The Latinxs of the Lost Lake Festival
You may have heard that there’s a huge music festival going down this weekend in La Phoenikera. The Lost Lake Festival is three-day event brought to our city by the producers of festivals like Tennessee’s Bonnaroo and San Francisco’s Outside Lands and it’s taking place at Steele Indian School Park. Pretty cool right?
Though it’s not La Phoenikera’s first music festival, like some people have claimed (we already have Viva PHX and the McDowell Music Festival, for example), it is the first one with such a high national profile.
Since this is a pretty big deal, we wanted to do an inventory of the Latinx musicians participating in the festival. We’re not sticking strictly to Latinx bands because Latinxs influence music in the U.S. even when the project in its entirety is not Latinx.
So here you have it. These are the Latinxs of the Lost Lake Festival:
Carla Morrison
Carla was born in Tecate, Baja California and moved to La Phoenikera when she was 17. She was the lead singer of the band Babaluca before moving to Mexico City to start her solo career. Now she’s the winner of three Latin Grammy’s.
Fernando “Bugalú” Velez
This guy with the cool nickname is one of the founders of funk and soul band Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (The Dap-Kings are playing at the Festival). He’s a DJ and percussionist known for his after parties. As far as we know he’s Latinx because of his last name, his nickname has an accent, one of his Instagram pics has the hashtags #tbt #backintheday #ecuador, and a lot of the captions on his pics are in Spanish.
Cochemea “Cheme” Gastelum
Cheme is also part of The Dap-Kings; he joined the band in 2010. The multi-instrumental artist collaborated with Amy Winehouse, Archie Shepp, Beck,The Roots and many others. He is of Mexican and American Indian descent.
Abner Ramirez
Abner Ramirez is part of American folk, soul, blues and pop duo Johnnyswimm. He was born in Florida from Cuban parents an obvi he grew up listening to Cuban music, which influences what he does now. The other half of Johnnyswim is Amanda Sudano, the daughter of singer Donna Summer and founder of Purple Heart Recording Company, Bruce Sudano.
Fayuca
Fayuca is a band straight out of La Phoenikera, wut wut! You want reggae, they got it; you want punk rock or ska, they have it; you want salsa, cumbia and other Latinx rhythms, they’ll give ‘em to you. The band was formed by Gabriel “Gabo” Solorzano (Puerto Rican) and Rafa Ruiz (Mexican) when they met in high school. Currently playing with the band are Gabo, Danny Torgerson, Mario Sepúlveda, Richard Duran and Arturo Sosa.
Extra cool factor about this band is that they have their own beer…Fayuca Rising.
Trinidad Cardona
This 18-year-old Phoenikero was launched into fame by a video of his song Jennifer, which got 7 million views while he slept. The kid is a rapper and R&B singer who is growing not just in followers but also in musical references and influences. Trinidad is black and Mexican and his mom’s wife is Puerto Rican.
David Cosme
Another Phoenikero at the Lost Lake Festival is David Cosme, trumpet player for punk-funk (and everything in-between and in the margins) band Playboy Manbaby who also performs with Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra. David and his family are from Puerto Rico. He was born in Humacao like his mom, his father is from Ponce and his grandfather is native Taino. Puerto Rico represent!
BTW, you GOTTA see Playboy Manbaby for a theatrical/lyrical/musical treat.
Juanes
In a city where radio stations play mostly top 40, we’re pretty sure you know who Juanes is. This Colombian is the highest profile Latino at the festival. Here’s a cool collaboration he did with Kali Uchis.
