trip to Mexico
Speaker 1: and how his mixed race upbringing influenced his sound. Miguel,
Speaker 1: it's so great to have you on Latinojos.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: So tell me about growing up. I mean, everybody knows
Speaker 1: Miguel the Artist. I want to try to understand a
Speaker 1: little bit about how you were growing up, and I've
Speaker 1: been thinking a lot about my own experience. So, like,
Speaker 1: you know, my family was fully Mexican growing up in Chicago,
Speaker 1: but my parents' best friends were African America.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, that's like a crazy parallel because I
Speaker 5: grew up in a black, a Mexican kind of part
Speaker 5: of sam Pedro, which is a smaller part of Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm born in the eighties eighty five. I
Speaker 5: grew up in the nineties. There was a lot of
Speaker 5: racial tension between blacks and Mexicans in Los Angeles in
Speaker 5: the nineties.
Speaker 1: Racial conflict like this between blacks and Latinos. It's ripping
Speaker 1: through southern California.
Speaker 5: You know, my mother was extremely, extremely devout, So on
Speaker 5: the one hand, my mother was very religious. My father
Speaker 5: not my mother obviously, being black, my father Latino Mexican.
Speaker 5: A lot of contrast growing up. But growing up in
Speaker 5: San Pedro, I actually kind of got the past because
Speaker 5: most people in the community knew who I was.
Speaker 1: So who are you living with when you're growing up?
Speaker 5: It's mostly my mother, mostly my mother, my father fought
Speaker 5: as hard as he possibly could to spend as much
Speaker 5: time as he possibly could with my brother and I,
Speaker 5: and he drove out from Englewood over the weekends every
Speaker 5: other weekend to visit us. He picked us up, dropped
Speaker 5: us off. We saw him over the summertime. He's an educator,
Speaker 5: he's a teacher.
Speaker 1: Is that why you know Spanish?
Speaker 5: Well, yeah, because in the summertime, I was with my
Speaker 5: nana and my data. So are my father's parents, Okay,
Speaker 5: and so all of my theos and theos, my uncles
Speaker 5: and my aunts, kids, my cousins. We stayed with my
Speaker 5: grandparents in the summertime while our parents in Inglewood.
Speaker 1: In Inglewood, so y'all were just like family daycare Mexican summertime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there we go. Oh my god, my favorite, what
Speaker 2: did you summertime?
Speaker 5: Because my father was a teacher, he also was off
Speaker 5: in the summertime, so we spent man summers were the best,
Speaker 5: my dad the best. Some of my most fond memories
Speaker 5: going to the beach, Venice Beach were there all the time.
Speaker 1: And I love the fact that I see a lot
Speaker 1: of people of color, a lot of mexicandoles out there
Speaker 1: with the whole family.
Speaker 2: You already know.
Speaker 5: Ye, it was beautiful, I mean still is beautiful energy
Speaker 5: in Venice. But not only that, because sometimes my father
Speaker 5: taught summer school, so a lot of time with my nana,
Speaker 5: lots of MTV, lots of puzzles with my Tata, and
Speaker 5: board games with my grandfather. My tata what board games, man,
Speaker 5: We played Trouble, we played Uno, and he would like,
Speaker 5: he would like sometimes we didn't want to play, but
Speaker 5: by four he would be like, no, we're gonna play.
Speaker 5: Some of my favorite memories man, playing board games and
Speaker 5: doing puzzles with my grandfather.
Speaker 1: Did you start singing like when you were three?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, no, no, no, I was. I was always singing.
Speaker 5: That was kind of the part of it. It was
Speaker 5: like I was the kid that everyone knew that I
Speaker 5: was gonna do something. I was always singing, dancing, performing
Speaker 5: like at three, like early yeah, early on, like yeah,
Speaker 5: as soon as I could, as soon as I could dance,
Speaker 5: as soon as I could use my legs. It was like,
Speaker 5: you know, singing, dancing, all of these things. Yeah, are
Speaker 5: you kidding?
Speaker 2: At our family parties type.
Speaker 5: Thing, you were just like me, game, yeah, dance. It
Speaker 5: was like, come on, meget They called me Mikey when
Speaker 5: I was younger. You know, I love Michael Jackson growing up,
Speaker 5: so I was, you know, getting my Michael Jackson moves
Speaker 5: in and that was the thing, you know, at family parties,
Speaker 5: family gatherings, That's what I was doing. Put the music on,
Speaker 5: Come on dance, Mikey.
Speaker 1: Do you remember like your first memories of music.
Speaker 5: Early memories with music, I mean being in Los Angeles
Speaker 5: car drives, car rides and music.
Speaker 2: That's where we got it in. I remember my mom
Speaker 2: driving me to school early.
Speaker 5: For some reason, my vivid memories with music and my
Speaker 5: mother come from like fifth grade.
Speaker 1: So what were you listening to when your mom was
Speaker 1: driving you to school?
Speaker 5: Those car rides were like soul music, a lot of
Speaker 5: classic stuff, you know, a lot of Temptations, and then
Speaker 5: all the R and B stuff at the time.
Speaker 2: You know Anita Baker.
Speaker 1: You see, and she was singing and you were too.
Speaker 5: Absolutely car yeah yeah yeah, or she would go what
Speaker 5: what instrument is playing this part?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah? And my brother, which was really cool.
Speaker 1: And then when your dad was driving.
Speaker 5: That could be anything. That could be some eighties raps,
Speaker 5: It might be the Fujis. I remember my father was
Speaker 5: playing at the Fuji's tape at the score. That very
Speaker 5: first album to score by the fujis the World They
Speaker 5: ca j.
Speaker 1: Do you remember singing along to any of those songs.
Speaker 2: And the cover that Lauren did of.
Speaker 5: Oh it's early and I and I'm not going.
Speaker 2: To remember song names right now, that's okay. Whoa I
Speaker 2: heard he sang a good song.
Speaker 6: Oh, I heard he had a.
Speaker 1: Style ROBERTA Flack.
Speaker 7: And when I came to see and so I came
Speaker 7: to see him in this and for a while, and
Speaker 7: there he was young a staying to.
Speaker 2: Show me in my pain, killing there we go seeing
Speaker 2: in my.
Speaker 7: Life with as well, Yeah, killing me softly with his song,
Speaker 7: killing me softly.
Speaker 8: With his song.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Latin Usa. My conversation with Miguel continues,
Speaker 1: stay with us, not with this song. Hey we're back.
Speaker 1: And before the break, the singer Miguel painted a picture
Speaker 1: of his childhood growing up in Los Angeles. And now
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about Miguel's first ever visit to Mexico.
Speaker 1: It was part of the Earthwork series for Viceland. How
Speaker 1: does it happen? Like somebody from Vice basically calls you
Speaker 1: up and it's just like, Hey, we're going to like
Speaker 1: invite you and your brother and your dad to take
Speaker 1: a trip to Mexico, all expense daid We're going to
Speaker 1: figure and produce the heck out of it, and you
Speaker 1: just need to show up.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 2: The opportunity was this.
Speaker 5: They were picking artists that they thought were interesting and
Speaker 5: you know, had a perspective to choose a place in
Speaker 5: the world to go. I could have chose anywhere, but
Speaker 5: I was like, I want to go to Shamora, I
Speaker 5: want to go to Metro Khan and and can I
Speaker 5: take my father? And can I go with my brother
Speaker 5: as well? Can I bring them? And they were like, yeah,
Speaker 5: even better. Most people think of me solely as a
Speaker 5: black artist. But there's a reason why my name is Miguet.
Speaker 5: My father's from Mexico and then search for a better life.
Speaker 5: He and his family came to the US before I
Speaker 5: was born, so until now I haven't been able to
Speaker 5: come back.
Speaker 2: And so that was the whole thing.
Speaker 5: You know, I wanted to be about family, kind of
Speaker 5: a family discovery and also to learn about, you know,
Speaker 5: where my family's from.
Speaker 1: So what was the thing like when you think back
Speaker 1: on that trip into Meatwa Gun what's the thing that
Speaker 1: you're like that that moment.
Speaker 2: Oh, dinner with family, see it such a good one.
Speaker 9: Honestly, having conversations with like my grandparents.
Speaker 2: I've never had that. This helps me appreciate all of
Speaker 2: those moments.
Speaker 1: How many family were there.
Speaker 2: I mean it must have been at least twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: That so I wondered if you were I wondered if
Speaker 1: you were a little dizzy. It was so much huggy
Speaker 1: and food and laughter and the smile on your face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a great memory.
Speaker 6: No one poke that.
Speaker 2: We see.
Speaker 10: The feeling is the same if we know each other
Speaker 10: are Gon and I only know that because I'm here now.
Speaker 11: Ye.
Speaker 5: That definitely was was an immersive experience.
Speaker 2: Full body, yes, absolutely, full body.
Speaker 5: So this thing everybody hugging on you, yeah, man, And
Speaker 5: and that was actually the best part. Is that energy
Speaker 5: that you kind of share when it is like you
Speaker 5: get to really it's tangible and you get to hug them.
Speaker 2: Those hugs are real.
Speaker 5: When you get a hug from people that you share
Speaker 5: blood with, that's a different kind of energy you're starting
Speaker 5: to exchange, you know. That was a big part of
Speaker 5: that feeling, Like I was right at home in a
Speaker 5: completely foreign place.
Speaker 1: So then you go to the radio station where your
Speaker 1: grandmother used to sing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Miguel DNA.
Speaker 5: When she was much younger before she was with my grandfather,
Speaker 5: Her and her sister and their friend, I believe, sang on.
Speaker 2: They were like a trio on the radio.
Speaker 1: Wait what so you got a chance to sing inside
Speaker 1: the very radio station in Mexico that your grandmother used
Speaker 1: to sing in. Oh my god, I mean that must
Speaker 1: have been incredible. I mean at that moment, did you
Speaker 1: feel like this deep connection to your family?
Speaker 2: Yes, my grandmother is the real route.
Speaker 5: You start to take a look at the journey and
Speaker 5: the sacrifice and all of that, and that just feels
Speaker 5: like you are rooted in a much bigger picture and
Speaker 5: a bigger story and a bigger thing than yourself.
Speaker 1: I want to take a listen to a Los Banchos
Speaker 1: song that you covered along with your dad and your
Speaker 1: brother in a tribute to her.
Speaker 3: City event side.
Speaker 6: Sea Bloody.
Speaker 3: S Chemist.
Speaker 1: You're now about to do a whole album in Spanish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, Warren Leisure is my latest album.
Speaker 5: I've re recorded the majority of the album in Spanish,
Speaker 5: and so this will be my very first Spanish release.
Speaker 5: I've included Spanish in my album prior to this one,
Speaker 5: which is Wildheart.
Speaker 2: This will be my.
Speaker 5: Largest effort in being able to tour in Mexico.
Speaker 6: Essentially Splashes.
Speaker 5: That trip made it for me. It turned into a
Speaker 5: reason to come back because I was like, Wow, I
Speaker 5: have family here, I have roots here. How am I
Speaker 5: going to make sure that I'm coming back here to
Speaker 5: never forget this, to never forget the full circle and
Speaker 5: to always, you know, continue to remain rooted here.
Speaker 2: And it was like, Okay, I have.
Speaker 5: To record music in Spanish. I have to record more
Speaker 5: music in Spanish. And so that's what I did.
Speaker 9: Na tell me about your decision to record some of
Speaker 9: your songs in Spanish, because that is not easy.
Speaker 1: That's really hard.
Speaker 2: Actually, it's challenging to try to translate lyric and to
Speaker 2: keep it within the theme the song.
Speaker 5: The awesome thing was that the songs are better, are
Speaker 5: more poetic in Spanish. So the very first single is
Speaker 5: a song called Banana Clip.
Speaker 6: There's what.
Speaker 5: Just and the analogy of the song in English is
Speaker 5: essentially saying like you never have to worry, My love
Speaker 5: for you will never run out.
Speaker 2: I have extended love and protection for you.
Speaker 5: That's kind of like the metaphor of the song, but
Speaker 5: in Spanish it's more poetic. You know what message is
Speaker 5: more poetic.
Speaker 2: Singing throw.
Speaker 11: Mmmortio, hey yo this battle and look yet no portire
Speaker 11: yeah you lisparo.
Speaker 4: La baton lettah yeah, slam single.
Speaker 2: It's not the fact, it's the same message. Just like
Speaker 2: all of this I do for you.
Speaker 1: I gotta say I love. I love watching you and
Speaker 1: hearing you speak Spanish.
Speaker 5: It's going to happen more gon tempo practica. But I
Speaker 5: have gone Maine, and as I said, that's the goal. Lametta,
Speaker 5: Lametta love the.
Speaker 1: Word meta Spanish.
Speaker 2: It's such a great wordta.
Speaker 7: Too proper for the black kids, too black for the Mexicans,
Speaker 7: too square to be a hood.
Speaker 6: What's normal anyway to.
Speaker 1: Being Mexican and being black is really a challenge in
Speaker 1: this country. You have a huge platform, right, so what
Speaker 1: you say and how you say it about all of
Speaker 1: this stuff, I hate that.
Speaker 6: I know that.
Speaker 2: That's so uncool for knowing that, but yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: But it is a platform that you created, right. It
Speaker 1: is your heart, your life, your work, your vision, your face.
Speaker 1: Do you feel this particular pressure, dude? I am black,
Speaker 1: and I am Mexican in this particular moment, and I'm
Speaker 1: an artist.
Speaker 5: I feel an opportunity. By chance, I happen to be
Speaker 5: both and I can identify with both. So it's beautiful
Speaker 5: and I think that's why I do think it's important
Speaker 5: that I do take moments to acknowledge and to hopefully
Speaker 5: shed light or even bring my fans with me, to
Speaker 5: educate myself on.
Speaker 2: What the issues are, the injustices are.
Speaker 6: The crowd's life.
Speaker 4: So involved in my own life, spend time on my family,
Speaker 4: concerned about what I was doing.
Speaker 5: My family journey has a lot to do with things
Speaker 5: like immigration, you know what I mean, and my grandmother
Speaker 5: coming here from Mexico.
Speaker 2: I would never be sitting here with you.
Speaker 5: I just would have never been able to do any
Speaker 5: of this had my grandmother not left Samora, come to
Speaker 5: the States, California, Inglewood, raised her family there with my grandfather,
Speaker 5: my father meeting my mother in high school in Inglewood,
Speaker 5: and here I am.
Speaker 2: It would have never happened without my grandmother being an immigrant.
Speaker 12: You know, I never feel like I belong. I want
Speaker 12: to feel my God along somewhere.
Speaker 1: And it's been such a pleasure spending.
Speaker 2: Some time with you a pleasure's mine.
Speaker 5: It's a pleasure to share, you know, a bit of
Speaker 5: where I come from and get to talk about the
Speaker 5: music that's coming.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm excited about it, so thank you.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're very excited.
Speaker 12: The crown and that I never feel a gable. I
Speaker 12: just want to feel the gable.
Speaker 1: Singer and songwriter Miguel Demente. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Janie Jamoca. It was edited by Sophia Palisaka, and it
Speaker 1: was mixed by Stephanie Lebou. The Latino USA team includes
Speaker 1: Andrea Lopez, Brussavo, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Victoria Strada and
Speaker 1: Rinaldo Leanos Junior, with help from RODIMR. Marquez. Our senior
Speaker 1: engineer is Julia Caruso. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna.
Speaker 1: Our theme music was composed by Saner Renos and your
Speaker 1: host and executive producer Maria no Kosa. Join us again
Speaker 1: on our next episode. Remember you can always find us
Speaker 1: on social media and.
Speaker 3: Chao.
Speaker 8: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Annie
Speaker 8: Casey Foundation. Creates a brighter future for the nation's children
Speaker 8: by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity and transforming communities.
Speaker 8: California Endowment building a strong state by improving the health
Speaker 8: of all Californians. And the Heising Simons Foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity,
Speaker 8: and possibilities. More at hsfoundation dot org.
Speaker 1: Mexicans love Michael Jackson.
Speaker 2: I mean everyone loved Michael j Everyone loved Michael Jackson.