I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America.

I think in New York we had respect and we would pretty much fill up the places where we went, but I never got the sense that we really were Number 1 here in New York among the Latin crowds.

So I went to Miami in '74 with my family and while I was there it became obvious that we needed money and we needed to do something, because my family, we left without anything really, and we didn't have any money to begin with.

They're making a ton of money, and no one is getting a nickel.

So that I saw music as a way of documenting realities from the urban cities of Latin America.

There was no television, so the radio provided you with everything.

And music was a very important part of our lives. The radio was on all day.