Background

My interest in politics and music was ignited when watching Star Wars in 4th grade: I wanted to join the cantina band, but even more, I wanted to defeat the empire. The next year, my elementary school band performed the soundtrack. I had the role of hitting two cymbals together, and smashed them so hard that, at a musical climax, they turned inside out. I bought an album of Star Wars music being performed by the Meco Orchestra. It was my first funk, and it would still be years until I heard James Brown, Fela or Parliament, but my path to becoming a funk drummer was already clear. I went on to join several bands, including the Pedestrians in high-school, and Sprawl while attending Rice University for Art and English. My current band in Houston, Free Radicals, plays jazz-funk, hip-hop, ska, avant-garde punk, and international music. The group creates non-commercial original compositions, performs benefit concerts, and provides the beat for street protests for causes like immigrant rights, and against police brutality and war-profiteers like Halliburton. When not playing drums, I am around North and South America playing capoeira angola, showing my film, doing a workshop, doing graphic design, mastering and CD duplication at Sound Arts Recording and elsewhere, volunteering with groups like Food Not Bombs, and houston indymedia, making monoprints and other types of art, and writing articles.

Location

houston / NYC / America Latina

Occupation

recording, design, teaching

Music That Inspires Me

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Films I'll Watch More Than Once

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