Felix Contreras
Felix Contreras is co-creator and host of Alt.Latino, NPR's pioneering program about Latin Alternative music and Latino culture. It features music as well as interviews with many of the most well-known Latinx musicians, actors, filmmakers, and writers. He has hosted and produced Alt.Latino episodes from Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, and throughout the U.S. since the show started in 2010.
Previously, Contreras was a reporter and producer NPR's Arts Desk and, among other stories and projects, covered a series reported from Mexico on the musical movement called Latin Alternative; helped produce NPR's award-winning series 50 Great Voices; and reported a series of stories on the financial challenges aging jazz musicians face.
Contreras is a recovering television journalist who has worked for both NBC and Univision in Miami and California. He's a part-time musician who plays Afro-Cuban percussion with various jazz and Latin bands in the Washington, DC, area. He is also NPR Music's resident Deadhead.
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The Brazilian singer and guitarist, who won wide acclaim for his abundant technical skill and minimalist style, was behind one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time, 1964's Getz/Gilberto. -
NPR's Alt.Latino music podcast shares suggestions for summer listening.
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The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, wraps up this weekend. Band after band filled the stages, including more Latin artists.
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Latin artists at SXSW 2019 Festival have traveled from Brazil and Venezuela where speaking out against government officials can be dangerous. -
NPR Music's Alt Latino host Felix Contreras shares some new tunes via a "musical blindfold test" with Lulu.
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There's a new box set of rare Cuban music recordings from the 1950s and 60s. The set is called The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions. Hear an interview with co-producer Judy Cantor-Navas on Alt. Latino.
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It's rock, it's hip hop, it's sung in English ... can it still be "Latin music"? Music and cultural identity intersect in surprising ways in this week's list of tunes shared by Alt.Latino.
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The patriarch helped take his legendary family from Gary, Ind., to global stardom, though the disciplinarian streak he used to get them there proved controversial later in life. -
The norteño band became the first major Latin band to play at Folsom Prison since Johnny Cash did in 1968. -
NPR Music's Rodney Carmichael and Felix Contreras dish about their favorite new discoveries at South by Southwest 2018 over a plate of barbecue.
