FELIX: You know, my mother used to say, "I can't believe you're getting paid to do what you used to do with your friends.

Buying your little 45s and play them on your little record player.

And then your friends would come over and you guys talk about them."

It's essentially the same thing.

I had a subscription to "Rolling Stone Magazine" back in 1973, basically the start of music, music journalism.

And it was always like, well, that would be cool to be able to sit down and interview your favorite artists and stuff.

But doing music journalism wasn't anything that I was able to get back to or even think about again, until I got here to NPR.

I started working for NPR on the news side.

I pitched a story once about Ray Barretto.

He had a new record out at that time, and my editor said, "Well, we don't know anybody that knows that music.

Why don't you do the piece?"

So that's how I started doing pieces for NPR as a producer/reporter.

One day, Jasmine Garsd, who was a production assistant for the "Tell Me More" show.

She came by my desk, and I happened to be playing Los Fabulosos Cadillacs on my little speakers.

She goes, "Oh, do you know the band?"

"Oh, yeah, I love this band."

And she's from Argentina.

So, we just like, bonded on the Rock en Español thing.

We became friends.

She'd come by, we'd talk music, and she said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we had a show about Latin alternative music?"

I thought, yeah, it would be cool, but it would be really difficult to get into the public radio system, though, as it existed back then.

We sort of sat on it and then eventually there was a call for, proposals for this new thing called "podcasts."

Latin alternative music wasn't being covered by the mainstream Spanish language media.

It was all pop music.

So Fabulosos Cadillacs, Café Tacvba, there just was no space for them.

Our idea was to make it both a mobile product and to fill that gap with all these bands, these alternative bands that were thinking of Latin music in new and exciting ways.

Jasmine and I, we stayed after work a couple nights and put together this pilot, and we pitched it, and the short version is that they took our idea.

NPR is not on the Spanish language radio circuit.

I had to beg people to send me their CD's, when we started the show.

When we first did Juanes in the old building.

There was hardly anybody there.

I mean, every Latino in the building, which was not a lot back then, you know, they were all there, but nobody else really knew who it was.

There were a couple of record labels, they believed in what we were doing and supported us by providing us with products, with artists, with things to play on the show.

It's a huge difference between now and then.

I mean, now everybody wants to do the "Tiny Desk" because this thing just, just blew up.

People trust in our curatorial expertise and our background, and our knowledge, and I think that we're at a spot now where, you know, I think was it three or four years ago now that we took over Latino Heritage Month and we referred to it as "El Tiny" because some musicians came in from Latin America, and everybody in Latin America calls it "El Tiny," right?

So, I think that once we started curating that, I think that that was the big moment, the organization, the producers, the, you know, everybody involved with the Tiny Desk understood the value of Latin music, not just for clicks, but just because it represents so many people in this country and throughout the continent and Spain.

In terms of curation, you know, NPR is not any different than the rest of society here that we live in.

While they were making space for what we were doing.

There wasn't always an open embrace.

The great challenge that I appreciate here is being able to, to try to change hearts and minds.

Even within the building, we had to push the stuff, push these ideas and push it to put it on the podcast, to put on the radio shows.

I think we've earned the respect that they don't second guess us, because we've been able to build up enough confidence in, in and from on their part to be able to do what we think is right.

I'm extremely proud of what we've done at Alt.Latino.

Nobody else does what we do.

Nobody else has done what we've done.

Nobody else has talked to the variety of artists that we've done.

And it's strictly because first, Jasmine and now Ana and I, this is our scope.

These are the people that we think are important.

Making important statements.

And so, we're going to put them on this vehicle that's within NPR.

I'm extremely proud and humbled.

But I'm just me.

I'm just doing like my mother says, I'm doing what I was doing when I was a kid, just playing records and talking about it with my friends.