I'm Maria Inojosa and I am Penileira Mides.

And on this new series, we're going to get to know the most powerful Mexican government official ever to face trial in the US for his alleged ties to the infamous drug lord El Chapo.

But this is not your regular narco story.

It's like true crime meets telenovela.

This is our new series, USA versus Garcia Luna.

Find it whatever you get your podcasts and at futuroinvestigates.org.

From Futuro Media, it's Latino USA, Ag Mariano Josa.

For this episode of Latino USA, we're going to take a revisiting trip to one of our how I made its segments.

This one aired last year in 2020. Enjoy.

Nicknamed the Cuban James Brown for his intoxicating mix of Latin groove, African rhythms and American funk,

30-year-old singer and songwriter Eric Rodriguez is building a new stage for Cuban music.

After a year as a solo artist, he and a band called Los Boys merged in 2018 to become SEMAFUN.

It's a name Rodriguez had already been using on stage and just one year later, that band was named one of Billboards top 10 Latin artists to watch.

Deriving from SEMARON is the Spanish word for Africans who escaped slavery in Cuba. SEMAFUNC's sound strives to embody not only the island's roots but also its branches.

Mainly I may funk music with African music, also it's a crazy mix of both music style.

The SEMARON for me is this kind of element in the Cuban culture that is a big part of the African movement and funk, well because funk is something similar for me also, but from the United States.

So I mix the both name and I use that for calling myself.

Haleyne from Cuba's countryside, a city called Pinar del Rio. Rodriguez grew up listening to his mom singing Michael Jackson at home, dancing to the sounds of salsa at family parties.

And popping in Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder cassettes while driving around and singing with his deal.

Nevertheless, Rodriguez was not always planning on shaking up Cuba's music scene.

My grandmother, she came from more deep in the forest. She out from there with my grandfather and they build a house a little bit more close to the town.

When my grandmother did that, she was telling everyone of my son have to go to university and everyone of my son have to be professional. So, my family is like a lot of my uncles, my mom, everybody is doing a series of engineering, my mom is like colleges and everybody getting into this, you know, the bill, a career and be somebody.

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