I'm Shireen Marisol Maraji and this is Code Switch from NPR.

Hi Code Switch, familia. It's great to be back on the show that I love and for those of you who have

forgotten me already or are new here. I've co-hosted the Code Switch podcast for the past five years

and I left to try some other things and we'll see how that goes. But I'm sliding into your DMs

this week because when the Code Switch producers pitched me the topic, I could not say no.

It's two things I am obsessed with. One being language, more specifically the language we use

to identify ourselves and the world around us, why we use certain terms and you know what that means

and music. In this case, Ajahnra many referred to as Latin music. Ajahnra and heavy rotation on my

playlist which go from Sadia Cruz to Natanaya Gano to Manuchau.

So why are Cuban Saicera, a northern Mexican trap, Gorido musician and a French Spanish rocker who

sings in a bunch of different languages? Why are they all considered Latin music? It's a question

our play cousins over at NPR's all Latino, Felix Contreras and producer Anna Maria Cere have been

arguing over for a minute so we invited them on the show to hash it out in front of all of you.

Felix Anna, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, thanks for having us. This is going to be fun.

We're excited. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. But not as long as Outlet

Theonos have been around Felix. I believe you're on double digits now and yeah, you've been producing

and hosting the entire time and for those of you out there who have not listened to Outlet Theonos,

I'm judging you just tiny tiny just a little bit. I'm a little bit. But really for folks who haven't

listened to Outlet Theonos yet, Felix how would you describe it? You know the show started we're going

into our 12th year in June. This is Outlet Theonos NPR's new show about Latin alternative music.

So the show started as a show dedicated to Latin alternative music, very very specific

sliver of the Latin music market, right? Hence, Alt Latino. Exactly. Along the way it evolved into

...