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Monika Fabian

Writer & Journalist

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- Monika Fabian is a journalist and writer based in New York City. Her beats and interests include U.S. Latinos, art & culture, travel to Latin America, LGBT stories, and immigration. Monika’s writing has appeared in El Diario/La Prensa, Feet in 2 Worlds, Hora Hispana, Metro, MTV IGGY, New York Daily News, NY Press, Time Out New York, Univision News, and WNYC.
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- May 01, 13
  
  Yesterday I asked who among today’s crop of Latin singers might be able to lead a Latin soul revival and carry La Lupe’s torch into 2013. Unsurprisingly, you guys came through with some very viable options.
  
  But before we get into it, here’s some La Lupe for the uninitiated:
  
  Afroxander kicked off the convo with “My vote goes to Lila Downs.”
  
  @Planetaclaire offered Ileana Cabra (bka Calle 13’s PG-13)
  
  And yours truly would give the crown and sceptor to La India. I’d love to see a late-60’s soulful second act from her. It’d probably sound a lot like this cover of La Lupe’s “Que Te Pedi.”
- Apr 30, 13
  
  Would not be mad at a La Lupe-esque retro Latin soul revival akin to Amy Winehouse and Adele with (Anglo) retro-soul.
  
  But who, if anyone, could pull it off?
- Melissa Harris-Perry's MSNBC show recently focused on the deeply gendered roles and concerns of women in the immigration conversation. Crucial viewing.
  
  Apr 29, 13
- Some thoughts on Juan Bago & O's "Dominican Problems" [Updated]
  
  Apr 19, 13
  
  I’m awestruck by these guys. I’ve been a fan since 2011’s “Pan Con Queso,” their clever take on “Black and Yellow.” It’s easy to write Juan Bago & O’s work off as spoofy farce or satire. But digger a little deeper and their music is connected to several (NYC) Latin(o) American traditions e.g., urban hybridity, covered music, slice-of-life narratives, and even a little social commentary albeit with ‘a mal tiempo buena cara’ (a good face to bad times) kind of coloring.
  
  I’m fascinated by the expressions of bicultural and binational identity and territoriality in this latest track “Dominican Problems.” Here they are rapping in Spanglish throughout Inwood and Washington Heights, Dominican New York’s northern Manhattan strongholds, over what was once an English-language song by an artist who grew up a few miles south (in Harlem), about Dominican culture in New York City, the Dominican Republic, and the Dominican internet.
  
  And given all that fluidity in identity and territory, it’s especially interesting that the video’s conflict is centered around a Dominican(-American?) who shed his accent, went prep/yuppie, lives in Long Island City, Queens, and forgot (or unlearned) his Dominicanness. It suggests that there are defined cultural boundaries or standards even for these deeply protean biculturals. If bicultural New York Dominicans are ni de aquí, ni de allá (not from here nor from there), then what the two bicultural Dominicans are tacitly conveying to the pocho (as Mexican would say) in “Dominican Problems” is “you can be de aquí and you can be de allá, but you can’t be de aquí without being de allá.”
  
  UPDATE: Grab the mp3 here.
- "My spiritual practice reminds me of what's really real, what's really hood. It's no wonder that I'm involved in drag, because drag is about mocking identity, mocking the facade. Drag is an extension of the realization that, 'You mean, the thing I think I am, I'm not really?' Exactly. So have fun with it. Change it. That's why I think drag comes up against so much opposition from people, because the ego knows drag is a threat to the ego."
  
  Apr 03, 13
- A Tribe Called Red Q&A on ABC-Univision
  
  Mar 12, 13
  
  I had the luck of chatting with the great fellas of A Tribe Called Red back in January when they performed at globalFEST. That interview went up yesterday on ABC-Univision. Have a look.
- Annnnnnnnd...Scene
  
  Mar 07, 13
  
  No more reading or listening to people who tell me I can’t pursue writing that will be intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, as well as, economically fulfilling.
- Mar 05, 13
  
  jsmooth995:
  
  “I don’t think that the answer to all our problems is gonna be one book. But I do think the answers to all our problems are gonna be found in the creative.
  
  Because the creative…when we create, we’re basically sending a little map, and sending it forward into the future. 95% of the maps disappear, vanish, get destroyed. But some of them are gonna make it through. Some of them are gonna make it through. And it’s remarkable what they might do.It’s remarkable who they might affect, who they might help.
  
  I mean look, we’re humans, man. We’ve got a long history of screwing everything up, and of victimizing each other. But we also have a long history of continuity, of resistance, and of creative survival. And that’s always been helped tremendously by our art, by our songs, by the cultural stuff that we pass on from the past into the future.
  
  And that’s not a bad thing to be a part of. In a world of many vocations, this seems like…not a bad one.”
  
  -Junot Diaz
- "What do you like the look of?" - "The look of the unknown; unknown cities, with unknown people, speaking an unknown language. I like exploring them, getting lost in them, learning from them."
  
  Mar 04, 13
- Feb 25, 13
  
  explore-blog:
  
  The rise and fall of music delivery formats over the past 30 years, in an animated GIF.
  
  Complement with the history of modern music in 100 riffs.
- #NP: "Beautiful and deep dancing songs" by Quantic
  
  Feb 24, 13
  
  Heres a special selection to start of 2013 featuring African, Caribbean & Eastern sounds. An all vinyl roots mix to warm up laptops and ipods.
  
  This late February Sunday afternoon was made for listening to Quantic’s mixtape.
- ABC-Univision has a great piece up about the turmoil at El Museo del Barrio, NYC's most prominent Latino arts institution, explaining its "identity crisis" and perfect storm of economic troubles and class and cultural conflicts.
  
  Feb 23, 13
- The Meridian Brothers' soundcloud page is my favorite thing today.
  
  Feb 23, 13
  
  Just start from the top and roll through the selection of intriguing retro-future tropical experimentations from the band’s catalogue.
- Feb 23, 13
  
  That moment when your seemingly separate interest tangents suddenly fit together and make sense.
- Feb 20, 13
  
  Frank Ocean, “Dust”
  
  Frank Ocean is the writer’s musician.
- From apples to Apples
  
  Feb 17, 13
  
  Fifty years ago, this was the ‘valley of heart’s delight’, one of the biggest orchard-growing regions in the world. It wasn’t to everyone’s delight: Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers movement started in San Jose, because the people who actually picked all those plums and apricots worked long hours for abysmal wages, but the sight and smell of the 125,000 acres of orchard in bloom was supposed to be spectacular.
  
  Where orchards grew Apple stands. The work hours are still extreme but now the wages are colossal – you hear tech workers complaining about not having time to spend their money. They eat out often, though, because their work schedules don’t include a lot of time for shopping and cooking, and San Francisco’s restaurants are booming. Cafés, which proliferated in the 1980s as places to mingle and idle, are now workstations for freelancers, and many of the sleeker locales are routinely populated by silent ranks staring at their Apple-product screens, as though an office had suddenly been stripped of its cubicles. The more than 1700 tech firms in San Francisco officially employ 44,000 people, and a lot more are independent contractors doing piecework: not everyone rides the bus down south. Young people routinely make six-figure salaries, not necessarily beginning with a 1, and they have enormous clout in the housing market (the drivers of the Google Bus, on the other hand, make between $17 and $30 an hour).
  
  From Rebecca Solnit’s essay “Google Invades,” on tech’s cultural takeover of the Bay, in the London Review of Books. [via]
- Feb 16, 13
  
  There’s a metaphor in here somewhere…
- Feb 14, 13
  
  On this the official day of cursiness, I’m giving myself permission to offer my valentine to my place of birth and home, its music, and its buskers—especially the gentleman on the 4 train playing a piercing plastic electronic saxophone in the hood and the gal doing lovely acoustic folk-pop on the 5th Ave 7 train platform right now.
- Feb 14, 13
  
  There are some days (like today) where I love interviewing more than I do writing. I’m so lucky to do what I do. That in my work I get to meet and speak with such talented artists and wise, extraordinary every day folk.
- Feb 14, 13
  
  idreaminfrench:
  
  first one in three years hayy
- Frank Ocean, “Dust” Frank Ocean is the writer’s musician.
  (No streaming audio available)
  
  8504 plays
- 544 plays
- MNDR - Feed Me Diamonds (Rac Mix) Marvin Gaye - Grapevine 2.0 (Voodoo Farm Remix) Junkie XL - No Way Luca M - Grumpli (Original Mix) UTO Karem - Taking Me (Original Mix) Umek - Kuzla Prevarantska(Original Mix) Fake Blood - I Think I Like It (Original Mix) Entyce Ft. Hazel - In Da Club (Fukkk Offf Remix) Green Velvet - La La Land (Original Mix) Lindsey Sterling - Anti-Gravity Ellie Goulding - Anything Could Happen (DJ Kue Remix) DJ Dan & TJR - Jacked Up Funk (Original Mix) TJR - Ode To Oi (Original Mix) Green Velvet - Harmageddon (Felix Cartal Remix) The Count & Sinden ft. Rye Rye - Hardcore Girls (Don Rimini Nasty Boy Mix) Nina Simone - Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat’s Heavenly House Mix) Super fun mix via Shomi Noise, the resident dj at Azucar, Brooklyn’s queer Latin dance party.
  (No streaming audio available)
  
  182 plays
- 4082 plays
- Best part of the year-end “Best of” lists: discovering music that flew past your radar the first time around. Por ejemplo, this sweet little track is from @jawnita’s East Village Radio round-up.
  (No streaming audio available)
  
  4561 plays
- Cynthia, “Change On Me” Ch-ch-changes! None of the heartbreaky variety. But “Change On Me” is probably my favorite song that has the word “change” in it so there you go. Anyway, onward y’all. P’alante, p’alante.
  (No streaming audio available)
  
  1 plays
- Rainy Tuesdays remind me of Shirley Manson.
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  5988 plays
- blancateli: Roman S feat. Mamacita - Hacerte Bien Even though I am more than ready for soup and sweater weather, it’s a shame that fall’s almost here because I just found my song of the summer. Summer’s a state of mind. It ain’t dictated by no calendar. :)
  (No streaming audio available)
  
  3610 plays
- PM Dawn, “Set Adrift On Memory Bliss” from DJ Jazzy Jeff & Mick Boogie - Summertime 2: The Mixtape
  
  6 plays
- blancateli: AALIYAH CUMBIA (from Tropicaaliyah, via Universopolis)
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  782 plays
- Control Machete (feat. Cafe Tacvba), “Danzon.”
  (No streaming audio available)
  
  4496 plays
selected clips

selected clips
- Recent work:
  "An Acquired Taste" | Preview, New York Daily News, Apr 2013
  "Cuban Dissident Yoani Sanchez on the Power of the Hashtag" | Feature, ABC-Univision News, Mar 2013
  "A Tribe Called Red Brings its Electric Pow Wow to Your Hood" | Interview, ABC-Univision News, Mar 2013
  "What's In Your Suitcase? La Marisoul of La Santa Cecilia" | Feature, ABC-Univision News, Feb 2013
  "MTV's 'Washington Heights' Ain't No 'Jersey Shore'" | Review, ABC-Univision News, Jan 2013 |
  "How Bomba Estereo Blew Up and is Keeping it Elegant" | Profile, ABC-Univision News, Nov 2012 |
  
  “Latin Music’s Queer Revolution: Proud, If Not Always Out” | Essay, Rhapsody, Nov 2012 |
  Winter Journal by Paul Auster | Review, Time Out New York, Nov 2012 |
  
  “Café Tacvba: Don’t Call Them the Beatles or Radiohead” | Q&A, ABC-Univision, Nov 2012 |
  
  "What's In Your Suitcase? Lido Pimienta | Feature, ABC-Univision, Oct 2012 |
  
  "Morrissey is Really Mexican-American Inside" | Feature, ABC-Univision, Oct 2012 |
  
  "Junot Diaz Doesn't Stop" | Q&A, New York Daily News, Sept 2012 |
  
  Older stuff:
  
  New York Daily News
  Univision News
  - "Rock Gods Cafe Tacvba Are Back With New Music and Extensive Tour"
  - "Why Chavela Vargas Was The Most Kick-ass Mexican Singer That Ever Lived"
  WNYC
  Feet In 2 Worlds
  Time Out New York
Photos

Photos

Profile
Tweets

Tweets

Profile
- RT @UnivisionNews: Happy Birthday to the idol Morrissey http://t.co/Xk7jx8ZCfa
  
  May 22, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Whenever I step into a produce section, I wonder if I was born on the wrong coast. #thefruitistoodamnhigh :/
  
  May 22, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @SPINReviews: MARÍA Y JOSÉ/Club Negro/8: Tijuana kid's existentialism via synths and blood: cartels, maquiladoras a good justification f…
  
  May 22, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @danamo: RT @journosofcolor: Writers of color are everywhere in journalism. Here’s a place where you can find them. Follow us. http://t.…
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Anyone else getting random tweets favorited by (what appear to be) bots?
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @jstrogz: i will be unavailable for the rest of the day due to my heart exploding while listening to this: http://t.co/fRhdUxFY1i
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- The neighbor and I are in the midst of an punchis punchis punchis vs. chchCH chchCH chchCH battle it seems.
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- This Ángeles Azules & Celso Piña collabo is kind of day-making though: http://t.co/7WLXycoebs
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- #NP: "Mi Unico Amor" - Los Ángeles Azules ft. Li Saumet/Bomba Estéreo http://t.co/XtdQdh2PpF Mucho summer jam potential (& potencia)
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Mexico-related lit programming planned around the Book Expo of America, happening next week: http://t.co/Jr18W4aaK0
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- If youda told me as a kid that NYC's ballfields, esp 1s uptown, would have soccer balls rolling on them 1 day, I'da told you you were nuts.
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Sign of the times & new demographic realities: Yankees co-own a soccer team & host matches at its stadium. http://t.co/jSrwomxnsO
  
  May 21, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- RT @iheartillini: Remixing Science: Raquel Cepeda's Bird of Paradise http://t.co/NUrQK2kfpf via @HuffPostBooks
  
  May 20, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Nothing like getting assigned to create a Latin Freestyle playlist to make me feel 'good of the heart' :D
  
  May 20, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Prince looks just like that cool substitute teacher in middle school who you wish would just stick around & take over.
  
  May 19, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Really? That JLo song that she JUST performed on the show is ALREADY on a Kohl's commercial? Wow.
  
  May 19, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- So is there beef between 1D fans and Beliebers or something? Why'd he got booed? And why is Taylor Swift wearing a figure-skating dress?!
  
  May 19, 13 from Twitter for iPhone Reply, Retweet, Favorite