Alt.Latino: Our favorite Latin Tiny Desk Contest entries

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4.3 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Since 2014, we've been hitting bands up to send in their videos for the opportunity to win the Tiny Desk Contest. And almost from the beginning, Alt.Latino has been pulling aside the bands and artists that play Latin music. It’s always been a highlight to see the incredible talent that's out there night after night in bars, clubs, community centers, street parties and backyards, finding new ways to express their Latino identity through music. This year was no different.

We waded through hundreds of entries to select the six to feature this week, which showcase a huge variety of musical expressions.

And a reminder: you can see every band that sent in a video this year right here - and a big shout out to this year’s winner, Cure For Paranoia!

Artists and songs featured in this episode:

(04:10) Sofia Gomez, "Without Me"
(07:58) Ed Harvest, "Me Toca Despedirme de Ti"
(11:05) alegrías, "Wahoo!"
(16:05) Ivan Llanes and Friends, "Cubahia"
(22:27) Majo Puente, "MAKTUB"
(25:56) Thee Almighty Majestics, "Última Noche"

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

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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 chiseme begin. And the chisema this week, I'm going to cut you off. I know. I was like, wait, I was going to set up the chisemps. Fine. Tell me, what's the chisemet? You better have good chisemex than Felix if you're going to cut me out. We have the winner of the Tiny Desk contest for this year.
0:23.1	That is pretty great.
0:24.1	It has been announced. And the winner is... Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. You're supposed to drumroll me in. Okay, go ahead. The winning group is Cure for Paranoia. They're a group from Dallas.
0:39.5	What type of music do they do, Felix? Let's hear a little bit. Let's bring, right, brain. Let's brain, right, brain. I lost my mind not complaining. Let's brain, right, brain. No brain. Left brain, right, brain. Left brain, right, right, no brain. I lost my mind.
0:55.0	Left right brain going back and forth. Brain splits down to the apple core. Social fierce ego, I'm a savage. Got two woods in me. I'm a big bad wolf here. I'm about to blow. Sinise I'm a sad how I'm a to dough. Not a, not joke. I be kind of lame sometimes, but I can't change no. And we have to say that
1:10.6	it was one of the judges.
1:12.4	This is true.
1:13.2	I was part of the judges.
1:12.4	This is true.
1:13.1	I was part of the conversations where it happened.
1:15.7	I was a judge last year.
1:17.4	And they kicked Felix out.
1:19.1	You're right.
1:20.0	And replaced him with me, the upgrade.
1:22.1	I'm Felix 2.0.
1:24.4	Judging experience.
1:25.5	That's a whole different episode.
1:28.4	I avoided being a judge for a long time.
1:31.5	What have we been doing this?
1:32.2	Over 10 years now.
1:33.4	And because, and I knew it, the year I got selected, it's like, I wanted everybody to win, man.
1:40.4	I too was avoiding it for years.
	...

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