Hey, it's A. Martinez. I work on a news show. And yeah, the news can feel like a lot on any given day. But you just can't ignore the news when important world-changing events are happening. So that is where the up-first podcast comes in. Every single morning, in under 15 minutes, we take the news and boil it down to three essential stories. You can keep up without feeling stressed out. Listen to the

Up First podcast from NPR. From NPR music, I'm Felix Contreras. Anna Maria Ser is traveling this week and left

the studio empty, so I'm going to step in, close the door, and record a show with just you and me.

What I have planned is a continuation of an alt-Latino tradition of recognizing Black

History Month with music from Afro-Latino populations from throughout Latin America.

And we're going to feature a conversation I had with saxophonist Miguel Zenon, who is

originally from Puerto Rico and

identifies as Afro-Latino, I asked him to come in and talk about the Afro-Poter-Rican composer

Tite Gouret Olonso, a behind-the-scenes musician type of figure known for hundreds of songs

that he wrote mainly for artists on the Fania label in the 1970s and 80s.

And many of those songs celebrate the history of African heritage in the Americas and specifically

the Caribbean.

But to get started, we're going to go to Venezuela. Oh, Santa Rosa, Oh, Santa Rosa,

Patrona del Claw

and my people in your

your corasso.

Betzada Machado comes from a small town called El Chavo,

which is near the Caribbean coast of Venezuela.

Like much of the music from Latin America and the Caribbean,

its strongest influence is from West Africa,

but it's also mixed with European and indigenous music.

The song that we're going to hear right now is called O Santa Rosa,

...