This morning, we're going to be talking about a new streaming service from The Current. It's called Ritmofonica, and this service aims to highlight the music, perspectives, and culture of the Latin American community in Minnesota and beyond.

The stream has launched, and the timing of this is very deliberate as well, as it's going to run the entirety of Hispanic Heritage Month. Two members of the Ritmofonica team visited The Current Morning Show to talk more about this new service. Listen to the interview using the audio player above, and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jill Riley: One of the things that's really exciting about Ritmofonica is that my colleagues have come together to create this music service, and it's a really special thing from Minnesota Public Radio. And a couple of those colleagues are with me right now. I've got Natalia Toledo, who is a multimedia producer for The Current, and I've also got Ines Guanchez, a digital producer for YourClassical. So I know that the team expands outside of the two of you, and we'll talk a little bit about that, because the collaboration on this is a really exciting piece of it. But to start, what is Ritmofonica? I mean, my first question, Natalia, I remember asking you, what does this mean? What do these words mean? So if you could...

Natalia Toledo: Yes, thanks for having us.

Jill Riley: Yes, of course.

Natalia Toledo: So ritmo means “rhythm,” and then fónica is like radiophonics. So it's really just a play on words. We went through a long process of trying to find a cool name that is memorable and is like, easy to pronounce for English speakers or people that don't speak Spanish. And yeah, we think it captures the essence pretty well.

Jill Riley: For sure. Now I want to talk about the Ritmofonica team. Ines, I wonder if you could talk about just how the team was formed. I mean, I understand that you've done some work with Miguel Vargas from KFAI, but there are other colleagues in the building at Minnesota Public Radio who have been a part of this. So could you talk about that a little bit.

Ines Guanchez: For sure! So actually, three colleagues here at MPR, which are Natalia, myself and Raul Escobar, we all got together at an Ana Tijoux concert at The Cedar, and we didn't know all three of us would be attending, and we met up, and we kind of talked about how we really wanted to have more Latin American music on The Current. And that kind of planted the seed in order to begin this project. And as we started telling people about it, people got more and more excited, and different colleagues from MPR News, from other technical areas in the building, just kind of started coming to us and saying, "Hey, we heard about this, and this sounds really exciting." And it's through all of their time and their work that this has become possible.

Jill Riley: Yeah, now, being that all of you were out in the community at a concert, I think "community" is such a big word here. You know, could you talk a little bit about the community that you're inspired by with this service? It's a community that you're part of! But really that community in Minnesota, because, you know, I think that you're like, right on the money with serving a community here.

Natalia Toledo: Well, actually, also shout out to Nikhil Kumaran, who's also a coworker and who has helped us a ton in this process. Speaking of community, also, our collaboration with Miguel Vargas from KFAI was really key, because he's been doing Radio Pocho, which is kind of mirroring what we're doing here for years. So he has a connection to the community already, and we just thought it was important to, like, bring it all together in a way. But yeah, I think we've, the three of us, Raul, Ines and I have had sort of this vision, just in different ways. So it's really cool that it's happening. And I think for me personally, what I've envision for Ritmofonica is not only to be able to provide different genres of music from Latin America, but also possibly having, like, expansive conversations that maybe are not happening in other platforms. And, yeah, just really being like a space for community that is maybe just a little bit more alternative, if that makes sense.

Jill Riley: Yeah, that totally makes sense. Ines, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the timing of the launch of this service. I mean, this is right on the money, launching and really kind of the beginning phase of this happening during Hispanic Heritage Month, which is celebrated like mid-September through mid-October. 

Ines Guanchez: Absolutely. So we had talked about actually launching this next year, in 2025, originally, but it was through a lot of the encouragement of our colleagues that we came to this kind of soft launch that is already up and running for people to listen to. And the timing, you know, is great, because we really wanted people to know in the community, and it's, you know, it's a buzzword right now, it's happening. A lot of people know that it's happening. And therefore, people, even outside of the Latin American community, can see this and see its relevance. But the hope in the future is that it will go beyond actually Hispanic Heritage Month, and it will be something that hopefully is 24/7. And I think the beauty of that is, you know, I think everybody that has a month for themselves feels a little mixed about it, you know?

Jill Riley: And then what, do we shut it off?

Ines Guanchez: Exactly. But I think it's a great platform to use to kind of get it out and to really talk about the important conversations of having this sort of musical representation in many spaces.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with Ines Guanchez, a digital producer for YourClassical, and also Natalia Toledo, who I work with on The Current. Natalia, I've been getting to know you as a The Current colleague. Really cool to see so many of our colleagues coming together to really put this service together. And Natalia, you were talking about different voices and the music. So can you talk a little bit about the music that people are going to hear when they tune in?

Natalia Toledo: Yeah! So the soft launch right now is really just music. Obviously, for the future, we have more of the other ideas that we talked about, but right now it's such a vast variety. It's really just including all types of genres, all countries from Latin America, all generations as well. So you'll find like more traditional, like salsa, cumbia, merengue, Bossa Nova from Brazil. And then there's more like pop and like rock and hip hop. I think it's an opportunity to invite people to kind of be curious about what is going on in Latin America. I think sometimes there's just — I just invite people to expand their minds a little bit.

Jill Riley: Ines, do you have something to add to that when it comes to the music part?

Ines Guanchez: Well, I'm hoping that everybody can find something for themselves. I think that it's so difficult, right, to try to encompass the entire Latin American culture and generations. And beyond that, within every country, there's regions, and there are ethnic groups, and there's so many different things going on. And, you know, this first soft launch, it's a little bit of everything. There's definitely some artists that we wish we could have put in there, but we maybe didn't have enough time for. But we're hoping that as Ritmofonica grows, that we can not only expand the artists that we listen to from old recordings from Latin America, but also engage a lot of the new art that's coming out, especially here locally and in other areas of the United States, because a big part is also to speak to the diaspora of Latin Americans that exists in the United States and beyond.

Jill Riley: I'm talking with Natalia Toledo and Ines Guanchez in The Current studio, talking about a new bilingual online streaming service. It's called Ritmofonica, and I'm curious, how can people listen? Where can they find it?

Natalia Toledo: You know, The Current has various streams that happen in different months, or just, you know, there's Radio Heartland, Purple Current, etc. So you can find it there, so pretty much thecurrent.org/streams. We're slowly sort of building our social media presence little by little. And also, I just want to mention that we have been really inspired also by what Carbon Sound is doing.

Jill Riley: Yeah — that's the celebration of all genres heavily influenced by Black music culture. And it's a variety of genres in a variety of eras. And they've done great work with that.

Natalia Toledo: And so we're really inspired by what they're doing. And we just were like, "Oh, this would be really cool for our community." 

Jill Riley: Amazing.

Natalia Toledo: Yeah.

Jill Riley: Well, congratulations.

Natalia Toledo: Thank you, it's so exciting.

Ines Guanchez: Thanks for having us.

Jill Riley: Of course! So you've talked about, eras and genres. What artists, or do you have a couple artists specifically that you're really excited about to play on the stream?

Natalia Toledo: I'm personally really excited about, well, Ana Tijoux, obviously, because she's from my country, which is Chile, and that's kind of where we, like, met up at that show and started having the conversations. And then I'm also really excited about all of the Brazilian music, because I feel like sometimes that gets missed a little bit because they don't speak Spanish, but they have such a huge impact, actually, on music in Latin America.

Ines Guanchez: I'm so excited for the oldies. I grew up listening in Costa Rica to a radio called the Radio Sinfonola, and it was all the oldies, everything that was, you know, the '70s — I know that's not that “oldies,” but wait, bear with me! — '70s, '60s, '50s, and that, all that music, the boleros, everything that was like, you know, Benny Moré, that's music that I know is very near and dear to my parents, and that I think that younger generations will enjoy listening to as well. So I'm excited for that exploration of music to happen.

Jill Riley: Ritmofonica, and you can find it where you can find, like Natalia, like you mentioned, you know, other streams from The Current, and so just go to thecurrent.org, or download the app for your smartphone, and that's a really easy way to find the other streams, like Radio Heartland and Carbon Sound and so on and so forth, and now another one on there. So congratulations on the launch, and can't wait to see how this grows. 

Ines Guanchez: Thank you so much.

Natalia Toledo: Thanks for having us.

Jill Riley: You are listening to The Current.

Play: Listen to the Ritmofonica stream

Credits

Guests – Natalia Toledo, Ines Guanchez
Host – Jill Riley
Producer – Nilufer Arsala
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor