Once a year Felix and I head to the Latin Alternative Music Conference in New York to check out great new bands and revisit true legends. We've been doing this for four years now, and it gets better every time. But the festival also had an important anniversary this year: 15 years of bringing new Latin music to New York.
This year, as always, we got to meet fantastic up-and-comers and chill with pillars of Latin music. But we also spoke to key decision-makers in the business. That's because we were asked to host a panel Thursday about how the Latin music industry and its audiences have changed over the past decade and a half.
As a result we got fascinating and very different perspectives this week from Gabriel Abaroa, president and CEO of the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; Tomas Cookman, president and owner of Cookman International, a company that specializes in Latin artists and produces the festival; Jordi Puig, director of the Vive Latino festival in Mexico City; and iconic Argentine artist Dante Spinetta, of the duo Illya Kuryaki and The Valderramas.
Join us for good conversation and songs — and please tell us in the comments section where you think the music we all love is headed.
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