Eddie Cota

Los Angeles is known worldwide as a creative hub, and it has one of the biggest Latino populations anywhere. But on the eve of three of the Western hemisphere's biggest and most important music festivals -- South By Southwest, Vive Latino, and Coachella -- one has to wonder: Where is......

Nestled up in the Echo Park hills just north of Sunset Boulevard lies La Casa Studios, where we wait on 14-time Grammy winning producer Gustavo Santaolalla, an Argentine. The walls in the studio lounge are decorated with album artwork for acts he produced like Maldita Vecindad, Juanes and Café Tacuba......

Queztal and Los Cojolites The Breed Street Shul 2/9/13 Better than: A Hollywood Grammy red carpet party Saturday night's celebration of some of the year's Grammy nominees in the Latin category brought the sounds of Son Jarocho music to Boyle Heights. Before doors opened at 8 am, the line for......

It has become difficult to define what Latin Alternative is these days. The genre seems to encompass everything from traditional roots band playing an accordion to a progressive hip-hop MCs to singer-songwriters crooning romantic ballads -- and can be sung in Spanish, English or Spanglish. It's a hybrid-culture, forward-thinking scene......

Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, Blu and Exile, Nocando LAMCA 9/20/12 Better than... wine and cheese at a museum We remember the first time LACMA held a Through the Mic hip-hop concert. They did not know what to expect from this new audience they were bringing to the museum. Just as......

Gaby Moreno Largo September 4, 2012 See also: Our People issue profile of Gaby Moreno Better than.... Your current favorite Spanish artist. Celebrating the release of her first all-Spanish album Postales, Gaby Moreno performed her entire work live last night at Largo. Wearing a shiny 1920's-inspired flapper style dress and......

Growing up Jewish in Southeast Los Angeles with Communist parents who worked alongside the Black Panthers, Wil Abers never seemed to fit in. "I struggled with my identity living around Mexicans and African-Americans, while being white and seeing my parents fight against people in power," says Abers, the co-founder and......

Goapele with Yuna El Rey Theatre 8/2/12 Better than... Autotune The El Rey Theatre is one of those venues that inspires artists to bring something special to the stage. Last night, Goapele and Yuna did just that, proving that classic soul music will never go out of style. Opening the......

South Central band Buyepongo is known for digging deep into the neighborhood's Latin roots and serving up a new formula for grinding on the dance floor. They're inspired by Wu-Tang Clan and manage to live up to their name, which means, literally, "to cause a ruckus." Originally formed in 2005,......