MY LATIN THING

I’ve spent most of my life working to promote and perpetuate authentic Afro-Cuban music—known commercially as Salsa and Latin Jazz—on the airwaves and in print. For me, it has been and continues to be a labor of love.

This is a music that heals and energizes physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Appreciated and respected worldwide, this music transcends language barriers and ethnicity. I—an individual of Puerto Rican, Russian-Jewish and Norwegian extraction (multiculturalism rocks!)— have always loved how it brings people together. During the more than six years that I emceed “Latin After Work Wednesdays” at the popular Manhattan club La Maganette, I’d peer up at the bandstand and out at the dance floor, both packed with people of all persuasions enjoying the music and each other. I’d think, this is a microcosm of what the world should be.

I remain committed to enabling the best of our musicians—famous, unknown, veterans and newcomers alike—to share their productions with the public.

Also, I thank my friends and my community for their love and for having my back all these years—I’m the luckiest person in the world.

It is my dream that when The Getaway That Got Away and its sequels do become motion pictures, the soundtracks will be chock full of this music that I love so much. Que Viva La Música!

─Vicki Solá, host & producer of

Que Viva La Música, 89.1 WFDU-FM and www.wfdu.fm, columnist, Latin Beat Magazine,

 www.latinbeatmagazine.com,

and author of The Getaway That Got Away

(Full Court Press)