Los Angeles Sonido

Reporter: Clare Robbins

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Script

HOST: A sonido (soh-NEE-doh) is a popular street party that comes from the urban neighborhoods of Mexico's central states. Immigrant families have brought the celebration north of the border to the United States, where the celebration has found a new groove. Intern Edition's Clare Robbins attended a sonido in Los Angeles, California and has this report.

MUSIC WITH TALKING: bienvenidos... bueeeeenassss noooches.

CLARE ROBBINS: That's Jorge Romero, welcoming a crowd in South Central, Los Angeles to a street celebration. It's called a sonido (soh-NEE-doh), a musical block party that's become a tradition in central Mexico. The party has now moved north of the border to American cities such as New York and Chicago. But Los Angeles neighborhoods like this one are the movement's epicenter. Romero's crew "Lamento Chicano" has hosted such events in Los Angeles for twelve years.

For a night, this drab parking lot sandwiched between factories has been transformed into a fantastic outdoor dance club.

This sonido will stretch into the early morning. But what many worn out party goers don't realize is the hours of preparation spent making a sonido a success. AMBIENT SOUND: Set up, testing music sound

CR: Early in the afternoon, Romero and twenty of his friends hoist massive light fixtures next to a giant video screen and test their sound systems. When they're done, the blacktop dazzles with flashing spirals of light. Nearby a middle-aged woman lines up tacos on a makeshift stove, as her two teenaged daughters warm up a giant vat of pale yellow punch. The surrounding neighborhood has been postered for weeks with the dramatic logos of sonidero crew logos, etched in a 3-D style that wouldn't be out of place in a comic book.

BG SOUND: Spanish

CR: As Romero shows me his armory of stereos, amps, mix boards, and faders, he tries to explain the many meanings of the word "sonido." JORGE ROMERO: The party itself is called a sonido. Sonido is also the music created live by the sonideros. Finally, "sonido" also refers to the unique culture found at these celebrations, what Romero calls "a movement" of sonidero crews. CR: But, Romero assures me, words can't fully capture the spirit of sonido:

JR: Only if you dance with me, will you know what a sonido is.

CR: Sonido music is a fusion of tropical rhythms with synthetic beats, mixed with the greetings and jokes of the sonidero on the mic.

Sonideros are most famous for these impromptu "shouts-outs" or "saludos." That's when they welcome the crowd by calling out names over the microphone. Partiers crowd around the sonideros with letters and decorated signs requesting personalized shout-outs.

Often, saludos are shouted for friends and family back home in Mexico. The recording of the evening's sonido is then mailed to those same loved ones across the border.

AMBIENT SOUND: Saludos

CR: While sonidos have been bringing families together in Mexico for thirty years, the tradition migrated to United States in the early nineties. In a little more than a decade, the sonido has taken on new meaning for the immigrant families who brought the party.

Sonideros and partygoers at this event say that the sonido is not only an important way they stay connected to their roots. It's also a way to alleviate some of the pain of alienation they experience living in a new country.

JR: Many people can feel strange in a foreign country; they feel they have no where to go. So they contact us, come and dance and feel as if they are in their own country.

CR: The name of Romero's crew "lamento chicano" which means "lament of the chicano" reflects this feeling of homesickness and isolation.

JR: It's something sad because we the Latino people here in this country suffer a lot. So it's our way of saying the lament of the Latino, the lament of the music that lives in the barrios of Mexico. Sometimes with the music, the heart and soul can be happy.

There are signs that sonido is moving out of the streets and onto the radio and internet. Visitors to sonido internet sites have doubled in the last year and this year marks the second anniversary of L.A.'s most popular sonido radio station. But for now sonido remains an intimate and communal music, as sonideros like Jorge Romero keep the party alive, one city block at a time.

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