I'm Yewey Shaw. I'm Kea Miyakana-Tis. We're the hosts of the NPR podcast, Invisibilia.

You can think of Invisibilia kind of like a sonic blacklight.

When you switch us on, you will hear surprising and intimate stories.

Stories that help you notice things in your world that maybe you didn't see before.

Listen to the Invisibilia podcast from NPR.

From NPR music, this is Alt Latino.

I'm Felix Contreras.

This week's show is about two musicians who are challenging our preconceived notions

of just what Latin music and Latin musicians should sound like.

You know, society puts us in these little squares and expects us to stay there to help make the world easier to understand. But life isn't like that, is it?

We can be complex, unexpected, and even counterintuitive.

And the most creative among us, even more so.

Like Ruben Blades, for example.

We know him as a prolific salsa singer and songwriter,

and we know him as an actor.

But his new album is called Saul Swing,

and it reveals that he is also a big band crooner in the style of Frank Sinatra,

Tony Bennett, and even Fred Astaire. We're going to hear all about that later in the show.

But first, we visit with Cuban percussionist and vocalist Pedrito Martinez.

He has already defied expectations with an impressive vocal range and style, all while playing the

funkiest street rumba on conga percussion that has even the most jaded and experienced experts

nodding their head in approval. The first tour albums under his own name have been a steady

...