Fiebre de Cabina is a digital compilation featuring musicians from the Caribbean, Latin America, and around the world, curated by Payola Isabel, the inaugural resident of La Residencia, a co-located curatorial residency at Santurce’s Pública and the Abrons Arts Center in New York’s Lower East Side.
While theaters are closed by various levels of COVID-19 lockdown, and New Yorkers are going nuts stuck at home, Abrons Arts Center decided to reach out beyond its own walls. This is digital love.
The project includes DJ sets and artist introductions from November 20 through December 23, 2020. You can keep the party going at home with a Fiebre de Cabina digital album available on Bandcamp.
Pública Espacio Cultural is an independent art space on Avenida Ponce de León (PR-25 which used to be Puerto Rico’s Broadway) in Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico. Pública was founded by videographer Payola Isabel and curator Natalia Viera Salgado.
One of their projects is Radio Red, an internet radio station. “Red” means network in Spanish. Radio Red broadcasts Puerto Rican culture to the world, the music you won’t hear on mainstream radio. It’s good to work to. The house vibe keeps pushing you forward. But since it’s Latin music, sometimes you have to get up and dance. It’s good for you.
Abrons Arts Center is the performing arts center of Henry Street Settlement, a community social services organization that helps Lower East Side families make progress in their New York life.
Fiebre de Cabina is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation which is one of the leading sponsors of the arts in the United States. In the past, we wouldn’t care, but now we think it’s important to acknowledge those who support culture. They are indirectly supporting us. Thank you.
Fiebre de Cabina DJ Sets
Fiebre de Cabina sets are running from November 20 through December 23, 2020.
Friday, November 20, 2020 from 2-7pm ET
Radio Red Mixcloud from Pública in Puerto Rico featuring Bairo and Dr. Digital.If you are in Santurce, you can sign up to join the livestreamed DJ set at Pública in Santurce.
Wednesday, November 25, 2020 from 4-6pm ET
The Lot Radio from Brooklyn featuring Diego Hauz, JWords and Balún.
Friday, December 11, 2020 from 9-10pm ET
Aire Libre from Mexico City featuring Arieshandmodel, Tahyana and Nina Nina.
Sunday, December 20, 2020 from 5-9pm ET
Radio Red Mixcloud from Pública in Puerto Rico featuring Y2K Obession and Critonia. If you are in Santurce, you can sign up to join the livestreamed DJ set at Pública in Santurce.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020 from 5-6pm ET
NTS Radio from London featuring Florentino Kelman Duran and Joe Cotch.
Fiebre de Cabina Artists
This is basically the musical underground of Santurce, San Juan and other Latin capitals around the world.
Angélica Negrón & José Olivares are Balún 🇵🇷 (@balunband), an electronic indie band originally from San Juan who mixes Puerto Rican folk, reggaeton and Jamaican dancehall into Brooklyn pop.
Arieshandmodel 🇲🇽 (@arieshandmodel)is a producing DJ who mixes club music in Mexico City. We hear that the creatives in Mexico City are more progressive than those in New York.
Badsista 🇧🇷 (@badsista_) is a producing DJ who mixes baila funk, the party music of the Rio favelas, with Chicago house in São Paulo, Brazil.
Critonia 🇵🇷 (@critonia1987) makes industrial electronic music in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Diego Hauz 🇵🇷 (@diegohauz)is a producing DJ who mixes Latin house music in New York City. He’s from Poncé, Puerto Rico’s second city which is more undiluted Puerto Rican than the culture of San Juan where the gringos are.
Dr. Digital Ashe 🇵🇷 (@dubtor_digital) is a producing reggae musician who is part of the I-fficially Hi-Fi Ting sound system. Ashé is the West African Yoruba word for life force in motion.
Florentino 🇨🇴 (@djflorentino) makes reggaeton house in London.
Joe Cotch (@joecotch) is a global Spanish producing DJ who co-founded the Cotch International party and label in London.
JWords 🇩🇴 (@_jwords)is a producing composer who makes Black electronic music in New York City.
Louis//Louis 🇵🇷 (@y2kobsession) (@louis_1981) is a slightly mystical underground label and event producer in Santurce. One of the team is a creative director at TBWA advertising in San Juan.
Luis Valentín 🇵🇷 is a producing musician who collaborates with DJ Bairoa (@bbbairoaaa). They are known for their work with Buscabulla.
Nina Nina 🇲🇽 (@nanyguerrerx) is a DJ rapper and vogue artist and member of the Las Hijas del Rap collective who mixes feminist narratives into a ballroom scene in southeast Mexico. She’s channeling Harlem.
Pachyman 🇵🇷 (@pachy__/) plays the sounds of early reggae in Puerto Rico.
Tayhana 🇦🇷 (@tayhana_) is a producing DJ who spins the HiedraH Club de Baile party in Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires has a monster club scene, but it doesn’t start until 3am, Argentine style.
Trueno Video (@trueno__video) makes synth pop electronic music.
Santurce is Puerto Rico’s Loisaida
Santurce doesn’t mean anything to most New Yorkers. It’s the urban part of the Puerto Rican capital San Juan, and the creative heart of Puerto Rico. Geographically, it’s the first island after Old San Juan.
Santurce is the home of the Calle Cerra arts district. Santurce es Ley is a loosely organized program of mural and graffiti art. “Santurce es Ley” means it’s legal to paint murals on abandoned buildings and some public walls in Santurce. We have a lot of abandoned buildings because the Puerto Rican population has decreased by about 5% in the last decade after tax benefits were cancelled in preparation for statehood and big businesses moved away. Then there was Hurricane Maria and then the earthquakes in the southwest. Puerto Rico is the frontier, pero “Estamos bien.”
The cover image is a mural in the Tras Talleres neighborhood, just down the hill from Pública. Tras Talleres was an industrial area whose workshops (Talleres) once served the trains that used to circle the island. It’s edgy and that’s why artists live there. In a way, it’s our Lower East Side (Loisaida).
Santurce is also the home of Villa Palmeras, the barrio that is Santurce’s equivalent of El Barrio East Harlem or The South Bronx. It’s a creative crucible. Puerto Rican folk music traditions bomba and plena were preserved in Villa Palmeras by the Cepeda family and also by the Ayala family of Loíza. The roots of what became New York salsa were developed by Villa Palmeras artists such as Rafael Cortijo (who put the bomba in salsa), his buddy Ismael Rivera (El Nazareno, Las Caras Lindas), and bandleaders like Tommy Olivencia (Trucutu, Lobo Domesticado, Plante Bandera) whose band spun off countless salsa legends including Lalo Rodriguez, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Frankie Ruiz and many others. Salsa is New York, but its roots are in Santurce and before that in Cuba.
Much of this is African Diaspora culture direct from Puerto Rico’s creative heart. This is real. Verda’.
Listening to Radio Red, got to get up and dance now. See ya in Santurce or the Lower East Side. ¡WEPA!
Get more information and program updates at: publicaespacio.org (@publicaespacio), abronsartscenter.org (@abronsartscenter).