Pa'Lante: Alynda Mariposa Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff

Living in this Queer Body

I hope this interview brings you something good in this time of quarantine. I recorded this episode quite a long time ago so the content is not directly reflective of the time in which we are currently living. Visit Alynda on instagram @hurrayfortheriffraff to learn more about what she is doing (singing to us! + much more, as always) in this current wild wild time.

Alynda was one of my dream guests when I imagined this podcast. I love the way her music rests in such beauty, the traveling life and all the wisdom it holds, political clarity and much more.

Alynda Mariposa Segarra is the Nuyorican songwriter, activist and visionary behind Hurray for the Riff Raff.

Alynda was born in the Bronx and has been writing and singing since she was a child. Inspired early on by classic musicals, punk, and beatnik poetry, she was always drawn to the artists and radicals of the world. She explored the underground of New York City and was educated in squatting, train riding, and radical politics at a young age. At age 17 she left home and traveled the U.S. by freight, eventually landing in New Orleans where she helped form a hobo band of 7 called The Dead Man Street Orchestra in which she played washboard and sang. At age 19 she began to record and write her own songs under the moniker Hurray for the Riff Raff, with the intention of using her knowledge of folk music to write songs from her own unique queer latinx feminist perspective. Now at age 32, Alynda has recorded 9 albums and has traveled the world playing her songs.

She released the critically acclaimed album "The Navigator" in 2017 which featured her anthemic love letter to the Puerto Rican diaspora: "Pa'lante".

Alynda has spent 2019 working on new music, healing and growing. She is inspired by plant life, the ancestors and the global community of protest music.

Also this video. Pa’Lante!

Alynda would like to remind everyone to remember those suffering in ICE jails at this moment. We must demand that during a worldwide pandemic ICE stop their raids and release those still in detention.

Alynda’s links to New Orleans based and nationwide orgs doing great work:

New Sanctuary Coalition in NYC,

https://www.newsanctuarynyc.org/

Voces Unidas in New Orleans

https://www.facebook.com/vocesunidaslirc/

Isla Immigration in New Orleans, https://www.islaimmigration.org/

Freedom For Immigrants nationwide network.

https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/

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Host: Asher Pandjiris

Website: livinginthisqueerbody.com

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