Alt.Latino: A conversation with Gloria Estefan

All Songs Considered

NPR

Music

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Gloria Estefan is one of those musicians whose work and mere presence in the record industry deserves without question platitudes like ‘pioneering’ or ‘ground breaking.’ In fact, we have often mentioned her in that light throughout the fifteen years of Alt.Latino. So it was a thrill to invite her to chat with us once again, this time immediately after a stunning Tiny Desk performance that will publish on October 13th. She gives serious Favorite Tiá vibes, and since she and Felix are close in age, it felt like a conversation with a good friend with a fascinating life story - who just happens to have one of the richest song catalogs in Latin music history.

This podcast episode was produced by Noah Caldwell. The executive producer of NPR Music is Suraya Mohamed.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From NPR music, this is all Latino. I'm Felix Contreras. And I'm Anna Maria Sayer. Let the Chisemet begin.
0:14.1	Anna, this week, the Chisemay is that you are on the president of Chile's Instagram. What's up with that? I mean, there's a good reason. It has to do with what we do here, Felix. Tap, top, top, top, top, top, top, top, top. What do you pass, Policarpo? Me pas to every that they invite to Tiny Desk, Tuleo. Oh! we for El Tyni, Little
0:46.5	This Year, I think you either really know it or you super don't.
0:54.0	It's a children's show that's been really impactful in Chile, across Latin America.
0:59.1	I think I knew the show would blow up.
1:01.2	I didn't know I'd make it on the president's Instagram.
1:03.5	Saying it blew up is kind of an understanding.
1:29.1	I've been looking at a lot of the metric since it came out yesterday. We're talking right now on a Tuesday. This came out yesterday, Monday, October 6th. And it isn't the fastest growing time-disc of all time. Billy Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter hit 2.5 million in a day. This hit 2 million.
1:36.9	But I will say it is probably arguably one of the most beloved universally. It's something that is being talked about in pretty much every major news outlet across Latin America. I'm getting
1:42.2	emails and texts from reporters across the two
1:45.6	continents, as well as in Germany, different parts of Europe.
1:48.6	Makes sense, though, because that show, we're hearing from older people who are nostalgic,
1:53.5	younger people who remind them of their home. There are so many different reactions.
1:58.0	Very basically, why did you choose this act?
2:00.7	It's one of those shows that
2:02.5	kind of preserves this period of nostalgia for a lot of people in Latin America. Like I said,
2:08.4	it started in Chile. It's a huge deal baseline for any Chilean cultural product to be exported.
2:16.0	It's not something that easily happens. Art from Chile does not easily
2:19.0	leave the country. And it made its way first to Mexico, then to other parts of Latin America. So it was
2:24.2	always something of great Chilean pride and ultimately of Latin American pride. It's one of those things
2:28.6	that if you grew up with it, a part of your heart lives with this show. To see this performance is something that takes
2:37.6	you directly back to your childhood. I mean, a thing that I've been receiving, which has never happened to me,
	...

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