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Q&A Interview: Los Rakas Speak On Why Oakland and Panama Are Central To Everything They Do

November 25, 2014 By Ivan Fernandez

Oakland-based "Pana-baynian" hip-hop duo Los Rakas. Courtesy photo.
Oakland-based “Pana-baynian” hip-hop duo Los Rakas. Courtesy photo.

It’s impossible to know Los Rakas and not respect, or at the very least appreciate, their hustle. Behind what many fans see as glitz, glamour, and the rockstar lifestyle lies a work ethic that’s taken them from the youth centers of Oakland to festivals worldwide in just eight years.

Los Rakas signed to Universal Latino earlier this year and marked the occasion with a double-album debut, something a group like Outkast was able to do only after they’d already cemented their careers. They also signed a partnership deal with Hennessy and have toured nearly non-stop this year with appearances in intimate venues as well as large festivals. As if that weren’t enough, the duo has kept up an incredible pace releasing something new every two or three months like clockwork for the past two or three years.

I caught up with Los Rakas last month at the afterparty for NCLR’s ALMA Awards. The duo was scheduled to perform a brief set that night as a warm-up for their set at the inaugural Supersonico Festival the following day. We spoke backstage where they spoke about their work ethic, how they’ve evolved as performers, and how growing up in Panama and Oakland shaped their music.

I noticed you’ve released A LOT of music in different formats regularly over the past couple of years.

Ricardo: We write a lot of music. We stay in the studio all the time. One thing I say to a lot of people, and I don’t mean to sound conceited or anything, but our work is seven years strong and probably 10, 7 years ahead of the game. Plus we stay trying different things, experimenting with other producers and it sets us apart from what everybody else is doing. It’s not like we can’t do what everybody else is doing in the same genres and styles of music but we really love what we do. When we get in the studio, we’re not thinking about what everybody else is doing. We’re just going in and taking it a step at a time. Sometimes these songs don’t happen as fast as people think. Sometimes it takes six months or two years to finish one song.

Dun Dun: We got songs stacked up. Some songs that we put out maybe even tomorrow, they’ve been in the vault like six months ago.

R: Or longer, let’s be honest. We had songs we just released that we’ve had since 2009.

D: With the last album, a lot of them, like, four or five of those songs are like five year’s old. We also wait for perfect timing. Probably, if we had dropped some of the songs that we dropped when we did them, people probably wouldn’t have understood it. We’re letting our fans grow with us. When we feel it’s the right time to drop it, we drop it.

Was signing with Universal Latino part of that philosophy of waiting for the right moment?

D: Yeah, and it wasn’t like that was the first time a label approached us. Many labels approached us before that but it wasn’t the right time or the right label. With Universal, we felt comfortable and they understood our vision. They want to help make that vision bigger. It wasn’t like the other labels that would come like “I like you guys but I think you should start wearing this or start singing this.”

Or “it’s too experimental” or whatever. They wanted something more Top 40-ish like, say, Pitbull.

R: Yeah, not that there’s anything wrong with Pitbull, but why limit yourself to just one genre of music when you have so many others to experience? Really, we do it organically because that’s how we grew up listening to music. We listen to all genres of music and we don’t do it to try to be cool…that’s how we grew up in our household. Even if I didn’t want to listen to that style of music, that’s what I’m going to listen to because that’s what our tia’s playing.

D: In the beginning, we didn’t even think of it. A lot of people would tell us “you guys are different.” On one of my verses, I say we’re “original por accidente (original by accident).” It’s not like when we started writing we were like “ah, we’re going to make something original and we’re going to have our own sound.” It just happened naturally.

R: The people were the ones that brought it to our attention. Like, “you guys are different” and we got to thinking “you know, maybe we are.” Sometimes you do gotta give yourself some props because, sometimes, you need to in order to keep getting better and better.

Yeah, you gotta step back for a second and see your work for what it is. Thankfully, your musical experiments worked out fine in your case.

D: Exactly! Thank God our whole experiment sounded good because it could’ve been bad too! There’s a bunch of experimental out there that is like…uuugghhhhh!

R: Yeah but our stuff might not be for you too and there’s nothing wrong with that. I guarantee you this though: out of all of the songs you might not like, there will be one that you will like even if you don’t listen to this style of music or that style of music.

How long have you been together?

D: Eight years ago. In 2006, we put out our first mixtape out of the youth centers over there in Oakland. That’s really who helped us become Los Rakas.

R: For those who don’t know who we are, we are from Panama originally. Our ethnicity is Panamanian and we started doing music in the Bay Area, in Oakland, in San Francisco. That’s where our music comes from. It wasn’t born in Panama. It was born in the Bay Area and that’s why we stick out from anybody else because there’s never been nothing like that. Usually Caribbeans that come from these places usually go to New York. When we ended up in Oakland, we stuck out because when you think about Panama, nobody knew where Panama was until we were like “yo, we’re from Panama” and everybody’s like “where’s that?” Now when you know or meet somebody from Panama, they go to Los Rakas.

Keeping your home country on a map is a nice side-effect of your music.

R: Putting Panama on the map and the Bay Area to Panama because a lot of people, when they think of California, they think about L.A. Even people in the United States do that! Now, we be wearin’ the Raiders’ stuff, representing the Bay Area and now if you go to Panama, you see people wearing the Raiders’ outfit.

How does it feel to see that with your own eyes?

R: It feels good because it’s something that we never expected and it just shows how much influence we have in what we do and our craft. People like what we do and it’s a good feeling. We were just doing music but now it became a fashion thing too. It becomes so many other things that you never thought of.

D: Even with the word “Raka.” In Panama, it was to describe somebody from the ‘hood in a negative way. Ever since we started using the word and telling people that just because you’re from the ghetto doesn’t mean you’re a negative person. If you’re a raka, be proud of being a raka. Since then, a lot of people in Panama have been saying “I’m a raka” like Raka Felipe or whatever.

Going back to what you said about putting the Bay Area on the map, your work has also put a positive spin on Oakland.

D: There’s a lot of good things that come out of Oakland and we’re the perfect example of that. There were like three youth centers in Oakland that helped us become who we are. There’s a lot of positive things going on in Oakland.

R: We want to inspire the people from Oakland and that come from Oakland. We’re from Panama and we came to Oakland and we saw opportunity and took advantage of it. Look where we’re at now. That’s why we always rep where we’re from.

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Austin: Los Rakas will perform at the Sahara Lounge on Wednesday, Nov. 26 with Orion & Pagame of Peligrosa and Benzo of Dub Academy. RSVP on Facebook here. Hear more music from Los Rakas on bandcamp here.

Filed Under: Events, Features, Slider Tagged With: hip hop, interview, los rakas, rap, the sahara lounge

[3/14 – 3/15] Preview: Pan Americana Fest 2014

March 13, 2014 By Ian Morales

Pan Am Fest Mar 14.15 On Friday, March 14, the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center (ESB-MACC) and Bellas Artes Alliance will present the fourth annual Pan Americana Fest. The free two-day event will feature some of the world’s best Latin Alternative along with local and regional acts for all to see during South by Southwest (SXSW). With a stacked lineup from top to bottom, there is more than enough talent to keep the party going from start to finish. The best part? It is absolutely free to the public.

Friday’s big name headliners include Mexican electronic duo Bostich + Fussible from Nortec Collective and Monterrey tribal sensations, 3Ball MTY. Texas will be well represented as San Antonio punkeros Piñata Protest and Corpus Christi’s Master Blaster Sound System co-headline before the Mexican faves. DJ Dus, a member of Master Blaster Sound System and Peligrosa, will step out and perform as El Dusty on both nights.

On Saturday, Mar. 15, the fest continues on with Venezuelan disco-funkeros, Los Amigos Invisibles. Their Nacional Records label mate Mexican Institute of Sound (M.I.S.) and Panabaynian hip-hop duo Los Rakas co-headline. Mexican rockera Poc opens the event on both nights.

The ESB-MACC is located at 600 River Street. All ages are welcome. No badge or RSVP required. The Pan Americana Fest will last from 5-11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Visit the SXSW website here for set times.

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Filed Under: Events Tagged With: 3ball mty, Bostich & Fussible, cosmica, El Dusty, los amigos invisibles, los rakas, master blaster sound system, Mexican Institute of Sound, nacional records, pan americana fest, Poc, previews, SXSW

Austin Vida + Blastro2 Video Interview: Los Rakas

May 21, 2013 By Austin Vida Staff

Oakland-based "Pana-baynian" hip-hop duo Los Rakas. Courtesy photo.

Los Rakas are a Panamanian rap duo by way of Oakland, California. No stranger to Austin, the group was a featured performer on this year’s Pachanga Latino Music Festival and was here in March for South by Southwest. The Latin Alternative Music Conference “Discovery” award winners will soon be back on the road for a touring with the incredible Ozomatli and later with Mr. Vegas in support of their upcoming double album titled Soy Raka Presents: ‘El Negrito Dun Dun’ & ‘Ricardo’.

During Pachanga Fest our friends at Blastro2 worked with our editor-in-chief, Ian Morales, on some great video coverage and on camera interviews. Morales caught up with Los Rakas at Fiesta Gardens for a brief chat about life as underground stars, their infamous Raka Love EP and their love for their home city. Watch the video interview below.

Filed Under: Events, Slider Tagged With: blastro, hip hop, los rakas, video interview

Pachanga Fest 2013 Recap + Photo Gallery

May 17, 2013 By Ian Morales

Norteño heavyweights Intocable headlined Pachanga Fest on Friday night after waiting out a storm that almost got the event called for bad weather. Photo by Mari Hernandez.

Last weekend Latin music filled the stormy air as this year’s Pachanga Latino Music Festival began Friday night with a brief storm like you see in Hollywood movies. After an opening set by Austin-based Este Vato, attendees were quickly gathered under the pavilion stage at Fiesta Gardens and given plastic rain ponchos by the staff. For a while it felt like the opening scene in Scarface when the Cuban refugees arrive in those “camps,” but luckily the storm let up enough for the show to go on. And go on it did…

After the rough part of the storm it was time for the Monterrey-based co-headliners to take over. The young tribal trio known as 3BallMTY got the largely Mexican (not Mexican-American but Mexican) crowd pumped up again with their live DJ-estyle set that featured beat pads, live percussion and young Mexican break dancers flashing their stomach muscles for the ladies to scream at. It was great to see the young trio, who aren’t old enough yet to buy beer legally in the U.S. yet, return to Austin after a South by Southwest performance last year. “Intentalo” sounded much better on the large stage than it did at some downtown bar.

Friday’s headliner was the Zapata, Texas-based norteño veterans, Intocable. With the most cowboy hats and boots I have ever seen under one Pachanga Fest stage, it was clear that their crowd will come see them in Austin come rain or shine. The group plowed through a plethora of popular hits including “Hay Ojitos” and “Robarte Un Beso .” Very few bands still have such star power in this genre, in the U.S. La gente came out and Intocable closed out Friday night proper.

Gates opened on Saturday to much better weather and a full day of live performances. East Austin teen collective Anthropos Musician Collective opened the fest with an enjoyable set that included a Buena Vista Social Club cover. Miss “POPopportunity” herself, Miranda Gil from Austin followed right before local conjunto favs Susan Torres y Conjunto Clemencia performed. While all these performances were happening, the popular Niños Rock tent offered lessons and demos for the kids.

The legendary Flaco Jiménez during his set at Pachanga Fest. Photo by Mari Hernandez.

Right around 3 p.m on Saturday is when the bigger names and touring acts begin to play during Pachanga. One of the Bay Area’s three groups on the fest, Latin fusion group Bang Data turned heads early while the older, more Tex-Mex crowd was watching the legendary Flaco Jiménez on the Pavilion Stage. Austin’s first chicha group and Grupo Fantasma/Brownout side project Money Chicha started shortly there after, dawning bandido-estyle bandanas to hide their faces. Perhaps it was because they would later come out as Grupo Fantasma and didn’t want that to be too obvious. Either way, it is the biggest stage the psychedelic-chicha group has played and they sounded killer.

The early evening gave Austin their first look ever at new Nacional Records recording artist Raul y Mexia (pronounced Mex-Eye-Ya). The San Jose, CA group is composed of two brothers who are the sons of Hernan Hernández of Los Tigres Del Norte. The duo’s music sounded nothing like their father’s, although the influence is clearly there in their fusion of different sounds that include R&B, pop and traditional Latin rhythms.

The toughest choice for attendees came around 5 p.m as we all had to choose from Morrissey tribute band Sweet & Tender Hooligans and Mexican DJ duo Los Master Plus. While Morrissey is in the hearts and ink of so many of us Latinos, Los Master Plus are a heepster favorite in Mexico.  Ironically, both bands perform covers and cater to almost the same crowd. Given the rare opportunity to see Los Master Plus while they were in the country, I headed to the Hierba Stage to watch crowds laugh and dance to a cumbia-fied, electronic cover of “Sex Is On Fire” or “Sex En Fuego.” I totally should have gone to the see the Morrissey dudes…

After hip-hop duo Los Rakas rocked the crowd Pana-baynian estyle at the Patio Stage, the three surprises of the fest followed. Austin-based Como Las Movies, a Latin fusion group that features former members of Maneja Beto, blew away a small but packed crowd under tent stage. It was refreshing to hear after catching a brief part of the Selena Y Los Burritos set, an Austin-based Selena tribute band. I’m still not sure if it was terrible or awesome, but I think that is the reaction the group goes for.

The last surprise of the day was during the Grupo Fantasma set. Austin’s biggest and baddest Latin band played their usual amazing live set with their same familiar songs we’ve been hearing for the last few years. They were nothing short of spectacular, as always and people loved them. The surprise came from founding member and who I thought was their leader, Adrian Quesada, announced he was leaving the group. We have more details on that here.

Austin's Gina Chavez and her awesome pants at Pachanga Fest. Photo by Mari Hernandez.

Before the night’s headliners took the stage, Austin-based singer-songwriter Gina Chavez closed out the Tent Stage to a receptive crowd. Vallejo, a longtime Austin modern rock fav, was a great warm up for Los Lobos as they reach fans both Latino and non. Tucson’s Sergio Mendoza y La Orkesta, a 2010 Pachanga performer making their way back to the fest, blew everyone watching away with their vintage big band, mambo-influenced music. It was the first time all day that I witnessed a crowd demanding an encore.

The night’s headliners, while different in terms of the genre they play and the crowd they attract, were perfect headliners for a Latin music festival in Austin. Monterrey-based accordion assassin Celso Piña headlined at the Hierba Stage for a crowd dominated by la gente while East L.A. rock icons Los Lobos headlined the Pavilion Stage. As much as I love Celso and hate to miss his live sets, the voice of seven-year-old me inside my head who got the La Bamba soundtrack in 1987 guided me to watch Los Lobos.

Not only was their set at Pachanga one of my favorite Pachanga Fest moments, it was the first time I got see Austin-based country singer Rick Treviño perform with the group. He joined them for a George Jones cover of “He Stopped Loving Her Today” as a tribute to the late country legend. It should be no surprise really as Treviño was part of the Canto album from supergroup Los Super Seven back in the early 2000s with Cesar Rosas and David Hidalgo from Los Lobos.

Treviño wasn’t the only special guest of the night, although he was the bigger name. Los Lobos brought out relatively unknown (stateside that is) accordion player Dwayne Verheyden. Those that follow accordionists and conjunto fests, including Flaco, know Verheyden. The young Netherlands born accordionist joined the Lobos for most of their set, surprising attendees watching as he played rancheras, country and rock songs with the group as if he were a Texas-born vato. He stayed on stage as the group closed out the fest with “La Bamaba” and a their cover of The Young Rascals classic “Good Lovin”.

As with every Pachanga Fest’s end, no one left unhappy from either stage and everyone is already wondering who will the folks behind Pachanga Fest bring next year.  Hopefully one day we can see more indie bands in the mix and bigger after parties. No pressure Pachanga Fest organizers…

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Filed Under: Events, Slider Tagged With: este vato, grupo fantasma, intocable, los master plus, los rakas, pachanga fest, photos, review, sergio mendoza y la orkesta, sweet & tender hooligans

Photos: Los Rakas at Flamingo Cantina

August 13, 2012 By Chris Carrasquillo

Oakland-based hip hop group Los Rakas banner (Chris Carrasquillo)

On Saturday, August 11, Oakland-based hip hop duo Los Rakas performed a headlining show at Flamingo Cantina in Austin, Texas. It was the group’s first appearance in Austin since South By Southwest. Their “Pana-bay” style of hip hop was quite the crowd pleaser as attendees were dancing throughout their entire set. San Antonio-based Bombasta opened the show along with Peligrosa member DJ Sonora. Austin Vida contributing photographer Chris Carrasquillo was in attendance to capture the live photos below.

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Filed Under: Events Tagged With: bombasta, flamingo cantina, los rakas, photos

Austin Ticket Giveaway: Los Rakas at Flamingo Cantina

August 6, 2012 By Austin Vida Staff

Oakland-based hip hop duo Los Rakas are coming back to Austin this Saturday, August 11, to perform at headlining show at Flamingo Cantina. The “pana-baynian” cousins were in Austin for South By Southwest in March, winning over critics and new fans alike. Their music is a  Spanish language mix of grimey street style rap, club jams and R&B inspired love anthems. Los Rakas are one of the most diverse hip artists in the scene and a live act not to be missed.

Opening for Los Rakas is the “barrio big band” from San Antonio, Bombasta. The nine-piece Latin fusion band mixes styles and instrumentations effortlessly as their lyrics travel between Spanish and English. Often referred to as San Antonio’s answer to Ozomatli, Bombasta are known for energetic live shows and being socially conscious.

The best part? We have two tickets to giveaway to one of our lucky Austin Vida readers. We will be giving the tickets away this Friday, the day before the show, on our Facebook page. To qualify to win, just click LIKE whenever you see the link to this post on our Facebook Wall. Yes, that means you can enter your name more than once. We will draw the winning name on Friday and notify the winner via Facebook email. Good luck!

DJ Sonora (Peligrosa) will be spinning throughout the night. Flamingo Cantina is located at 515 E. 6th Street. 21+ are welcome. Doors open at 9:00pm. $10 cover at the door. Advance tickets are available online here. Visit the event page on Do512 here.

Filed Under: Events, Giveaways Tagged With: bombasta, flamingo cantina, giveaway, los rakas

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