EPISODE 111 – RHYS LANGSTON IS A SILVER LAKE ORIGINAL RAPPER AND MORE

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Rhys Langston (@rhyslangston) makes ‘alternative’ rap “that is at the front of experimental trends while remaining accessible and engaging. Think hearing raps breaking language while breaking your neck head nodding to the beats. Like medicine with spoonfuls of sugar, radical Black theory gone colloquial over raw compositions, songs for the cool nerds who neither need to prove their coolness or their nerd credentials.”

Langston and yours truly discuss his latest album, Grapefruit Radio, his background coming up in Silver Lake and Leimert Park, nerd culture, the legacy of Kerry James Marshall, the writing process as a craft, calling out rappers, click-bait culture in its current form, Saul Williams, and more. We also shout out Langston’s new video from the album, In the Suburbs of Babylon.

For more of these cuentos and then some, please follow J.T. the L.A. Storyteller on Apple or Spotify, then rate and review us!

And if you’d like to tune into the show from elsewhere, please see our RSS feed here: https://jimbotimes.com/category/podcast/feed/

J.T.

EPISODE 110 – EVA RECINOS IS A WRITER WHO YOU MUST FOLLOW IN L.A.

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We catch up with Eva Recinos, originally out of South-Central Los Angeles, and now a seasoned Arts and Culture writer and Creative Non-Fiction writer who focuses on visual art and design, Latinx identity, and education and mental health. Eva was a 2019 finalist in the LA Press Club awards for Arts & Entertainment Feature (Online); 2019 Idyllwild Writer’s Week Nonfiction Fellow; 2020 finalist in the Center for Women Writers International Literary Awards; finalist in the Blood Orange Review 2020 Creative Nonfiction Contest; and a 2021 Pen America Emerging Voices Fellowship finalist.

Our conversation touches on a number of Eva’s articles, including “The Streets Are Made of Anger” for Sin Cesar, “I Want to Speak for Myself, Not the whole Latinx Community,” for Electric Lit, and “You, too, can be touched by Çedouze” for the L.A. Times; we also talk about the challenges of writing, including in terms of frequency, Eva’s experience pitching a new manuscript, and some of her must-read books this season.

You can sign up for Eva’s newsletter, Notes with Eva–which is truly a care-package for writers–HERE, and follow her more closely on IG via @evaiswriting.

For more of these cuentos and then some, please follow the show on Apple or Spotify, then rate and review us!

And if you’d like to tune into the show from elsewhere, please see our RSS feed here: https://jimbotimes.com/category/podcast/feed/

J.T.

EPISODE 109 – LESLIE AMBRIZ REDEFINES MEDIA FOR LATINX COMMUNITIES IN L.A.

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Leslie Ambriz joins us for our final episode of 2022 to talk extensively about life and upbringing in Los Angeles, the prolific diversity between neighborhoods and communities in and around the city–including the Orange County area–thoughts on the current media landscape for millennials and families, finding one’s voice as a storyteller, and more.

Leslie Ambriz is a journalist and producer from Southeast Los Angeles, California. She is passionate about documenting stories and issues that affect communities of color, and how art and culture influence our political and social climates. She’s worked on projects for and in collaboration with numerous companies such as, the Associated Press, Spotify, Remezcla, SoulPancake, NBC News, Nike, AfterBuzz TV and more. She has both a Masters and Bachelors degree in Journalism and New Media from the University of Southern California and Biola University.

Read Ambriz’s personal essay on leaving the Christian church HERE. Check out her most recent Spotify original podcast, Identity at Play HERE, and keep up with her reporting work via @LeslieAmbriz_ on IG and Twitter.

J.T.

Congrats, Mayor-Elect Bass!

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It’s true that it’s early, but the math looks promising for the candidate originally out of Mid-City Los Angeles, otherwise known as Congressmember Bass, who’s represented the 37th District of California at the nation’s capitol since 2011. According to the L.A. Times, “Independent analysts suggest that a minimum of 300,000 ballots remain to be counted, the vast majority of them mail-ins. Bass pulled from behind in the vote count in the June primary on the strength of mail-in votes, and the new totals this week — with the congresswoman gaining three-fifths of the total 82,510 new votes over two days — suggested a possible repeat of that pattern.”

While many voters will be left wanting by her election, for many others–especially women of color–her victory is a homecoming, if not a welcome break from the usual order of business in the halls of power.

From left to right, 15 Mayors for L.A. since 1913, and finally, Karen Bass.

In the U.S. House of Representatives (where Bass has served), out of 435 seats, only 151 are held by women. Next door, only 24 out of 100 U.S. Senators are women; even locally, at L.A. City Hall, the last four years saw at best only four of fifteen seats occupied by people other than men (and before that, much less); figures like these are why a U.N. report recently noted that at the current rate, it will take another 40 years before gender parity may be established in national congresses or parliaments across the globe.

One gets the sense, though, that elections like Bass’ to the mayor’s office in the second largest city in America will have something to say about that. Congrats are thus in order.

J.T.