Cultivating Culture: Marángeli Mejía Rabell's Creative Journey

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Speaker 1
Only a couple months down, I think I recognize.

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Rob Lee
Welcome to the truth in this art. I am your host, Rob Lee. And once again, we're back in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, for a interview conversation. And today, my guest is a Puerto Rico born, Philadelphia based cultural producer, strategic thinker and community development practitioner whose work is centered on cross-sector partnership and and culture as a tool for social change and community self-actualization.

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Rob Lee
She is also the co-founder and creative partner of Afro Taino and a director of the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival. Please welcome Maggie Mejia Rebell. So. So thank you for for joining the podcast. And before we get to deep, could you share your story? Where does your story begin and what was your first art experience?

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Wow. My first experience was definitely music. Music and film. I recall being a very young child and listening to Heaven is Missing an angel or, you know, love to love you, baby. I remember being told by my grandmother that was not a good song to sing. And I was like, Mommy, what is talking about love? And she sang long enough.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Not the kind of love that you need to talk about your age. So I recall that involved, you know, my mother. All my family loved to film and my parents were divorced since I was three and they remarried as a conversation for a different day. But long story short, I had my Saturdays with my dad, and they always began with going to a matinee at 11 a.m. in the morning.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So I got to see all kinds of things. I remember negotiating with him that I needed to watch Saturday Night Fever, and he was like, It's an R-rated film. I'm like, No, papa, but it's about dancing, you know? It's come with me and him getting very uncomfortable in the scene in the strip club and taking his glasses off.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Like, I'm not looking at the woman who was naked. But yeah, I will say those are definitely the ones that can take you again. Donna Summer will come and it's like I'm four or five years old again, sitting in my mom's car and and enjoying her company. So I value and really appreciate music for that.

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Rob Lee
So music, movies starting out in Where'd you Grow Up? Where Where's the story begin, if you will?

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I grew up in By a Puerto Rico. By Puerto Rico in Pueblo and chitchat room. Yes, it's it's a town known for many things. There's a song that says that environment, it rains every day. My mom is known for his traffic jams. People are are known for being strong.

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Rob Lee
Will give us a lot of tours energy flowing around.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
But it's about 20 minutes from someone. So I grew up in that area, went to school and going to all San Juan was are coming of age experience every weekend we all hang out you know you're talking I was born in 68 you're talking about I'm class of 86 in high school. So having a good time and hanging out carting people.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yes. All day. Yes. I'm not even going to get into it. But yes to all of it. You know, we were coming right after think about it is about you know we're coming our parents some of them got to experi ins the you know the early seventies and all that experimentation this go and then here we come as a generation so Saturday night fever is the first film that I recall that I don't see that I myself as a kid can't even though I was a kid.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah. Like when Menudo came out over there too, for me.

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Rob Lee
Yeah, yeah. Ricky Martin.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
No, no, no, no, no, no. They're kids. They're kids like me. I'm not interested in that.

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Rob Lee
I'm into a don't know exactly.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I was, you know, checking my sister is a little bit over eight years older than me. My mother magazines looking at stare at studio 54 looking around Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger having a great time. That's what I was interested in. I go, I want to grow up and hang out and do that and go to parties and all of that and learn about art and learn about fashion.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And, you know, so from a very early age and my mother liked to host a lot with a lot of friends. So I understood from a very, very early age, not so much in the domestic sense, even though there's an element of that, the importance of creating a space for folks to feel comfortable, to relax, to hang out, to experience each other, and how those were tokens of love, tokens of gratitude, right?

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So opening the doors of your house. And of course, that was combined with no fear. You're talking to somebody who navigates city on a regular and has tried to use that as an asset. But understanding that my grandma will say, you don't know who's coming through that door. If it's going to be you, you have to leave your house impeccable in case that somebody else has to come.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So anyway, so you balance the two.

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Rob Lee
Yeah, I to like when I listen to, you know, people who were around doing things before I was born in 85. Right. So I would hear things from my parents like, yeah, we used to do this. We have a fish fry Friday night and all of these different things. And now I'm not around that stuff. Like when I'm in my own space and having them pretty nice, at least I'm not hanging out with my, you know, any of the art friends I've gotten, you know, going during the series.

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Rob Lee
I'm just kind of. All right. Mad Scientist was the next question. I'm writing one of the movies that I'm watching and, you know, parts of that I like. And, you know, as a person that is always on this sort of like navigating anxiety, you know, saying, oh, what are we doing? How long are we going to be there having that timer that goes off?

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Rob Lee
Exactly. And I will say in this is going to go to a second question. I because I think I have a sense of it, but one of the highlights that I've had over the last few weeks was I had a day to myself right now not working on a podcast and not going to work and hanging out with anyone that I watched five movies and I was like, This was a great day.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah, that's not a bad thing.

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Rob Lee
It was a great day. And in the diverse mix, some like movies that I knew were schlock like, This is bad, this is bad, but I'm going to finish it. And then doing something sense. I had one movie homework assignment. I watched Deliverance for the first time. I was like, This is a bit much. I was like a, you know, palate cleanser for this was the cartoon.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Exactly.

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Rob Lee
I started right after so hearing about some of the you know, some of the music earlier and some of the movies earlier, what would you say was something that kind of helped shape your creative sensibility?

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Well, I'm glad that that's the second question, because what I was going to ask I'm thinking of what I share with you is like I need to say that there was Donna Summer pepper don't gran combo pepper with other stuff with rock right master in Chicago so it's all this thing one of the things that was really interesting for me, adapting to living in Philly was that I grew up in a place that we listened to all kinds of music and that every single rotation in the same station.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
You go from Sugarhill Gang to like a merengue song, and it's like, What? But for us, that was absolutely the way it was, right? Yeah. Other experiences, I will say definitely TV. I will call, you know, me and my friends will say we're telling video of us right? I come from that. I was, what, 12 when MTV kicked off and or launch music videos definitely were part of that experience.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
The premiere of the Pat Benatar loving Savannah film.

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Rob Lee
The Strong Team as a strong team writing.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Fabulous tune. But it became a happening right. Then you had your girlfriends or people that you went to school. Either you're talking on the phone. Do you watch that and I so soulfly to you know hanging out and going I don't know at that point we were going to like high school parties or something like that and you would come home and then just like you wanted to watch MTV all the time, a lot of the hanging out.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And then when you were in all someone, you have the combination of all these different influences and then you have the folkloric sound of somebody playing all the Roombas that are being set up in the street and you're just embracing everything and it's just part of who you are. There was no questioning of identity at that point, which was the other interesting part when I come here.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Right. And I understand that Puerto Rico to some extent possible in the community, not as much as here, but you have families that were from different countries that live in the islands. But the majority of people were Puerto Rican. So my identity was not questioned in when I got here, as soon as I opened my mouth. Where are you from?

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Rob Lee
Right. Yeah.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And you're Puerto Rican, but you don't sound like the other Puerto Rican. What is that supposed to mean?

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Rob Lee
What does that mean?

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
What does that mean? You know, telenovelas are a grape, a big part of the culture. Right. And there's the novela where, you know, they touch and tell you a word, right? But they're short lived. You're talking to somebody who started watching The Young and the Restless when I was 15, Summer of yeah, summer of 83. And I still watch.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I still watch on DVR. My mom will be like, is that so? Still going on? Why is it so long? And my mom, it's a different it's a different ballgame. It's just a different show. And she got used to like, what important record telenovelas were here will be like, I mean a few months ago and Africa series I.

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Rob Lee
Think I think like one of the things that you touched on in more back of memory and I think it's kind of it kind of kind of blows that it's not happening to that degree anymore. But the premiere of a video where I remember, I think it was maybe 99, maybe 2000 coming from high school. You know, guys were terrible.

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Rob Lee
But coming from high school and leading class and talking with my friends about like the bong song, like Cisco and just like, can you see that for me? I'm going to watch tonight. Now we.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Talk about the box.

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Rob Lee
You know. Oh, my God. Look, see, here's the thing. Here's they don't get me started. You know, I was I was like looking for this K seven and Thai Bliss song all the time. Like, there's.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
A.

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Rob Lee
There's a there's a pocket.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Don't feel bad. I was looking at the dancers, too. I was I forget Keith seven. He must be like five for killing off there.

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Rob Lee
There's a pocket of me like I have a year where I think when I was working in this Spanish speaking call center that all I was listening to was freestyle music. So just Miami bass. And I had I had a crystal ball and it was it was a very interesting time. I'll hang out with this. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans.

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Rob Lee
That's why I was hanging out with. And it's just like, Yeah, Tiny, you're here. It's like, just do it.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
There you go. And we can do. And that blend of sounds, right? Yeah. That even navigating here, you know, enjoying hip hop and other sounds, R&B, house music, there's that. But there was also that space that we can listen to both.

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Rob Lee
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I and I think like this sort of and I think you touched on it. I know you touched on it where it's just like you don't fit this. This is what we're accustomed to. You it it's like, oh, this is who I am. This is this is who I am as a as an individual. And there is space for me, like often people can't really pick out, where are you from?

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Rob Lee
I say from Baltimore. You don't sound like it, though. Oh, my God. Or you don't have whatever the short cuts are to put you in a sort of box. And then it brings in a sort of question of like authenticity or whatever. And it's just like my experience. It's minds.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Absolutely. Absolutely. And when you asked me earlier or, you know, where does this story begin? And water, like the critical things like VR experiences. You know, I also have to put it in the context of who my mother was writing. My mother was the strongest figure for me growing up. My respect to my dad and everybody else, you know, they all play a role.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
But my mother was that person that was like a hurting. She will walk into a room and she will grab everybody's attention and she will very strong. Will very clear. Yes. She definitely didn't give a flying for what anybody thought she was leaving her truths and and embracing it in a way that was very loving and very fun.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
But at the same time, don't question.

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Rob Lee
Are people people tend to be intimidated by that personality. Right. And it's funny because I will encounter folks. I was like, oh, this person's kind of this way. And those folks are generally like me, you know what I mean? Where it's just like, Oh, no, no, you this. You go about it this way. Actually, I would go a little hard about that, but it's like you're honest about it.

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Rob Lee
You were very direct about it. And actually, you you could have been a little more of a dick about it if you wanted to know.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
But if you're light, he's light and a mama. You know, my parents divorced when I was three and my mother divorced my dad because she came out of the closet. It didn't have anything to do with love. They love each other and I got to hang out with them. My mother, with her partner, my father remained single. She remarried 26 years later.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Again, conversations are different. They but you know, at the end of the quarter, what they taught me was actually I could do say I can say this. What they taught me is what we see. Love is love, right? So they found our way back to each other. They were family. But I never stop, right? Because of the way that my mother wanted to lead her life.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
That had nothing to do with her. Not loving him had to do with her leaving her truth. Right. And the fact that it's not about being in your face is just about being comfortable. And she ever since I was a little girl, she will say, now you got to go to bed. When you go to bed, you got to sleep like a baby.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So you always speak your truth. You always keep it clean. You always treat people with the respect that you want them to treat you. Golden rule absolute. So it doesn't mean that you're going to be contentious or difficult or this is just this is it schools in Spanish. I this is the deal.

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Rob Lee
So let's let's talk about Afro-Latino in the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival. Let's talk a little bit about that. Tell us about it. What is like what what does your work within those two organizations entails? You know, like a sort of like director leadership, cultural organizer roles. Tell us about that.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Thank you. So Afro-Latino I'm one of the co-founders and you know, I have the son, Lucas, who's my partner in crime, you know, for being uncle, founder of Latino. And I met in the early nineties at a place that a lot of people would revive revival that used to be an after hours club and we met and he had been Puerto Rico.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
We connected there. You know how you see people around the scene and you're like, Hey, what's up with touch? And at some point we reconnected in the early 2000, 2004 where Son had a background. So as an actor or, you know, theater or culture and African drumming cetera and a deejay, and we began talking about the experiences that he had at that point.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
He was spending full time for the most part, and we kept on talking about what people expected. Right? More music. That was movie music that was resonating with music that we were interested in. Yeah, right. And having those conversations and getting to that and you go to the club and they weren't playing or they're asking you to. That's hey, real talk, the worst.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
No disrespect to anybody who loves this song, but my mom, my request of all time was somebody coming to me. And can you play the percolator? No, baby. This is not that kind of you know, there's no percolator here. You can play that when you get in the car home. Right. But anyway, so the idea was to really expand the musical palate and just really again, Rahsaan was embracing his she's work as a deejay through the same lens.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
It's a what we had in common was the understanding of an experience of what we would get into the what's the party that that's going to be that we want to be at. Right, right, right. And began that conversation was like, oh, this, that no disrespect to anybody on their musical preferences. But he was like, Yeah, but this is different.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
What I'm creating this space. It's not what you listen to. Sorry, I know we're past that. What you listened to in your iPod from bomb blast from the past. While you listen to when you are working or the jam, I come for something else and and he was doing just phenomenal stuff like make scene meeting with Indian bhangra with you know we saw with this is what hip hop would have and it became this thing that we kept on talking about justice gap.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And at some point we were like, our intention was not to go into my life. It was just to begin exploring what spaces we would create or what experiences we could co-produce, right, and curate. But he began, he was doing a residency and it became this thing that that was the place, right? And I was there on weekends.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And then you will come in and hey, Rob, let me introduce you to the bartender and meet the bouncer. And my girlfriend will come in. Yeah. And this guy's looking at you, not she doesn't want to dance with you, leave you alone. So I became ended up becoming the default hostess, right? And then people were like waving flags and doing all kinds of stuff, and we were having a great time.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
That's how we began it. And we continue to expand that to then doing record release parties or listening parties for new records or new releases from artists that we were into. And we will do the hour before the Saturday night so people come. So we always infusing different sounds into the set. And for Willow, whose daughter you play and whose daughter you play, and I will say this because I got to witness it in a space where a lot of the days are like Serato.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
This dad, Rahsaan, was mixing what I had from see these and vinyl just by ear. Well and I remember a group of the days that will come in because he used to also spend a lot of dancehall. He got really in there, came one night to the booths after dinner and they started looking a little bit of a hobo.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And how were you? Do you? Huh? What the thing. And he was like, No, they're not saying I'm not bringing my laptop here and stays at home. And they were like, What?

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Rob Lee
I remember being on the cruise once to the Bahamas and this is where a phrase I came up with. I it's like, Oh, there's DJ iPad right there.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
No, he did. He cannot be that person. He's too much of a purist to do that. I mean, and obviously, as you go, you went subliminally, but definitely a vinyl head at the core and and definitely reading the crowd and having a good understanding. What was really interesting about the two of us coming together under this umbrella was the fact that the bulk he had all that nightlife experience.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Right. And in my case, I have worked for a long time. For a long time in nonprofits infusing arts and culture. Yeah, right. I don't know. I'm doing workforce development and we're going to do this capacity building workshops and people are going to do writing. Let's bring a poet or we're going to do this. Let's do hip hop, or we're going to do direct.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Let's do role plays, right? Because I had done some community theater in the early nineties. So just bringing all of yourself to strategic space and bringing yourself into the space and also trying to make it very practical, especially in any ASL space, because I have learned the language as a core subject in Puerto Rico. But the reason I moved here, I initially came here for six weeks to practice to see how bilingual I could be in a space, immerse myself, right?

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So bringing those two experiences were also brought the the there's a lot of nuance right? You got to tip your bartender. You got to flow the three. I remember when we were talking about this the early that people that come early to the club and had home by 11 no one said show over midnight the ones that come for the last call.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
How do you you know, it's bumping, bumping, bumping the vase a little slow. You got to, like, know what you're doing. So they go back and they come back. So bringing all of that is that insight from being in different spaces, right? Starting really young in that culture and understanding and knowing the players. And in my case then I had the community base, the grassroots stuff.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah. And just combining those two perspectives to really then look at things in a way of how is it that these two worlds meet and how is it that they're not confined to either or and how audiences a lot of times, just like we begin bringing it back to the basics of our for one of our first conversations where you said that all these people are in the middle, where's that gap?

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yes. And from there, begin curating and programing and co programing and co-presenting and just let's just do it in different spaces and galleries and different, you know, from street festivals to let's just do or something that it's, you know, a gala for a nonprofit or something that is related to a cause that is geared to our hard right of say.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
When in Arizona, people were losing their mind and you know, do I look illegal? We got to do that with a filmmaker who's a colleague, your friend shout out to Eunice Levi, who was just like and enjoys been. I think I think no, I know that the love for the work and the love for the the understanding or the impact, the transformational impact that music, film, arts and culture has had in our lives.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
The fact in both cases, it's a it's a highway to our mothers is a highway to our mothers. You will laugh if at any point we're somewhere hanging out and chilling. He'll be like, What do you want to listen to? And he looks I mean, he knows what I'm going to say. I want to say this. Go, you're good.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And he's going to say this quote and we're both laughing. Thinking back, is that connection that in a way it's like a lot of times, you know, it's it's good to be clear about the fact that we do this. We're healing each other and we're we're doing this to share, but also for ourselves. It's for our souls. And that's how we see the spaces that everybody has created and creating spaces for emerging voices and introducing them to audiences.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
That has been, you know, something that has brought a lot of pride. And we have been doing it now for 17 years. Amazing. Amazing. We have been blessed to do the the really do it yourself stuff that we want to try and do the big original, the big venues with the big bands. And both of them bring a lot of joy.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Right.

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Rob Lee
And that's.

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Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Not an either or both that.

00;24;45;09 - 00;25;03;02
Rob Lee
That captivates me in that, you know, I look at doing this, it's sort of my entry point to satisfy your curiosity. And it's so many more things that I want to do and I don't want to be like, this is purely the only thing that I do is like, you know, I know how things are supposed to be.

00;25;03;02 - 00;25;25;20
Rob Lee
And even in doing this, you know, like I'm not to my own horn sort of personal, I have it's not really a thing that I do what I'm comfortable with because I think if I'm not if I'm not doing myself, that then I don't think I should call myself that. Like some people will say, oh, you know, you're curators like, but I'm just very selective of who I want to work with.

00;25;26;03 - 00;25;43;03
Rob Lee
And that's what there there is that sort of overlap and there's sort of correlation there. So it is like some sort of I, they're who I'm looking to talk to and just kind of how, you know, some of the people I mentioned to you earlier like, oh, this person. Yeah, like I'm doing that sort of like research and there's a thought that goes into it.

00;25;43;03 - 00;25;49;13
Rob Lee
But really some of the stuff that you've mentioned about being able to do some of the programing that sort of connected these different dots.

00;25;49;22 - 00;25;49;27
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
That.

00;25;49;28 - 00;25;58;10
Rob Lee
I'm in this spot where it's like venues are coming in and things like that are opening up. So I'm like, This is the way I'm in that spot now.

00;25;58;10 - 00;26;22;18
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
But, but you touch on something that is really critical is being curious, right? And remaining curious. And for us, that's the joy ride, the whole oh, do you hear this? Have you checked this art? Is that there bands that we have thought about that we have looked or listened and it's like it started we're doing this when it went right?

00;26;22;18 - 00;26;52;18
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
If we're being a perfect example, we listened to Fang. The first single that we listened to was called Praise Congressman Harris, and we watched that video and we were like, Oh, definitely happening. Don't know how or when, but this is freaking happening. We're doing it and we were blessed to have the opportunity to present them. The Metal Saina, who is a Cuban jazz singer and is phenomenal interdisciplinary artist, same thing.

00;26;52;18 - 00;27;19;00
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
We heard that voice and what I were have you heard is Oh my goodness. And but at the same time, the pushback in between I can I can mention to one was addressing I remember going to Puerto Rico ironically around this time for Christmas. Sorry. Yep, yep, yep. So where's that? My apology you're going to by going to Puerto Rico and coming back with the CD.

00;27;19;28 - 00;27;37;06
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And it was my niece who introduced me to the song chewing and flying, and she said, calling chewing queens and fly. And I was like, Just bring it back. And I come back with the CD. The end result is like, No, that's not going to play in the club. And I'm like, Yo, I'm telling you. He said, Mom, I don't know.

00;27;37;06 - 00;27;56;23
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And he and then we got to try and obviously the rest is history. Got it. But I say hold the record for the most wins in terms of Latin Grammys. Yeah, absolutely. And it was just bananas. And then we got to see that thing just explode and they were everywhere.

00;27;57;06 - 00;28;16;28
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Right. And we were blessed. That was actually the first act that when once we organized ourselves as Afro-Latino, we got a call from Sony BMG at that point telling us, hey, we're bringing this act and we want to do like a press run and fight it out. We want you to work with us. So that was one example and we were blessed actually.

00;28;17;16 - 00;28;42;27
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I only did one show in Philadelphia. It just 2004, in 2014. And after that I was a co-presenter, but it took that long for us to and we developed a relationship through the years with the band, with the management we have presented there. I don't know how familiar you're with the band, but there's two is a total of three people.

00;28;42;27 - 00;29;05;07
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Right. See them. Oh yeah. Because he then they and then we sit down there who's the producer and then they're spearheading, I say who's Ely PD 13. Because she was the younger sister. Right. But we have also said that he looks wise and then, you know, work with management in other shows, but that was an interesting case of us like that.

00;29;05;07 - 00;29;17;10
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I mean, that's not going to play. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And obviously, you know, and then the other one, which I will say he's not a fan of, you know, he respects or he sees what's happening. Oh, he's not a bad bunny face, right? I am.

00;29;17;28 - 00;29;19;05
Rob Lee
It's like like let's just.

00;29;19;05 - 00;29;41;20
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Have let's put it. And for me it took time. Yeah, I did. Didn't I'm not all the respect to everybody who likes crap music. Not really. My team and I don't like that bud and he like I, you know when we first met Rahsaan was, you know, teasing me about that he Yankees gasoline and I was like that's not for me, that's not for me.

00;29;41;20 - 00;30;07;15
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And I remember buying the CD and feeling somewhat dirty about it, saying, what? What is happening to me? I'm listening to this stuff now and I'm all over it. And when he comes to any door and and but Bonnie he's yeah. And I'm like all about what it took for me to listen. He released after he released that we're seeing every album Christmas Eve of 2017 Paul's Maria I was like, okay, I want to take the time to listen.

00;30;08;16 - 00;30;30;11
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
It's a rap. Yeah, it's a rap. He got me, he got me. And Benito continues to show that he's growing, that he's evolving. It's like people that were horrified by agree with the white guy and oh, my God, so bogus. I mean, how long he's in his twenties, you know, that people do want to express the moment that they're in and do what they need to do for themselves.

00;30;30;16 - 00;30;44;26
Rob Lee
Yeah. His ascent has been pretty, pretty interesting to watch. Like, wow, you are crushing. It's like the most strained way, like what's happening and then popping up on other things was like, you're wrestling now, like, what are you doing?

00;30;45;10 - 00;30;47;09
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
What is the thing? I would grab him.

00;30;47;12 - 00;30;48;26
Rob Lee
Right in my bullet train.

00;30;48;26 - 00;31;02;02
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah, exactly. All kinds of stuff. But he, you know, there's there's there's substance there. Yeah. That's a reality, right? It's not it's not a gimmick.

00;31;02;17 - 00;31;26;06
Rob Lee
Yeah. And I think that's why it's not necessarily my thing, but also I'm coming with a kind of blinders on then and kind of checking in. I was like, Oh no, no, this kind of just got a slap, actually. Or I like this or I like the presentation of it or the the whole packaging, right? Because even like the, the album artwork, I forget which one it is and might be.

00;31;26;12 - 00;31;30;29
Rob Lee
And I'm not sure which one it is, but it really catches my attention or what have you and it's like.

00;31;31;06 - 00;31;53;05
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
The one with the eye or is it the one with the heart? The heart. The heart is one thing, but that was Old Summer and that's a party album, right? So I got to see I seen him three times. I saw him on his first show in Puerto Rico last year on December 10th, and that was after the the other album, The One with the Truck.

00;31;53;10 - 00;32;15;04
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah, yeah. Right. So that was forget in Puerto Rico. Yeah. Like, well, like everybody was there. Everybody, General Santos was there, like you name it. And he was 40,000 people. And then after that, there was the whole thing that everybody was a big spreader band and the whole army cron thing exploded in Puerto Rico and that was phenomenal.

00;32;15;04 - 00;32;37;08
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
He was so overwhelmed by the reception, by seeing everybody together. I felt like a kid. I was just like I was returning to Puerto Rico after not being there for almost ten years. And then I get to go to the show. And yes, I wasn't happy. I was standing in line for 4 hours, but I knew what I was going for and people were just going to have a good time.

00;32;37;08 - 00;32;57;27
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I remember being with a colleague that traveled with me and she had some concerns and I was like, They don't know. The people here didn't come to mess with anybody. They came to have a good time and just looking around at people a lot younger than me and a lot older than me, and they were everywhere. It was freaking jamming.

00;32;58;02 - 00;32;58;24
Rob Lee
And that appeal.

00;32;58;26 - 00;33;24;18
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And that thing started at 1130. It was supposed to start eight. It started 1130 because of the letting people in. Yeah, she got done at 230 in the morning. Wow. And then he went, oh, absolutely bananas. And then he went the trolley sale, which is another venue. He had rent that for people who couldn't get tickets so they can watch it be a stream.

00;33;24;19 - 00;33;30;12
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And then he got in a car and went to a trolley sale and a half an hour said there, wow.

00;33;30;29 - 00;33;32;14
Rob Lee
That is amazing.

00;33;32;16 - 00;33;52;25
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Then saw him here right in March with my daughter and that's the life nation very you know well produce different and you have a guess but the screens is very like it's the I don't want to say cookie cutter but it's the one that you know, you're touring and this is like you don't have 20 people showing up, that kind of thing.

00;33;52;25 - 00;33;57;08
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah. All right. The other one was whole. The emotion, right?

00;33;57;11 - 00;34;00;18
Rob Lee
I feel like the I feel like the Puerto Rican one is the one I want to go to.

00;34;00;24 - 00;34;07;03
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
They're both they're both good in different ways. And I'm blessed that I went to both. And then the third one was the Made in America.

00;34;07;03 - 00;34;09;13
Rob Lee
One is pretty strong.

00;34;09;14 - 00;34;19;17
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
It was great because I said the same thing. Yeah, now you have that out moving to the mix and that's the thing. What? Forget it. That's a party. Yeah.

00;34;20;04 - 00;34;28;24
Rob Lee
So I got it. I got one real question left before I had those rapid fire questions. Okay, so this is the real what we.

00;34;28;24 - 00;34;29;15
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Didn't talk about.

00;34;29;15 - 00;34;31;05
Rob Lee
So let's talk about flavor, but.

00;34;31;07 - 00;35;11;16
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
See, let's talk about these people that were going to be guys. What? All right. Yeah. So so part of the work with Afro-Latino also involve us nibbling in collaborations are not navel and we're just embracing collaborations were visual artists like Lindsey Gasana says on own is through different things, different efforts. And in 2012, the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival, at that point, the Philadelphia Latino American Film Festival, and with an asked glass on Philadelphia, you know, it's founded by a group of friends and colleagues to include in the Miracles.

00;35;11;22 - 00;35;43;17
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And we have these VIERA And they call on us to come in as a collaborator, music curator and do the, you know, on opening night event with them and Culberson films with them. There's something very personal that happened to me after that first event. That was April 13, 2012. We did the kick for Flash, and at that point the film that they presented is called Broken Memories or Foul Memories, and it's all about death and I just just got very affected, very sad by it.

00;35;43;25 - 00;36;04;03
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And I kept on thinking about my mom. And I just felt this anguish that I couldn't explain all the sobbing and sobbing. I said, Meg, but your mom was actually scheduled to come here after Mother's Day, and this is April 13. We walk out of the place and the following day I have to work my leggings, get up in the morning, I get a text.

00;36;04;03 - 00;36;24;05
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I knew what it was. My mother had passed that morning, a massive heart attack. So definitely something that has stayed with me. Right. And I remember having a wonderful conversation that night around that the combining I my heart tells I'm on my own tells me she knew she was saying her goodbye and she was like, you know, I'm very proud of you.

00;36;24;05 - 00;36;49;12
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Got it. And she was a it's interesting to me how you have been able to combine your commitment to service and your love for art and culture. But now with this new venture, I'm like, Yeah. So then 2013 happens, we co-present. And then in 2014 I didn't go and 2013 was too close. I didn't go to any of the festival activities because it coincided with her first anniversary.

00;36;49;12 - 00;37;16;16
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And then in 2014, Via and David approached me to join the board to focus more to come and curate the events, the after party saying bring that expertize into the mix. That's the way life goals, transitions happen. People have to do other things. One of the co-founders is moving on from the festival. The other one is now moving literally to the West Coast.

00;37;17;02 - 00;37;34;20
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And there's this conversation about what we do and I'm like, Oh, got to think. What do you mean? What do we do? So I heard, you know, we're in a city where more black started growing in path is growing though. Philadelphia Asian-Americans on festivals for a city office. So what are you talking about? We're doing great. First all was well received and they're like, okay, okay, well, let's wrap it.

00;37;34;20 - 00;37;59;28
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Okay, let's talk in like three weeks and three weeks later I get a call. They're like, Hey, we have an idea we would like for you to take it over. And I was like, Yes, absolutely. And then I was like, Oh, I them. Then I remember telling Rosanne, hey, yo, this happened and this happened. And I say this, her mother, he was like, Maggie, film has been your passion.

00;37;59;29 - 00;38;20;24
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
We you know that to during film we did a series called Divas where we were presenting and we got to present his first documentaries. Celia Cruz documentary. Henry Fan came and spent some time with us, so we did some cool stuff and he knew that that was, you know, the same way that he was a vinyl head or a music head.

00;38;20;24 - 00;39;09;26
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
He wanted to be like the art of film, had a hand at the table. And it has been, you know, absolutely wonderful. The differences are, you know, Flav is a nonprofit organization of forgotten for profit business. Right. There's a creative agency, whatever you want to call it, were programmers or curators and here comes so that organization. So with a lot of love and care and also respect to our founders and to the mission of the organization was embracing taking the leadership role in a way that was consistent with that commitment to that vision of creating space and obviously informed by the years as a community organizer and the commitment or the the the understanding of

00;39;09;26 - 00;39;39;17
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
the art of those transformational power of collective impact, the importance of collaboration, a commitment and a passion for co-creation. So Flav is of yes, it is. Philadelphia Latino Film Festival. We rebranded and went with the hell right because we felt was more aligned with everything that was happening in the city and just wanted to be like, okay, let's think about our audience.

00;39;39;17 - 00;40;05;23
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Let's think about 2015, which was my first season, and it was like talking to the same designers, Hey, not think about this moment. The Latinos here think about you all beat up and forget what it was. Not in a disrespectful way, but we're coming in. Do you go? And the the Garcia shout out absolutely blew our minds and did it for years and continues to be part of their family.

00;40;05;23 - 00;40;25;05
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
But it was just making sure that the for the platform to be one center around co-creation you have to stay nimble. You have to stay open. You have to come with an open mind and an open heart. Every season is a different opportunity. Every season is a new learning.

00;40;25;07 - 00;40;28;15
Rob Lee
Because you're in one of the you don't have the standard if you want to be dynamic.

00;40;28;25 - 00;40;47;06
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And I don't want to and I don't care. But my apologies to everybody. All the sister festivals, it's not for me. I respect when it's done, what I get on a red carpet if it's done, yeah, it's not really. I prefer doing it. You know, they're strapped and we don't talk to him more than the picture on the red carpet.

00;40;47;07 - 00;41;18;21
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah. And for me again, because it's about the transformational power of arts and culture that I feel and whoever this fits, go ahead and take it. The whole thing of hearts are so transformational. There's so the power of arts and culture. And then we so vibrant, so passionate. But then it becomes the freaking you know, afterthought. It's like arts and culture are just like the springboard.

00;41;18;22 - 00;41;54;05
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I'm going to put a little bit of cilantro in the bottle, right? And it's like, no, I don't freaking think so. You know, the inspiration, what gets us through joy, through laughter, to grieve, through difficult times from frustrations. It's that that's what feeds our souls. Don't make it a freaking afterthought. If you want to be comprehensive and holistic and intentional and mindful, then think about what a shortcut it could be in educational settings, in career development settings, in capacity building settings.

00;41;54;24 - 00;42;15;05
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I did it for years. Is that ESL? So let's talk about this as watching Israel and then let's talk about it, you know what I mean? And there are a million ways to do it and a million approaches. And then there's the creativity, because at the core we're interacting as humans. So there's a lot of new ones every step of the way.

00;42;15;16 - 00;42;43;29
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
There are a lot of cultural practices and we have to embrace those and learn from each other and in the manner that come as you are the and you see your reflect it, then you say, this is for me, this is for me, right? So flash of the core is a platform center on nurturing creatives and on the end building community.

00;42;44;12 - 00;43;04;29
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So we have two groups of stakeholders that are our focus creatives and filmmakers, right? Because I'm not going to say only filmmakers because there's so much interdisciplinary work. We don't want to box ourselves either. Right. And they're part of this ecosystem. They're part of this landscape. They're part of this practice and this field. And then they're our audiences.

00;43;05;08 - 00;43;34;26
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And our audiences are comprised from the Donita, who's sitting at home that I want to watch a film to the nonprofit that wants to bring a group to everybody in between university students, everybody and anybody and facilitating cross-cultural dialog. That's the other part of the mission. So it's, it's an ongoing thing and and that's the way, at least in my humble opinion, that's the way that that we embrace it.

00;43;35;05 - 00;43;57;09
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
We're a group of a collective of creative that comes of creatives that come together every season. They're different ingredients, but we're always making a gumbo. And the bond and the gumbo that we're making is the experience of the festival. And we emerge from, you know, initially being a weekend to then going a fourth day to then here comes the pandemic.

00;43;58;04 - 00;44;22;04
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And the pandemic comes 81 days before our opening or another pandemic, actually, and we stand corrected. The lockdown related to the pandemic comes 81 days before our opening day, 2020. So we're like, we're going to continue producing. We're, you know, we're in production. It's like we have our programing. We keep on moving because everybody at that point was pushing things to like late March, late May, early June.

00;44;22;04 - 00;44;44;28
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Well, those are our dates. There's just a part. By late April, we were hoping. And now what? So we went in. We're like, okay, so we're pivoting, we're going virtual. And the first year of the second year, then programing director Bruce Sotomayor and I were sitting with one of the different platforms, just, you know, shopping and just getting like demos and that kind of thing.

00;44;45;09 - 00;45;15;08
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Somebody goes, What do you do last year? And we go, They have Vimeo, Vimeo, live license, Dropbox and spreadsheet. And the guy was like impressive, so he didn't know what to do. But we understood at the core of that decision was we wanted to make sure that in Carlos SIEGEL, which is what we want, we want people to feel that that warmth when they come to our events.

00;45;15;08 - 00;45;39;06
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah, I don't care about this. I care about access that our programing is accessible to everybody, that there's not. I don't go for any of like they're VIP. They're not. No, no, no, no, no, no. You're going to eat. You're going to drink. You're going to hang like everybody else. You're going to sit next to whoever. Like this is what you filmmakers come to be in community with other and with audiences.

00;45;39;13 - 00;45;41;24
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Audiences come to be in community. That's where.

00;45;42;02 - 00;45;43;12
Rob Lee
We don't we don't need to go to the.

00;45;43;13 - 00;45;44;12
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Groups. There's no other.

00;45;44;17 - 00;45;45;02
Rob Lee
Reason why.

00;45;45;02 - 00;45;55;14
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
We think you can take the velvet rope and take it home. Yeah, I don't. I don't need it. I don't need it. And again, this to anybody who does it. But I know.

00;45;55;29 - 00;45;56;16
Rob Lee
That's not what you're.

00;45;56;16 - 00;45;59;23
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Doing. This is this is exactly this is not what we're doing.

00;46;00;16 - 00;46;15;17
Rob Lee
So I think it's funny, like you guys, the last thing that I wanted to get in that so you can actually go into the rapid fire questions, see this, see, this is the the productivity of being able to go in there is like, oh, you got everything in there actually, you know.

00;46;15;18 - 00;46;40;12
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And I would take it just to it up that Afro-Latino, you know how is it and a balancing act right in the beginning when I said the thing about telling whether I took the you know, I said, yes to this. It was also the respect of giving each other their space and being very mindful. Now there is obvious a lot of synergy between the two teams.

00;46;40;22 - 00;46;59;15
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So now you have those, you know, offer by, you know, has been the music curator version of the project when it makes sense, it's not like, Oh, she brought this because I didn't want that. They each stand on their own. But there is so much synergy in terms of the work with creatives expanding to other practices, to other disciplines.

00;46;59;15 - 00;47;31;16
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
That makes sense that were like a natural fit. Same happens with gusto, which is a project that I started after Hurricane Maria cofounded with Amy Herrera. Messer from Amy Castelli. Just shout out them and say me and water all those bad bunny brunch has them three where we have a great time with Veneto theme dishes and a deejay and great stuff, but most of all is the culinary partner for that makes sense.

00;47;31;16 - 00;47;56;29
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So we do a rooftop rub guy where people can order and use, you know, there are a number of establishments and culinary artists in the city, chefs and restaurants, etc. on top of all of that, that then you use the whole store code, they may give you, I don't know, there's a special or there's a free dessert or that's our way to promoting each other because we are part of an ecosystem.

00;47;56;29 - 00;48;12;13
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And the idea is how do we support each other, right? It's not only about, hey, can you do food for my event or can you do this? No, it's how is it that we're building community with each other each and every step of the way? That's where you sat for me.

00;48;12;24 - 00;48;35;23
Rob Lee
I appreciate that. Yeah. We have an additional conversation. I have because I have some ideas. I think that approach is definitely aligned with how I want to go about things and some of the ideas that I have and some of the conversations I've started and teed up in the times. People don't have that sort of vision to see like, we're all in this in the same area, we all are part of this.

00;48;35;23 - 00;48;53;21
Rob Lee
We can be connected in this different way. And, you know, sometimes it's like like I said earlier, I think before we got started with the sort of creative directing, creative directives, the creative directing stuff that I'm interested in. And it's just like, well, this is what you can do more consulting in this way. You know, this is an idea, right?

00;48;54;01 - 00;49;07;16
Rob Lee
And it's almost like when needs to be this additional to prove that this can work is like I already have it. I already have this proof. There's a proof of concept here. Somebody else is doing this is maybe in a different city. Just have a broader vision.

00;49;07;22 - 00;49;28;21
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
See what when we're doing that as people's colors turn. And I heard somebody at a panel say, you know what looked on my way got big shout out. If you don't know who this woman is, please look her off. She's just I will say in Spanish, la my my body. But she's alive and older. Moreno way God does not mean words.

00;49;28;21 - 00;49;36;18
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
And she was like, You know what? Enough with that. Our spaces are ours. They're not alternative. Yeah.

00;49;37;11 - 00;49;44;08
Rob Lee
One of them percent. So here's the Rapidfire questions. Are there quick questions? No. No need to overthink.

00;49;44;17 - 00;49;44;29
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Darling.

00;49;45;08 - 00;49;51;10
Rob Lee
So here's the first one. Do you prefer the word art as a noun or as a verb?

00;49;52;09 - 00;49;53;02
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
As a noun?

00;49;54;09 - 00;49;56;15
Rob Lee
What was the last movie you watched?

00;49;56;15 - 00;50;16;23
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Oh, my God. The last movie I watch leaves me all seeing the other cool about the 100 days with that on Netflix is about this guy being locked in the pandemic with somebody who's like, he's sort of abuela, but they're not really related by blood. We have this.

00;50;17;15 - 00;50;18;04
Rob Lee
Here's the last one.

00;50;18;14 - 00;50;19;01
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Yeah.

00;50;19;25 - 00;50;26;02
Rob Lee
So starting tomorrow, a day has 25 hours. What do you do? The extra hour?

00;50;26;02 - 00;50;35;09
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
I take it to treat myself with some love and go for a walk and think about what I want to do when I grow.

00;50;35;09 - 00;50;49;29
Rob Lee
That is great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. So in that I want to invite encourage you to tell the fine folks, the listeners, where they can check out all of the things that you're working on. The sofas will tell you all of that stuff. The floor is yours.

00;50;50;13 - 00;51;28;09
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
So you can check off little by little by the come, or you can check us on social and specially on Instagram as an Afro-Latino parody when were younger before our general, we used to be known as Afro-Latino Productions. We grew up that as we embrace our 15 years and you can find Slav on the Philadelphia Latino Film Fest on Instagram, and you can also find us on Facebook, both in the website class is BHL a f f dot org.

00;51;28;24 - 00;51;29;15
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
Check us out.

00;51;29;24 - 00;51;32;15
Rob Lee
Thank you so much. That's pretty much the podcast.

00;51;33;02 - 00;51;45;22
Marángeli Mejía-Rabell
For our belong goes to Philly. Check out goes to Philly. You can you can find goosed.ie again we're an ecosystem. You can find Google Store at the Africa website. That's section where you can find us on Instagram as well.

00;51;45;22 - 00;52;04;01
Rob Lee
So Philly and there you have it for Maggie Mirabel. I'm probably saying that there's arts culture in and around your city. You just got to look for it.