Tracing the Untold Origin Story of Fania Records

Premiering Tuesday, May 26

NEW YORK, NY — Oscar and Emmy-nominated actress and Brooklyn native Rosie Perez will
host Our Thing: The Birth of Salsa in Nueva York, an eight-episode podcast series produced by
Pulitzer Prize-winning Futuro Media. It is the most comprehensive audio narrative yet made
about the birth and wild heights of salsa, a genre that continues to shape global culture today.

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At a moment when Latine music dominates global culture, the origin story behind it all has never
been properly told. Our Thing: The Birth of Salsa in Nueva York goes back to 1964, when a
Dominican musician and an Italian-American ex-cop founded a scrappy little record label called
Fania Records in New York City and accidentally sparked a global cultural revolution.

The series chronicles the rise of Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, and the
Fania All Stars, who fused Afro-Cuban rhythms, Nuyorican swagger, jazz, R&B, and political
urgency into something the world had never heard. They packed Yankee Stadium in 1973. They
drew 80,000 fans in Zaire (now the DRC). Their influence runs directly through the artists
dominating streaming today, including Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, and Karol G.

This is also a story that can only be told now, while the people who lived it are still here. Willie
Colón, the trombone genius who defined the Fania sound alongside Héctor Lavoe, passed
away in February 2026. Our Thing: The Birth of Salsa in Nueva York features rare interviews
with some of the All Stars who remain, alongside the musicians, collaborators, and witnesses
who were inside this world from the beginning.

Perez is not a neutral narrator. She grew up in this world. Nuyorican pride, Brooklyn block
parties, salsa playing on the stoop. She brings the humor, the grief, and the firsthand
understanding that makes the series feel like a conversation rather than a history lesson.
Topics covered across the eight episodes include the night salsa crystallized as an art form at
the Cheetah Club in 1971, the Young Lords and FBI surveillance of Fania artists, Celia Cruz’s
ascent to global icon and the Afro-Caribbean roots of the music, the drugs, betrayal, and
lawsuits that ultimately brought the label down, and the living legacy that runs through today’s
biggest artists.

The series is built in the tradition of Futuro Media’s acclaimed LOUD: The History of Reggaeton,
with immersive sound design, rare archival recordings, and interviews with the musicians and
fans who were there.

About Futuro Media

Futuro Media is an independent, nonprofit news organization and podcast studio founded in 2010 by Pulitzer Prize winner Maria Hinojosa. Based in Harlem, New York, Futuro Media produces the Peabody Award-winning Latino USA, the longest-running Latino news and cultural program in public radio, which celebrated 30 years on the air in 2023. Its podcast studio, Futuro Studios, is home to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Suave and acclaimed series La Brega and Anything for Selena. Futuro Investigates, its IRE and Murrow award-winning investigative journalism unit, produced After Uvalde: Guns, Grief & Texas Politics.